Cinque Terre was one of those places that makes you want to drop all your belongings and just embrace the way that the world around you seizes your senses as the setting transforms into a mental movie of sorts. It truly feels like you are in a dream, and therefore, anything you do doesn't really matter. Why would you do anything at all in Cinque Terre? You don't have to.
Yes, I came to Cinque Terre with the expectation of climbing the seaside landscape into the mountains with my camera, hiking, and exploring the five closely-knit together cities from above. But when I arrived right at the beach which was practically the backyard of the train station, I totally lost the urge to do anything at all. The wonderfully colorful buildings and the picturesque, rocky hills hugged the coastline so tightly that you did not have to move at all to see both a shining blue sea, and a rugged landscape clad with marvelously-built structures and green forests.
As a result, I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked to in Cinque Terre, and other than a quick stroll to the top of the hill past the town center of Monterosso, I did not go hiking at all. My time was spent almost solely on the beach, other than a delicious lunch at a seaside restaurant overlooking the beach, where I tasted what was seemingly the essence of the region; squid ink raviolis stuffed with fish, in a sauce of zucchini, lemon, and prawns, and a starter of plumply stuffed anchovies, the chef's "specialty," which did not disappoint at all.
In Tuscany, I have heard the saying "Le Dolce Vita" tossed around. This directly translates to "the good life" in my native tongue. However the deeper meaning to it I've heard is, "the simple ART of doing nothing at all." Although I was in Liguria, I experienced "Le Dolce Vita" to its fullest extent in Cinque Terre. And let me tell you, there certainly was an art to it.
