Monterosso on the Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy by T. E. Smith-Lamothe

Canon G7

This panorama was taken from the beach at Monterosso, Liguria, Italy showing the coastline of the Cinque Terre (pronounced "chin-quai terr-uh" --- which means "the five lands" in English) on a stormy May afternoon in 2007. The Cinque Terre is famous for its five small villages connected by a precarious cliff-hugging train line (with many tunnels, too) and a five-mile (7.5 kilometer) hiking trail high above the Mediterranean Sea (at this locale,the Ligurian Sea). The views from the hiking trail or train are equally stunning. We took the train from the walled city of Lucca to La Spezia, through a long tunnel then up the Cinque Terre coast to Monterosso, but you can, of course, come from Genoa from the northwest, too.