Panorama Photo

It was on my list ! ;-)
Currently recovering :-/

I am very sorry. I hope it gets better now.

I have never been there. It looks like something between civilization and fantasy.

They were places where life was very hard and poor before tourism arrived.
But the wine there has always been good ;-) It was grown on terraces overlooking the sea.

Au weia! Ein Fremdkörper in der Landschaft, dieses Autobahn-Viadukt!
Und der Via dell'Amore schaut auch anders aus. Es wird eben alles abgewirtschaftet, Hauptsache der Profit stimmt.
Danke, Giuseppe, für dieses Panoramabild.

Hi Heinz. I agree. The viaduct ruins the view and unfortunately the very beautiful Via dell' Amore has become a business.
But despite this, the Cinque Terre deserve to be visited.

It seems to be an italian speciality, that villages consist of four-storey houses built close together like in a big city.

In this area it is like that. Many villages are of medieval origin and, like Riomaggiore, have preserved their medieval structure.
During the Middle Ages, building houses leaning against each other presented many advantages. For example, it allowed you to better protect yourself from the wind (which is frequent on the sea), or to use little space to take advantage of the little fertile soil available. But it also had a defensive purpose. At the time the greatest terror of the inhabitants along these coasts was constituted by the Saracen pirates and the very narrow streets allowed them to defend themselves better.
And all of these villages had a watchtower to see the arrival of pirates. Often this towers has been preserved and are still visible today.
Riomaggiore even had a very small castle with a tower, which was transformed into a cemetery during the Napoleonic period. However, what remains of the castle and the tower can be visited.
The tower is now called "Torre dell'Orologio" (Clock Tower).
In the pano it is not clearly visible, but now I have inserted the label.

Finally ... Riomaggiore for the second time, and presented in a beautiful and very authentic way from the sea - I was really looking forward to it, Giuseppe !!

Tanti saluti e buona domenica,
Hans-Jörg

I used to think it was a great mistake of mine never to travel there while living in Europe... I find this pano does a great job showing how 'incredibly' small these picturesque villages are. "No wonder I simply missed them". Auguri