Cinque Terre is a worldwide celebrated tourist destination the reputation of which revolves around its famed hiking trails and gastronomic and oenological produces. However, Cinque Terre became a notable presence on the tourist map of the world no sooner than the 1960s. Until then, the villages now known under the name of Cinque Terre used to doze away sunken in the greenery of the olive groves and of the vineyards, but tourism eventually started to take over, turning the Five Lands into the ultimate destination on the Ligurian Riviera, at least for visitors keen on extensive outdoors explorations and restless dainty feeders.

Cinque Terre is not a mainstream tourist destination. And, given it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it has been part of the National Park of Cinque Terre since 1999, this state of affairs is highly unlikely to change, since the main purpose of these status is precisely to preserve whatever it is that Cinque Terre has already managed to maintain throughout the course of history.

Politically speaking, the villages of Cinque Terre have never had a notable presence on the scene of the historical European battles and peaces, enduring, in fact, the decisions made by other political forces, such as Genoa and Pisa, and depending on how the political circumstances would shift from one favorable wind to another.

Cinque Terre has always been a land of peaceful fishermen and farmers, constantly or occasionally pillaged by pirates and slave traders. Locals often had to take cover by abandoning their homes and running in the surroundings, but what matters is their work and heritage has endured, such that at present Cinque Terre is a prized destination appreciate from two points of view at least. The massive stone walls which sustain the terraces on which the homes and the vineyards are located are part of this heritage. Much of the local traditional cuisine, in its full authenticity, is rooted in those times of poor peasantry, but the bottom line is all of the historical anonymity has finally paid out: Cinque Terre is at present a UNESCO site and a Mecca of all inquisitive dainty feeders.

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