Why Cinque Terre Feels Like Living Inside a Romance Novel
Everyone Told Me I’d Love Italy
For years, people told me I would love Italy.
Friends told me.
Colleagues told me.
My older sister told me.
In fact, so many people told me that Italy would become one of my favourite places that I became strangely determined to disagree.
Surely it couldn’t be that good.
Surely it was overrated.
Surely the Instagram photos and reels had simply done what Instagram photos and reels do best: hidden the masses of tourists, cropped out the chaos, and polished something ordinary until it looked like something out of a romance novel.
I’d like to formally admit that I was wrong.
Fresh off a whirlwind stay in Milan with my husband, a city of beautiful panini, architecture, impeccably dressed people, and a level of effortless style that made me want to immediately reconsider my travel wardrobe, we boarded a train bound for Cinque Terre.
Half of said travel wardrobe had been kindly donated by the same older sister who had insisted I would love Italy in the first place. So really, she was winning on multiple fronts.
The Toilet Attendant
What followed was, without question, one of the busiest trains I have ever experienced.
It was astonishingly full.
Full of tourists.
Backpackers.
Families.
Locals.
Couples.
Suitcases.
Dogs.
No air conditioning.
And a hum of excitement that filled the overstuffed carriages to the brim.
Despite the circumstantial chaos, everyone remained surprisingly orderly and friendly. I spent the entire journey standing wedged between a window and my husband, directly outside the toilet, facing a questionable automatic door that seemed determined to open at random while refusing to indicate whether the toilet was actually occupied.
My husband promptly nicknamed me “The Toilet Attendant” after I took it upon myself to let fellow passengers know when the toilet was in use, and when it was free.
This title has unfortunately stuck.
The Village Appears
As the train wound its way along the countryside and coastline, squeezing between tunnels and cliff faces, I watched the scenery begin to change.
Small towns began to come and go from the edges of our journey. Every now and then, glimpses of the sea would appear.
The bluest water.
Before embarking on our trip, I had researched Cinque Terre thoroughly. If you didn’t know, Cinque Terre is made up of five coastal villages, with trains and ferries travelling between each stop. I had ultimately decided on Riomaggiore after falling in love with the breathtaking Airbnb I’d found.
As we approached the first of the villages, a peek of colourful houses clinging to a hillside came into view.
A stretch of coastline so beautiful that conversations around the carriage seemed to momentarily stop, as people admired the view and then hastily reached for their phones.
You start by thinking, Oh, that’s pretty.
Then, a few minutes later, you’re staring out the window wondering how a place like this can possibly be real, and how you could be lucky enough in that moment to witness it.
And then you arrive.
You step off the train.
You climb what feels like an unreasonable number of stairs.
And suddenly, there it is.
Colourful houses stacked against cliffs.
Green shutters.
The sea glittering below.
We had been given instructions to meet our Airbnb host by the tree at the top of the hill. The umbrella pine had magnificent, twisting branches, as if it had been carved specifically to belong on that rugged coastline.
Although we weaved through crowds of tourists, there was something almost nostalgic about it all. Maybe it was the sight of our host chatting happily with his friends before turning to greet us with a wave and a warm smile that met his eyes.
The terraces overflowed with citrus, jasmine flowers and beach towels.
The sea stretched endlessly into the distance.
Our Airbnb host was quick to correct me when I commented on how lovely the “ocean” was, which I now understand was a dangerous mistake to make in front of an ex-navy man.
I remember audibly gasping multiple times as we meandered through the winding streets, rewarded again and again by resplendent views of the crystal-clear water. In the late Mediterranean sun, it almost sparkled in shades of gold and turquoise.
Rock, Sea and Endless Stairs
As our Airbnb host carried my embarrassingly heavy suitcase down yet another steep set of stairs, balanced casually on one shoulder as if it weighed almost nothing, I realised something.
The locals move through this landscape differently.
What felt almost impossible to me seemed effortless to them.
The stairs.
The slopes.
The winding paths.
The endless climbs.
The landscape had shaped them, just as surely as they had shaped the landscape.
Our apartment was built directly into the cliffside itself, which, to say the least, was very cool.
Part of the bedroom wall was simply rock.
Not decorated to look rustic.
Not designed to evoke the landscape.
Actual rock.
It was as if the mountain was reminding us that it had been there long before the village, and would remain long after.
The bathroom was small and simple, but after weeks of travelling, the shower delivered one of life’s most underrated luxuries: hot water and excellent water pressure.
And oh, how I showered.
With the vigour of a woman who hadn’t enjoyed a long, hot, everything shower in weeks.
This was, I can confirm, one of the best showers of the trip.
A Place Built for Stories
We spent several sun-soaked days eating pizza, swimming in the clear, calm water, watching boats come and go from the privacy of our terrace, sleeping in late, and hiking between the towns.
I had affectionately named our terrace the “best view in Riomaggiore,” and I’m pretty sure I was right.
But what stayed with me wasn’t just the gorgeous apartment.
It wasn’t even the view, though that was a very close second.
It was the people.
On the beaches, I watched strangers from different countries sit together on smooth stones warmed by the sun and centuries of bathers.
Everyone temporarily sharing the same small patch of coastline.
For a few hours, nobody seemed particularly interested in being anywhere else, and everything felt like it had slowed down.
There was something wonderfully unselfconscious about it.
At a small shop, after purchasing an Italian Schnauzer t-shirt for my best friend, the owner slipped me his card with a smile and casually suggested we get a drink later.
It was delivered with such sincerity and ease that I almost admired it as a cultural experience.
No awkwardness.
No grand gesture.
Just another possibility floating through the warm evening air.
The Romance of Possibility
And perhaps that’s what makes Cinque Terre feel like living inside a romance novel.
Not because everyone who visits falls in love.
But because it feels like they could.
Perhaps you are the solo traveller who falls in love with a local, if not forever, then at least for a little while.
Maybe you are the generational family, building happy chapters in the story of your life.
Or the couple on their honeymoon, drunk on salt air and the adventure of everything yet to come.
Every staircase seems to lead somewhere interesting.
Every doorway feels like it belongs to countless stories, some of them centuries old.
Every terrace overlooking the sea has probably witnessed a thousand conversations, belly laughs, heartbreaks, reunions, marriages and brief encounters.
The villages themselves were built through necessity.
Yet somehow, over centuries, their practicality became beauty.
Sometimes Everyone Is Right
What remains today is not a museum piece frozen in time, nor a place diminished by its popularity.
It is a living collection of villages that continues to gather people’s stories.
Locals raising families.
Visitors creating memories.
Couples celebrating anniversaries.
Friends drinking good wine under the Mediterranean sun.
For a brief moment, people from all over the world become part of its story too.
And perhaps that’s the real magic of Cinque Terre.
Not that it feels unreal.
But that it feels deeply, passionately alive, regardless of who you are or where life finds you in that moment.
And after years of insisting I would probably find Italy overrated, I can only say this:
Sometimes everyone is right.
Written by Brittany
A writer, yoga teacher, actor, and shameless romanticiser of love and beautiful places. I write about travel through feeling, memory, beautiful design, atmosphere, food, and the small human moments that turn a destination into a story.