Игры

Formed in 1999, the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre is a scenic melange of gnarly olive groves and deftly cultivated cliffside terraces that provide the all-important raw materials for Ligurian rustic cuisine.

Unlike other protected areas in the Graian Alps, the park predated the rise of ski resorts with their unsightly gondolas and boisterous apres-ski scene. Consequently, you can still hike in relative isolation, trekking across a wonderfully unspoiled alpine mountainscape flecked with 57 glaciers and populated by more than 4000 foraging ibex.

This timelessness is best absorbed in the park's quintet of villages. Tracking west to east, there's picturesque Monterosso with its lemon trees and narrow, scimitar-shaped beach. Then comes quaint Vernazza with its attractive natural harbour, flower-decked Corniglia atop a rocky promontory surrounded by fertile cliff-terraces and ancient Manarola, the wine-making colossus that was name-checked by Giovanni Boccaccio in his book, The Decameron. Riomaggiore, the largest village and home to park headquarters, is where pastel-painted houses spill like giant gift boxes down to the sea.

Cinque Terre: Though Italy's wilderness can't compare, size-wise, with the wide open spaces of Australia, more than 2000 years of human history have left indelible marks on its landscape. This harmonious juxtaposition of humans and nature is best seen in Cinque Terre, five crazily perched coastal villages that cling to the precipitous cliffs of Liguria.

For serious walkers, the Alta Via 2 is the blue riband hike, a long-distance footpath that stretches more than 140km between Courmayeur and Champorcher. Equally revered is the steep but relatively straightforward climb up Gran Paradiso (4061m), Italy's seventh highest peak.

Hiking and wildlife are the park's main highlights and, surrounded by many of western Europe's tallest peaks, including Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, you'll get neck ache admiring the spectacular vistas.

Historic authenticity is its main attraction. Take away the omnipresent tourists and interconnecting 19th-century coastal railway and little has changed here since the late Middle Ages.

Other adventures worth contemplating are cross-country skiing or ice-climbing on frozen waterfalls near the quaint park nexus of Cogne. Or get a feel for the region's esoteric Valdostan culture, an unusual combination of French Provencal and northern Italian influences manifest in everything from the food to the language.