LAST time I went to the Cinque Terre, it was with a crumpled InterRail ticket and a dishevelled suitcase. I arrived after a long journey up the coast, through Nice and Genoa, dusty and elated - and tripping over memories.
I used to go as a child, and had returned as a gap-year teen to a coastline so prolific in its charms (and so inaccessible in parts) that it had managed to preserve its flavours.
I remember parking myself in a dilapidated hotel in Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the Cinque Terre - five “lands”, or villages, that run along the coast to the east of Genoa. It was near the station, yet I could open the windows on the sea, and was swept