They were an elderly, soft-spoken couple, standing in a sunny corner of Pisa Centrale railway station, where we had just arrived from Florence. How convenient that our connection was due to arrive on the same binari (platform), and, oh, wasn't it a lovely day to head for Cinque Terre! "Cheen-kwe Tayr-ray," he said, his bony fingers rolling his 'r's, his elegance almost careless. Italians, I thought, use orchestral hand movements to match the musical cadence of their language.
Our train, we were told by a ticket examiner, had been cancelled. Instead of waiting for a train that would accept our low-cost regional ticket, we boarded another one—€65 lighter after buying a fresh ticket—and were soon speeding towards Cinque Terre, or "five lands." We went for a long day trip to this quintet of tiny, higgledy-piggledy villages in northwestern Italy's scenic Liguria, but then wished we had stayed a day or two. Villagers rent out rooms (camere). Look for signs that say affittacamere (rooms for rent).