Liguria

The narrowest region in Italy, pressed between the Alps and the Ligurian Sea into a strip of coast and terraced hillside that somehow contains five distinct local cuisines, one of the world's most photographed villages, and a white wine that tastes of sea salt and wild herbs and is almost impossible to find outside the region. The Cinque Terre are the obvious entry point; the western Riviera di Ponente, with its olive oil and its flower-growing culture and its baroque town of Albenga, is where the serious visitor goes next.Our Liguria coverage tracks the coast and the hinterland, the pesto and the farinata and the Pigato, the ancient trading ports and the botanical gardens planted by English aristocrats who found the climate agreeable.