Enjoy Italian Riviera while avoiding big crowds
(WorldNews Entertainment)

When I first came to the Cinque Terre, then an isolated stretch of the Italian Riviera south of Genoa, it was a classic `back door`: a string of five pastel-hued hamlets, gently and steadily carving a good life out of difficult seaside terrain. It was authentic, romantic and without a tourist in sight. Fast-forward several decades ... and the once-sleepy villages are now on Instagram bucket lists and mobbed in high season by organized tours and cruise-ship excursions. The resident population of the five towns (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) is just 4,000 -- but it`s estimated that some 2.5 million travelers visit annually. And it`s not just foreign tourists who...