Manarola

Manarola may be the eldest of the five, settled from the Roman hamlet of Volastra and first named in 1261. Its colourful houses tumble down the rock to a tiny harbour, with the Ligurian-Gothic church of San Lorenzo, from 1338, standing above.

This is the home of Sciacchetrà, the prized sweet wine pressed from grapes on the steep terraces — amber, honeyed, scented with dried apricot. Each winter those same hillsides become the world's largest nativity scene, a labour of love begun by Mario Andreoli in 1961.