You can search the entire Mediterranean coastline for the best rustic village, surrounded by vineyards and steeped in tradition, and not find a more rewarding escape than tiny Vernazza, my favourite of the five villages that make up Italy’s Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is a stretch of Italy’s Riviera tucked into the mountainous shoreline between Genoa and Pisa. Long cut off from the modern world, this remote expanse only became easily accessible with the coming of the train.