It is my understanding that the Tourist Office of Italy may restrict the number of visitors to Cinque Terre in 2017. You will have to buy a ticket(s) to get into the Park and thus into the villages along the coast line. Is this accurate? And if so, how would one get tickets?

I think the story is a result of incorrect reporting by some travel mags and websites.

As it stands, you have to purchase a ticket now to hike the trails.

Access into the villages is via a few different methods:
- hiking (need a ticket)
- train (most common)
- car (have to park in lots outside towns and take a bus down or hike down... not recommended!)
- boat - coming from another town via private boat or ferry.

There are little booths on the trail - as you depart each little town, heading north or south, there are manned booths where you have to pay to continue on the trail.

I think it was incorrect but the ticket booth people probably keep count of how many are on the trail. I didn't think the trail was that crowded. There were places that only one can go at a time but everyone was patient. It is well worth the trip.

I visited Cinque Terre in July 2015. The villages were mobbed to the max with tourist and the temps were over 100 degrees fh. Unfortunately it was not a fun visit. I hope they do put some limitations on the number of tourists allowed in the villages. Not everyone is doing a trail as I was not. I was just visiting for the day to several villages using the boats.

Here is an article in an Italian newspaper which has an enlightening photo and video.

http://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/...ti_-123899365/

There has been talk of limiting the number of visitors, but those people selling postcards and souvenirs are vehemently opposing any limit.

The most realistic proposal was to limit the number of bus tours for cruise passengers. Apparently on an average morning, 30 large tour buses arrive from the port of La Spezia. Then there are the people arriving by train, by land tour buses, or by private car.

I think July would be about the worst time to visit. I've visited the CT twice, once in October 2007 and once in late September 2011 (so about roughly the same time). There did seem to be more people in 2011 - the trains in particular seemed absolutely mobbed with people. I didn't hike much in 2011 because I'd already done the main hikes - mostly dwelled in the towns again. Even though there were lots of tourists elsewhere, I remember sitting in the main (tiny) square of Riomaggiore, eating some delicious focaccia bread pizza with almost no other people around except for a few locals. I could hear a music class at a nearby school practicing. So it isn't impossible to avoid the tourists.

In 2011, they were merely inspecting your (paid) trail pass when you entered the trail (basically exiting a town by the trail). I'd imagine it would make sense to limit the number of people on the trails; some of them are pretty narrow. It wouldn't make sense to charge people to enter the towns themselves.

The number of cruise passengers arriving in La Spezia exploded beginning in 2013. In 2012, about 50,000 cruise passengers arrived in La Spezia. In 2013 there were 214,000, and by 2015 it had increased to 667.000. You can see a graph on page 11 of this document.

http://www.porto.laspezia.it/it/files/traffici-2015

Not all of these passengers go to the Cinque Terre, but I imagine that around half of them do. The Cinque Terre is only ten minutes away by train, or half an hour by the road. (Their other choices tend to be Pisa and Florence, which are considerably farther from La Spezia.) There are also cruise passengers from Genova, whose numbers have also increased, but by less, because La Spezia has built a new cruise terminal. In 2013, the last year for which I could find estimates, there were about 500,000 cruise passenger disembarked, and increase of 38% over the previous year.

I don't know what proportion of total visitors the cruise passengers represent. However, the complaints by residents specifically point the finger at the increase in cruise tours. In any case, the number of visitors to the Cinque Terre in 2011, when Andrew was last there, is nothing compared to now. I must say that the last time I was there, over 10 years ago, on a rainy day in October, it was already too crowded for my taste. I remember saying to my husband, "I can't imagine what this place is like in the summer."