Tellaro

This guide to Tellaro, the cliffside fishing hamlet in Cinque Terre, opens on a stormy night in July of sixteen sixty, when Saracen pirates under a raider named Gallo d'Arenzano crept toward the village while the bell-tower watchman at the Church of Saint George had dozed off at his post. It follows what should have been an undefended village and the wild ringing of the bells that woke every fisherman before the pirates could land. You will hear about the plaque and the octopus imagery carved across doors and shop signs throughout the village, and about the Sagra del Polpo, the August festival where Tellaro still cooks the creature it credits with saving it.