Last week the world news media picked up a story claiming the Cinque Terre would be limiting visitors, and that you would need to purchase tickets in advance to get access to the area. As with so many things, the media sensationalized this way out of proportion.

Over the past 20 years the popularity of this section of the Italian Riviera has climbed steadily. It's easy to understand why. Home to five tiny little villages, dripping with old world charm and essentially inaccessible by car, it presents an idyllic retreat from the hustle of the modern world.

But that popularity – over 2.5 million visitors last year – has put an enormous strain on the region's fragile infrastructure. Many of the tourists now visit the region as a day excursion from cruise ships, meaning they not only burden the infrastructure, they leave comparatively little money behind to support it.

The whole region is a national park, and the head of the park recently announced plans to put sensors in each village to gauge the number of tourists, to develop an app that would let people know which villages were the most congested, and, ultimately, to limit the number of visitors. Knowing how the Italian bureaucracy crawls along (see The MOSE Project), when I read the initial reports in the world media I was skeptical, to say the least, that any such project could be completed in such a short time.

The park head has now backtracked on his statements, and locals in the know have brought a little more context to the situation. For an excellent overview of the region, and up-to-date news on what's going on, check out Cinque Terre Insider, a blog run by an expat American who has been living in one of the villages for more than 10 years.

Just a bit south of the Cinque Terre is the Bay of Poets, once home to English expats like John Keats, Percy Shelley and DH Lawrence. This has been my own slice of the Italian Riviera for the last 15+ years. Unlike the Cinque Terre, it has no train station, meaning you'll need a car. But, like the Cinque Terre, narrow roads and a lack of large hotels keep most of the big tour groups away. It seems that the New York Times, too, has stumbled across this little gem. Get there before it is overrun.