Eurographics - Cinque-Terre Manarola 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Manarola stacked on its rock above the harbour, photographed straight, with no filter and no compositing. One of the five Cinque Terre villages, and the one that ends up on the most postcards.

What you are looking at

The village is built up a spur of dark rock that runs straight into the sea. The houses are narrow, four and five storeys, painted terracotta, ochre, coral, cream and pale yellow, with green shutters and washing lines strung between them. They are stacked so tightly that the roofs of one row form the terraces of the next.

At the bottom, a small working harbour: boats pulled up a concrete slipway rather than moored, because there is no beach and the swell comes straight in. A stone breakwater with arched openings on the left. Green terraced hillside above, where the vines are. To the right, a rock promontory and then open sea, with a heavy lilac and gold sky over it and the sun low.

What it is like to build

Find a shutter, then work outward. The village looks like chaos and is actually highly ordered. Each house is one flat colour with dark green shutters punched into it at regular intervals, so a shutter tells you which wall you are on, the wall tells you which house, and the roofline tells you where in the stack. Sorting a pile of ochre pieces gets you nowhere, because six separate buildings are ochre.

The rock is easier than it looks. It is dark, wet and full of hard fractures, so it is the highest-contrast region in the picture and it separates the village from the sea cleanly.

The sky and the open water are the hard third. Both are smooth, both are lilac and gold at the same time, and they meet at a horizon that is deliberately soft. Do the horizon line first, then work outward from it, sorting by warmth rather than brightness.

Why the EuroGraphics build matters

EuroGraphics are Canadian, based in Montreal, printing on recycled board with vegetable-based inks over a blue-cored board, which gives the piece its distinctive edge and a firm fit. That is worth having on a photograph where a large part of the frame is graded sky.

Specifications

A little context

We carry the same village twice on purpose and the difference is worth saying plainly. This one is a straight photograph: the light is real, the sky is what the sky was doing, and the harbour is working rather than tidy. Dreaming Of Cinque Terre is a composite, built to give you clean foreground, middle and distance, with flowers added along the bottom edge. The composite is the friendlier puzzle. This is the truer picture. Neither is better, but you should know which you are buying.

This one is out at the moment and we would rather say so than take your money. Ask to be told the moment it returns and you will hear from us first. Free shipping Australia wide over $150, and free same-day delivery inside 6 km of North Bondi.

Built it already? Use the Questions section below and tell us how you found it. Which part fought you, how long it took, and whether you would send someone else to it. We answer every one.