Beyond the Postcard: The Green Breath of the Riviera di Levante
There is a particular light that envelops Genoa on spring mornings and in early autumn. It is a sharp light that cuts the outlines of the buildings and makes the horizon over the sea glimmer. It is on these mornings that, looking out from the windows of our residences, you might feel the irresistible call of a day trip. Liguria, you will soon understand, is a narrow land that invites movement, and staying in the capital means having at your disposal, at a short distance, some of the most celebrated landscapes in the world.
Today we take you just over an hour by train towards the east. We take you to Cinque Terre National Park. But forget, for a moment, the polished images of colorful villages crowded with tourists, the queues for gelato or the crowds on the piers. We want to reveal to you the true heart of this territory, its deepest and most arduous essence: the mountain that plunges into the sea, the high trails, the terraces torn from the rock and a biodiversity that resists and flourishes between the briny wind and the blazing sun.
Established in 1999, Cinque Terre National Park is the smallest in Italy, but also the most densely populated. It is an atypical park, where the work of man and nature are fused in an ancient and indissoluble embrace. Here, the natural environment has been profoundly modified over the centuries to allow survival, creating a unique cultural landscape, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you feel like walking, breathing in the scent of the Mediterranean maquis and earning yourself breathtaking panoramas, prepare your hiking boots: the journey begins.
The High Trails: Where the Sea Meets the Sky
Most visitors concentrate on the Sentiero Verde Azzurro (SVA), the coastal route that connects the five villages. It is magnificent, certainly, but often very crowded. If you are looking for the true wild soul of Cinque Terre, you must look up and aim for the ridgeline. The Alta Via delle Cinque Terre (AV5T, historically known as trail number 1) runs along the watershed that separates the coast from the Val di Vara, starting from Levanto and extending all the way to Portovenere.
Photo by VillageHero on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Walking on the high trails means immersing yourself in an unreal silence, broken only by the chirping of cicadas or the call of seagulls that exploit the updrafts. From up here, at elevations nearing 800 meters, the perspective changes completely. The villages of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore appear as small splashes of color clinging to the rock, tiny details in an amphitheater of majestic proportions. The marine horizon expands tremendously, allowing, on the clearest days, you to glimpse the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago and even the profile of Corsica.
Beyond the Alta Via, there is an extraordinary network of cross-paths and mid-altitude trails, such as the Via dei Santuari. Each village has its own Marian sanctuary, located mid-mountain: Nostra Signora di Soviore above Monterosso, Nostra Signora di Reggio above Vernazza, Nostra Signora delle Grazie at San Bernardino, Nostra Signora della Salute at Volastra and Nostra Signora di Montenero above Riomaggiore. Connecting these places of worship through the mid-altitude trails will give you a trekking experience shaded by forests of holm oaks and chestnuts, far from the beaten paths.
The Architecture of the Landscape: Terraces and Heroic Viticulture
One cannot understand Cinque Terre National Park without understanding its soil. What you admire is not a natural landscape, but a colossal work of rural engineering. For centuries, local farmers have shattered sandstone and built kilometers upon kilometers of dry stone walls (the ciàn) to create strips of cultivable land on steep slopes. It is estimated that, if lined up, the dry stone walls of Cinque Terre would exceed 6,000 kilometers in length: a titanic undertaking, comparable to the Great Wall of China, built without mortar, fitting stone upon stone.
Photo by Timothy A. Gonsalves on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
“To loaf about, pale and absorbed
by a scorching garden wall,
and listen among the brambles and stubble
to the clicks of blackbirds, the rustle of snakes.”— Eugenio Montale, “Cuttlefish Bones” (1925)
It is precisely in these verses that the Genoese Nobel laureate, a frequent visitor to Monterosso, captures the essence of this harsh and sun-baked landscape. On these terraces is practiced what is rightly called “heroic viticulture”. The slopes are so extreme that the use of machinery is impossible. Everything is done by hand, with a bent back, aided only by the rack trains (monorails) installed in recent decades to transport baskets of grapes during harvest.
From this labor is born a rare and precious wine: the Sciacchetrà DOC. It is a very sweet and fortified wine, obtained from the drying on racks of Bosco, Albarola and Vermentino grapes. Drinking a glass of Sciacchetrà is not just a tasting, it is an act of respect towards the tenacity of those who continue to cultivate these lands, preserving the hillside from hydrogeological instability. Stop in a local winery, perhaps in the village of Groppo, and treat yourself to this golden luxury that tastes of honey, dried apricot and salt spray.
Suspended Biodiversity: Flora and Fauna of the Park
The microclimate of Cinque Terre, protected from cold northern winds by the Apennine chain and moderated by the sea’s presence, has enabled the development of an exceptionally rich and unique flora. Walking along the trails, you will be enveloped in an explosion of scents. Mediterranean scrubland dominates uncontested: mastic, myrtle, strawberry tree, tree heath and broom, which in spring paints the slopes in a blinding yellow.
If you are an attentive observer, you may notice endemic species such as Ligurian Santolina or the rare cork oak and Aleppo pine forests clinging to the cliffs. The rocky environment is the ideal habitat for various animal species. Looking up, you might spot the hunting flight of a peregrine falcon or kestrel. Among the dry stone walls hide wall lizards and colorful green lizards, while in the thicker inland forests you will find refuge for wild boar, badgers and foxes.
Don’t forget that the National Park is closely linked to the Cinque Terre Marine Protected Area. The richness of the sea before you is extraordinary: meadows of Posidonia oceanica, sea fans and black coral populate the seabeds, while on the surface it is not uncommon, especially in the warmer months, to spot bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins crossing these waters, an integral part of the Pelagos Cetacean Sanctuary.
Spring and Autumn: The Seasons of Respite
If there is one essential piece of advice we want to give you for your trip, it’s about choosing the season. Cinque Terre in the height of summer, especially in August, can be exhausting: temperatures on sun-exposed trails become prohibitive and crowds in the villages reach their peak. The true enchantment of this park reveals itself in the intermediate seasons.
Photo by annieandrew on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Spring, between April and May, is the moment of awakening. Temperatures are perfect for trekking, the air is clear and the terraces fill with spontaneous blooms. It is when the green of new leaves contrasts most sharply with the deep blue of the sea. The streams are full of water and the villages still maintain a livable and relaxed dimension.
Autumn, from mid-September to late October, is perhaps the most magical time. It is the season of the harvest. Walking along the mid-slope trails you can smell the must rising from the cellars and see winegrowers balancing on the stone walls, busy collecting bunches of grapes. The light becomes warmer and golden, and the sea, still warm from summer, allows unforgettable swims in solitary coves, while the days gently shorten.
Practical Guide: How to Get There from Genoa and Organize Your Day
To explore the National Park, we suggest you forget about the car. The roads are winding, parking in the villages is scarce, expensive and often full by early morning. The train is, without a doubt, the perfect way to travel. From Genoa Brignole or Genoa Piazza Principe stations, you can take an Intercity or Fast Regional train heading south.
In just over an hour of scenic travel along the coast, you will arrive at Monterosso al Mare, the gateway to Cinque Terre. From here, you can use the Cinque Terre Express, a comprehensive rail service that connects all five villages (Monterosso, Vernazzo, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore) to La Spezia, with very frequent trains during the season.
To access the main trails of the Park (in particular the SVA section from Monterosso to Vernazzo and from Vernazzo to Corniglia) you must purchase the Cinque Terre Trekking Card. The proceeds from this card are essential: they are used by the Park Authority for trail maintenance, restoration of dry stone walls and ecological shuttle services. You can purchase it online or at the stations. The higher trails, on the other hand, are generally free to access, but require proper hiking boots, water supply and a good map.
An Itinerary Suspended Among the Vineyards: Corniglia, Volastra and Manarola
For your day in the Park, we propose an itinerary that combines the beauty of the villages with the silence of the mountains. Take the train from Genoa and get off at Corniglia, the only one of the five villages that does not overlook the sea directly, but rises on a rocky promontory a hundred meters high. Enjoy a coffee in the village square, then look for the trail marker for path 586 heading towards Volastra.
Photo by Salvatore Monetti on Pexels
La Salita is demanding but shaded, and it will take you to the heart of heroic viticulture. Once you reach the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Health in Volastra, at approximately 330 meters altitude, the view will reward you for every effort. You find yourself in an amphitheater of vineyards plunging steeply into the blue sea. Here you can stop for a packed lunch — perhaps with a slice of Genoese focaccia brought from the city — sitting on the age-old church steps, in the shade of the holm oaks.
From Volastra, take trail 586 toward Case Pianca and then descend toward Manarola. This high-altitude stretch, which crosses the Groppo terraces, is considered one of the most spectacular and least crowded trails along the entire Ligurian coast. Descending toward Manarola in the late afternoon, you’ll find perfect light to admire the pastel-colored tower houses illuminated by the rays of sunset.
The detail that makes the journey worthwhile? Stop on the trail between Volastra and Manarola around three in the afternoon. Listen. While down in the villages thousands of people crowd the narrow streets, up here, among the Vermentino vines and caper leaves sprouting from bare stone, there is a silence so dense it seems you could touch it. It is the ancient sound of Liguria.
The Journey Home: Your Refuge Awaits
When the sun begins to set behind the line of the sea and your legs grow pleasantly heavy from the kilometers traveled, it’s time to catch the train back west. The return journey is a moment for reflection, when you look through the photographs you’ve taken and mentally retrace the raw, vertical beauty of this corner of the earth.
Choosing Genoa as your base to explore the Riviera di Levante grants you a unique privilege: that of passing from the wild nature of the National Park to the majestic elegance of a Mediterranean capital in the span of an hour. Returning to the city in the evening means rediscovering the grand noble palaces, the restaurants hidden in the caruggi alleys, and the broad embrace of Porto Antico. If you wish to experience this and have a welcoming refuge from which to set out each morning to discover Genoa and its wonderful surroundings, you can book now your stay. We look forward to welcoming you and helping you fall in love with every shade of our land.
