Cinque Terre: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Five fishing and farming villages on twelve kilometres of cliff coast, cut off by land until the railway reached them in the 1870s and by road until the twentieth century. The train still links them better than any car — a few minutes between each, through tunnels in the rock. A full day by train, a village every hour or so; leave early, because by eleven the platforms are full.
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A short history of Cinque Terre
The five villages, Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, were built in the Middle Ages on cliffs above the sea on the Ligurian coast. For centuries the inhabitants built stone terraces on the steep slopes and grew vines and olives on them, and the only way to reach the villages was by boat or on foot. From the 13th century they were under the rule of the Republic of Genoa. In 1874 the railway along the coast opened, and the villages were connected to the world. In 1997 they were declared a World Heritage Site, and in 1999 the national park was established. In October 2011 floods swept through Vernazza and Monterosso and buried their streets in mud.
The ten best sights in Cinque Terre
1Monterosso al MareThe largest village and the only one with a real sand beach
2Il GiganteA concrete Neptune holding up a terrace that the sea took away
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3Fegina Beach
The long beach under the station; umbrellas by the day
4VernazzaThe harbour village of the postcards; climb to the tower for the view
5Castello DoriaThe watchtower over Vernazza, built against pirates
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6Santa Margherita d’Antiochia
A church standing on the rocks at the water’s edge
7CornigliaThe only village not on the water, high on its cliff
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8Lardarina
The stair of over three hundred steps from the station up to Corniglia
9GuvanoA pebble cove below Corniglia, reached through an old railway tunnel
10ManarolaColoured houses stacked on a rock; the view is from the path north of it
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Cinque Terre →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Cinque Terre:
Free walking tours in Cinque Terre
The five villages
Five fishing and farming villages on twelve kilometres of cliff coast, cut off by land until the railway reached them in the 1870s and by road until the twentieth century. The train still links them better than any car — a few minutes between each, through tunnels in the rock. A full day by train, a village every hour or so; leave early, because by eleven the platforms are full.
- Riomaggiore · The houses are tall and narrow because the ravine is narrow, and many have a door at the bottom on one street and another at the top on the street above — a way out if pirates came in by the lower one. The tiny harbour is a slipway, and the boats are pulled up into the street.
- Via dell’Amore · The path between Riomaggiore and Manarola was cut into the cliff in the 1920s while the railway was being doubled, and young people from the two villages, who had barely met before, began courting along it. A rockfall closed it in 2012, and it took twelve years and major works to reopen.
- Manarola · Every Christmas since the 1960s, a local man named Mario Andreoli and his helpers have lit a nativity scene across the whole hillside of vineyards above the village — hundreds of figures made from scrap and thousands of lights. The view of the village everyone photographs is from the path on the headland to the north.
- Corniglia · The only village that does not touch the sea: it sits a hundred metres up on a ridge, and from the station you climb more than three hundred steps or take the shuttle. Without a harbour, Corniglia lived from its vineyards, and its wine was praised already in the Middle Ages.
- Vernazza · The one natural harbour of the five, guarded by the tower of Castello Doria against Saracen raids. On the twenty-fifth of October 2011 a storm dropped about half a metre of rain in a few hours, and a torrent of mud filled the main street to the first floor. It took the village months to dig itself out.
- Monterosso al Mare · The largest of the villages and the only one with a long sand beach. The poet Eugenio Montale, who won the Nobel Prize in 1975, spent his childhood summers here, and the bare, sun-struck landscape of these terraces runs through his first book of poems.
The walls in the vineyards
The hills above the villages are not natural slopes: over a thousand years the farmers built terraces of dry stone, without mortar, so that vines could grow on a cliff, and the walls run for thousands of kilometres. This route walks the high paths among them, between the sanctuaries the villages built on the hilltops. Half a day to a day on foot, steep, and a Cinque Terre Card is needed for the coastal paths.
- Soviore Sanctuary · Said to be the oldest Marian sanctuary in Liguria, on the old mule track that climbs from Monterosso into the hills. Each village has its sanctuary high above it, and on their feast days the whole village walks up.
- Madonna di Reggio · The sanctuary of Vernazza, in the woods above the village, reached by a stepped path lined with chapels. Below it the terraces fall away in steps to the sea, and you see how much of the cliff the farmers turned into fields.
- Volastra · A hamlet above Manarola in the middle of the vineyards. The grapes on these terraces were carried down in baskets on people’s backs; today small rack-railway monorails run up the slopes to bring down the harvest.
- Punta Bonfiglio · The headland north of Manarola, with the village’s cemetery and a small park, and the view back at the coloured houses stacked on their rock. The custom is to come here at sunset with a glass of the local white.
- Montenero Sanctuary · The sanctuary of Riomaggiore, on a hilltop three hundred metres above the sea, and from its terrace the whole coast of the Cinque Terre lies to the north. The path up from the village is steep and old, and it takes about an hour.
- Guvano · A pebble beach under Corniglia created by a huge landslide in 1893 that buried the coast. It is reached through a disused railway tunnel, and because it is hard to get to, it was long the place people went to be left alone.
The Gulf of Poets
South of the five villages the coast curves into the Gulf of La Spezia, which the English Romantic poets made their own — Byron swam across it and Shelley drowned in it. At its head is the navy’s port, where in 1946 a thousand Holocaust survivors on two ships refused to leave until they were allowed to sail for Palestine. A full day, by boat and bus.
- La Spezia Harbour · In April 1946 more than a thousand Jewish survivors boarded two ships here, the Fede and the Fenice, to sail for Palestine, and the British pressed Italy to stop them. They went on hunger strike on the quay, the press of the world came to watch, and on the eighth of May they were allowed to sail. The Jews called La Spezia the Gate of Zion.
- Portovenere · A walled harbour town at the very tip of the gulf, its houses painted in the same tall coloured row as the Cinque Terre but older and fortified, built by Genoa in the twelfth century to face Pisa across the water.
- San Pietro, Portovenere · A small Gothic church of black and white stripes standing on the rock at the end of the land, over the open sea, on the site of a Roman temple. The loggia beside it frames the cliffs of the Cinque Terre to the north.
- Byron’s Grotto · In 1822 Lord Byron swam from Portovenere across the gulf to Lerici, about seven kilometres, to visit Shelley. This sea cave below the church was named after him, and people still dive from its rocks.
- Villa Magni, San Terenzo · Percy Bysshe Shelley rented this house on the shore with Mary Shelley in 1822. In July he sailed for Livorno in his small boat, and on the way back a storm sank it; his body washed up ten days later, a volume of Keats in his pocket.
- Tellaro · A fishing village on a rock at the edge of the gulf. The story is that one night, when Saracen pirates were creeping up, an octopus climbed the bell tower and rang the bell with its tentacles, and the village woke in time.
Getting to Cinque Terre and getting around
- Pisa Airport · About an hour and a half by train via La Spezia; Genoa is the other choice
- La Spezia Centrale · The gateway: local trains to the five villages every fifteen to thirty minutes
- Levanto · The quieter base at the northern end, one stop from Monterosso
Cheap eats in Cinque Terre
This is Liguria, so the counter food is focaccia — oily, salty, eaten warm from the bakery in the morning, a couple of euro — and pesto, which was invented on this coast. The local catch is anchovies, which Monterosso salts and protects by name, and the walking food is a paper cone of fried fish. The wine to know is Sciacchetrà, a sweet amber wine made from grapes dried on racks after the harvest.
- Monterosso al Mare · Salted anchovies, and focaccia warm from the oven
- Vernazza · Fried fish in a paper cone on the harbour wall
- Corniglia · Basil gelato and a glass of the village white
- Volastra · Sciacchetrà from the terraces, sold at the cellar door
- Riomaggiore · Focaccia with pesto, and stuffed mussels from La Spezia
- Levanto · Farinata, the chickpea flatbread, by the slice
Museums in Cinque Terre
The Cinque Terre are themselves the museum, a landscape built by hand and protected as such. The museums proper are around the gulf: the navy’s, a castle’s, and the memory of the port where the survivors waited to sail.
- La Spezia Harbour · The Gate of Zion, 1946
- Naval Museum · Figureheads and the history of the Italian navy
- Castello San Giorgio · Prehistoric statue-stelae of the region
- Villa Magni, San Terenzo · Shelley’s last house, seen from the seafront
- Il Gigante · A Neptune of 1910 that lost its terrace to the sea
Nature and day trips near Cinque Terre
The coast is a national park and a world heritage landscape: cliffs dropping into clear sea, terraces of vines and olives, and pine and chestnut woods on the ridge above. The famous paths are the Blue Path along the coast and the High Path on the ridge, and both get crowded by midday.
- Via dell’Amore · The reopened cliff path; booked entry
- Montenero Sanctuary · An hour up from Riomaggiore; the whole coast below
- Palmaria · A walk round the island opposite Portovenere
- Bonassola · The tunnel cycle path from Levanto
- Guvano · A remote pebble beach through an old tunnel
- Soviore Sanctuary · The high woods above Monterosso
Things to do in Cinque Terre with kids
With children, take the train between villages and the boat back, swim at Monterosso, and keep the walks short. The cliff paths have long drops and many steps; the tunnel cycle path from Levanto is flat and safe.
- Fegina Beach · The one real sand beach
- Bonassola · Ride through the old railway tunnels by the sea
- Castello Doria · A pirate-watch tower to climb
- Tellaro · The village where an octopus rang the bell
- Portovenere · The boat ride along the cliffs is the outing
- Il Gigante · A giant on the beach
Holy places in Cinque Terre
Each village has a church on its harbour and a sanctuary on the hill above, and the old paths between them are pilgrimage routes. The finest church on the coast stands outside the five, on the rock at Portovenere.
- Santa Margherita d’Antiochia · A church on the rocks of Vernazza’s harbour
- San Pietro, Portovenere · Striped Gothic on the last rock
- Soviore Sanctuary · The oldest sanctuary in Liguria
- Madonna di Reggio · A path of chapels up from Vernazza
- Montenero Sanctuary · The sanctuary of Riomaggiore on the hilltop
- Manarola · The lit nativity on the hillside at Christmas
Nightlife in Cinque Terre
When the day-trippers leave on the last trains, the villages go quiet, and the evening is a drink on the rocks at sunset and dinner on the harbour. Monterosso has the most bars; La Spezia, the real town, has the rest.
- Punta Bonfiglio · The sunset view of Manarola with a glass
- Vernazza · The harbour after the crowds leave
- Monterosso al Mare · The most bars, and the late beach
- Lerici · The harbour front under the castle
- Portovenere · Dinner on the quay facing Palmaria
Frequently asked questions about Cinque Terre
What is there to see in Cinque Terre?
The top sights in Cinque Terre are Monterosso al Mare, Il Gigante and Fegina Beach. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Cinque Terre?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Cinque Terre without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Cinque Terre?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Cinque Terre, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The five villages.
How do you get to Cinque Terre and get around?
The main ways are Pisa Airport, La Spezia Centrale and Levanto. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Cinque Terre, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Cinque Terre that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Cinque Terre for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.