Exploring and Hiking Cinque Terre in Italy

Getting to Cinque Terre

It is highly recommended NOT to go by car to any of the villages as cars are forbidden/restricted, so you anyway have to park far away from the actual sights. Indeed, there is no reason to go by car, as the national train company Trenitalia offers frequent affordable departures to the village stations, which are connected to each other with only 3-4 minutes of travel time in between, as well as La Spezia in the south and Levanto in the north. And who wants to (aesthetically) pollute a UNESCO World Heritage site? Besides going by train or hiking, you also have the option to move between the villages by ferry during the season. From the end of March to November 1^st there is a small ferry going from Portovenere (approximately 10 km south of Riomaggiore) up to Monterosso, which stops in all but one of the five villages.

That one excluded village is Corniglia because it doesn’t have sea access. A few times a day, the ferry sets out even further south, from Lerici or La Spezia, and once a day it also arrives/departs from Levanto north of Monterosso. For ticket prices and more information about going with the Cinque Terre ferry, click here. There are of course also various private companies arranging tours, but you might find them more expensive and less regular.

Riomaggiore

We started out in Riomaggiore after arriving from La Spezia by train. From the train station, we followed a beautiful, paved path along the cliffside towards south with the sea directly below us. After a few hundred meters of ascending and descending on steep staircases along the sea, you enter the village itself and can go towards the incredibly picturesque little bay of Riomaggiore, with colorful houses stacked on top of one another on the nearly vertical cliffside down towards the sea. Riomaggiore is the largest of the five villages, and for sure there is more to see if you venture a bit further away from the main path close to the sea, such as the Medieval fortress Castello di Riomaggiore, the Church of San Giovanni Battista (St. John the Baptist) or the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Montenero, which is only accessible by trail a kilometer or so south of Riomaggiore.

We were, however, eager to cover as much ground as possible and thus returned back to the train station, following pretty much the same route along the sea. We then took the train onwards to Manarola, as the Lovers’ Walk trail was closed due to a part of the path having collapsed into the sea. We could also have taken the steeper and much more demanding Via Beccara trail to Manarola, but with me being six months pregnant and Blaz carrying our heavy toddler we were not ready to exhaust ourselves completely yet.

Manarola

When we arrived in Manarola, we started walking northwest from the train station through a 100 meters long tunnel, which leads directly to the main street Via Renato Birolli, that meanders through the lower part of the village. After coming down to the sea by the end of Via Renato Birolli, we then followed the idyllic paved footpath going towards north along the sea around a small peninsula, but it stops after about 300 meters on the other side of the peninsula. There was previously a path continuing forward towards Corniglia more or less along the sea, but it is now closed off and it was obvious to see why as several stretches had collapsed into the sea. This trail is also scheduled to reopen in summer 2024.

There is an alternative route from Manarola to Corniglia, going over the village Volastra and especially the first part of the more than five kilometers long trail is demanding, although this can be mitigated by taking a shuttle bus from Manarola to Volastra (a 10 minute ride) and starting the hike behind the the small church of Madonna della Salute. The bus stop in Manarola is called Manarola Mulino and is located 100 meters up north the road called Via Antonio Discovolo, which you have on your right when you exit the tunnel from the Manarola train station. In season there is normally a bus every hour, but out of season there are much fewer departures. Don’t trust that Google Maps states the correct departures; instead check out the bus company ATC’s website.

We didn’t have a convenient bus connection to Volastra from Manarola at the time of our visit in Cinque Terre, so instead, we walked back to the tip of the small peninsula, and up a few flights of stairs we found a buzzing modern playground with a gorgeous view on the sea. Our 3-year old daughter magically awoke here, and we thus spent a good amount of time here. A few flights of stairs higher up, you will find a public toilet (one of the harder things to find in Cinque Terre) at the cost of 1 euro per person. After finishing at the playground we lured our daughter away with the promise of a gelato back in the centre of Manarola, and we also enjoyed warm focaccia from a bakery.

Prices were high, even out of season, and many restaurants and cafes were completely shut down for the holidays/season although there were still plenty of tourists sprawling around the Cinque Terre area. Manorola is one of the smaller villages of Cinque Terre, and we felt like we had seen most of what was to see there. We could have climbed the steep road Via Antonio Discovolo up to the Church of Saint Lawrence, but now we were eager to do some actual hiking and thus took the train to Corniglia to do the actual hike to Vernazza.

Hiking from Corniglia to Vernazza

Unlike the other Cinque Terre villages, Corniglia does not have sea access as it is placed about 100 meters above sea level, and also well above the Corniglia train station. To reach Corniglia from its station, we first had to follow a paved pedestrian path called Via Lardarina towards northwest which runs parallel to the road Via alla Stazione to begin with. After 400 meters you come to a meandering wide staircase called Scalinata Lardarina, which leads up the hillside to the top where Corniglia is placed. The staircase has almost 400 steps so we used our ascent up to admire the view on the sea and southwards towards Manarola. Nevertheless, the sun was setting as we climbed the stairs so we wanted to get a move on as not to get caught by the darkness while on the trail (a naïve hope to have, it turned out).

Therefore we more or less just passed through Corniglia, mostly on the Via Fieschi street, following the signs towards Vernazza, and only made a few stops to photograph the view. This path did, however, take us right past the village’s Church of St. Peter, so that was one place off the sightseeing list. If you want to explore Corniglia more than we did, you should follow Via Fieschi, which bends at the church and runs south down towards the center of the village. We, however, continued straight ahead on the narrow pedestrian towards west, and soon we again had a view of the sea and the hillside terraces of Corniglia with vineyards. The buildings became more sparse and the paved path curves more and more towards north. The path intersects with the Via alla Stazione, but continues just diagonally across the road.

At this point we still met small groups of hikers arriving to Corniglia from Vernazza, but in spite of the ceasing sunlight we still continued towards Vernazza on the path which became increasingly rural. From crossing the Via alla Stazione, we hiked for three kilometers till reaching Vernazza. The trail changes between gravel, rock/dirt and being paved, and mostly features a fence on one or both sides on exposed stretches. The danger of land slides and other natural hazards has made the authorities put up signs with the Italian emergency number 112, and the exact number of the location in question so a rescue team can easily find you, if needed be.

We luckily didn’t need it, but both at the time and in hindsight it was clear that we were not very wise to walk on an uneven meandering path on steep hillsides for 1.5 hour of increasing darkness. Even our toddler picked up on the situation, and once in a while said: “I want to go back to the train” but otherwise kept calm in the child carrier, where she watched Peppa Pig on a phone. The first half of the trail is more or less uphill till you reach the highest point of the hike at 215 meters above sea level. Around here you have a brief meeting with civilization, as you come past a small cluster of houses with a bit of street lights which make up the tiny hamlet called Prevo. In season, there is a bar and a tourist lodge but as it was getting close to total darkness we didn’t see much, except light in a few windows.

Shortly after the path starts descending, first slowly and then more steeply. At this point we had to use our other phone as a torch to make out the uneven path beneath our feet to avoid tripping and falling over. Blaz was indeed kicking himself for not bringing a headlamp as he is usually packed and prepared for EVERYTHING. The vegetation was largely low forest/shrubbery and occasionally vineyards or olive orchards, so most of the time we could see the sea, which looked magical, even past dusk.

The lights of Vernazza first came into sight about a few hundred meters before encountering the first buildings of civilization on the hillside above the city. Street lights only appeared just as we were descending the last steep flights of stairs down to Vernazza itself. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the city as we merely had time for a quick one-course meal in the otherwise very nice restaurant 5 Terre Bistrot before taking the train back to our holiday home and getting the little one to bed at a somewhat decent hour.

Tifosi Swoon Leopard sunglasses were great for Cinque Terre.

For a sunny day like this, sunglasses were basically a necessity! I was very happy to wear the Tifosi Swoon Leopard sunglasses as the polarized lens reduced the glare from the ever-present sea at Cinque Terre. Furthermore the Tifosi Swoon sunglasses wrap properly around the curve of my face with its base curve of 7 in order to protect the eyes from sun light coming in at any angle. You can read the full review of the Tifosi Swoon Leopard sunglasses here.

Where to buy?

Tifosi Swoon Sunglasses Buy from Tifosi Optics