Cinque terre

The Cinque Terre is the coastal area that runs from Punta Mesco, the promontory to the west of Monterosso, to Portovenere. A strip of land 15 kilometers long nestled between the sea and the rocky cliffs. Flanking it is the Vara Valley and, at the end, the Gulf of La Spezia.

Its terrain is rugged and steep and alternates areas with a sheer drop to the sea with others with dry wall terraced vineyards, outcrops of rock and uncultivated land covered in heather, broom and pines. While only three or four kilometers wide, its rocky cliffs can reach heights of 700 or 800 meters.

It is within this rocky terrain that slopes down to the water at the extreme edge of the Ligurian Sea, within its natural buttresses, that the Cinque Terre (Five Towns) have settled over time: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. It is on this strip of earth and rock with its wonderful yet barren and forbidding surroundings that, for millennia, man has made his home, becoming accustomed to its difficulties and strain and locked in a constant love-hate relationship with his environment.

The name “Cinque Terre” appears for the first time in the Desptio Orae Linguisticae by La Spezia historian Giacomo Bracelli, who, in the 15th century wrote: “Standing on the cliffs are Cinque Tere, virtually equidistant from each other, and these are Monterosso, Vulnezia, known today as Vernazza, Cornelia, Manarola and Riomaggiore (...) which I find amazing seeing such rugged and steep cliffs that even birds have difficulty flying over them, cliffs that are so rocky and barren that they resemble ivy and vines. But from here we prepare that wine served to kings...”

Enfolded in what is perhaps a unique fresco of earth, sea and sky, these places bear simultaneous witness to man’s physical sacrifice and his spiritual strength.

The bare, manifest beauty of this world-in-itself could be considered an expressive metaphor of man humbly and patiently involved in his day-to-day activity, in search of the smells and tastes of the fruit of his labor.

The Cinque Terre National Park, located to the east of Portovenere, offers an extraordinary setting, its two small islands with their wild, uncontaminated nature anchored to the mainland like boats.

Further east is that strip of coastline that stretches from Lerici to Bocca di Magra, places beloved of 19th century English poets and Italian writers of the 20th century.

For those with more worldly interests, there is the area from Moneglia to Levanto, next to the Gulf of Tigullio, that includes the famous town of Portofino, known throughout the world for its town square and port.