An alternative way to see the five Cinque Terre villages is by sea, which was by far more leisurely and scenic. We had explored Corniglia and Manarola the day before by train. The carriages was packed and claustrophobia-inducing as the train plunges into dark tunnels between the villages. Well, the advice is to avoid August, the busiest time to visit the area.
From La Spezia, our first stop was Riomaggiore, the easternmost of the five Cinque Terre villages. We sailed past Porto Venere and arrived in mid-morning; the weather was perfect.
If you like to join us on this epic road trip from the beginning in Switzerland, click here for the first post of the series.
As the boat drew near Riomaggiore, the first impression is that it appears more modern than Manarola and Corniglia. It has less frontage facing the sea and the buildings are taller and sunken deeper into the V-shaped ravine than Manarola.
A stretch of a highway – the Strada Provinciale delle Cinque Terre – built on pillars is visible behind the village, as is the railway bridge and the train station.
After disembarking near the base of the breakwater, we followed a narrow path leading to the village’s water front. A breathtaking view greeted us and one cannot help but start looking for the panoramic function on the phone to capture it all.
Having a 4-storey building painted in saturated vermillion perched on rocks at the entrance of a tiny harbor, Riomaggiore cannot be more dramatic. This view is one of the most recognizable of Cinque Terre.
The tiny harbor was like a playpen for swimmers, small boats and kayaks.
In 1997, UNESCO included the Cinque Terre in the World Heritage List as a “cultural landscape”, and noted that it “shows an important exchange of human values, in the course of time or within a cultural area of the world”. In 1999 the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre was created to conserve the ecological balance and protect the landscape. You can view an interactive map of the area here.
Apparently, Riomaggiore is relatively more accessible, and hence more populous and prosperous than some of the other villages.
The name Riomaggiore meaning ‘major river‘ comes from the past when a river ran through the village.
After a stroll up and down the main street, we got on another boat and continued onto our next village, Vernazza. The popular thing to do here, which we regrettably did not do, is to walk to Manarola on a trail known as Via dell’Amore (Lover’s Lane) high on the cliff top. We read that it was closed from time to time due to landslide, and so we did not bother to find out.
If you like to follow us on this mini series on Cinque Terre, click here for our next post on Vernazza.
Image of Riomaggiore generated using Google Earth.
