Heritage Walking
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Riomaggiore & Manarola: Cinque Terre on Foot

Two Cinque Terre villages joined by the cliff path they share. Ten stops and about 90 minutes, from the harbour of Riomaggiore over the Via dell'Amore to the headland that frames Manarola.

This is a self-guided walk, not a guided tour with a leader: no booking, no fixed start time. See the walking route and the walking map before you go, then follow the numbers — the audio guide plays by itself as you reach each stop. Free, with no app to install and no sign-up.

At ~90 min it fits a half day of independent travel, and joining it to another walk in Cinque Terre makes a full-day itinerary.

Nearby walks within 150 km

All Italy walking tours · All 149 routes

Cinque Terre, Italy · ~90 min · 3.4 km · 10 stops

Stops on this walk

1. Riomaggiore Marina

A pocket harbour where the painted tower houses run straight down to the water.

Look up from the water. The houses climb both sides of a narrow ravine, tall and narrow, painted in ochre, pink and red. These are tower houses of the Genoese tradition, and they follow the steep course of the stream that cuts the village in two. Boats sit on the slipway because there is no quay long enough to leave them afloat. The village takes its name from that stream. In Latin it was the Rivus Maior, the greater river, and Riomaggiore is that name worn down by centuries of speech. A settlement here is documented from the early thirteenth century. Local tradition reaches further back and says that Greek refugees fleeing the iconoclast emperor Leo III landed on the headland of Montenero in the eighth century. That part is legend, not record. This cove explains why the village looks the way it does. There was no flat land, so people built upward. The road in is still narrow and difficult, so for centuries the sea and the footpaths were the way in and out. Since 1997 the five villages and their terraced hillsides have been a UNESCO World Heritage site, and since 1999 a national park. What you see from this harbour is the reason.

The slipway is wet and the rocks of the breakwater are uneven, so mind your footing near the water. Via Colombo is the only street in the village that is not a staircase.

2. Via Colombo

The village's only real street, laid over the stream that named the town.

Look down the length of the street and notice that it is the only one in the village without steps. Via Colombo runs along the floor of the ravine between two walls of houses. Everything else in Riomaggiore is a staircase or an alley, climbing off this street to the left and to the right. The reason is water. The stream called Rivus Maior once ran open through this gap, and the houses were built along its banks. Villages all along this coast did the same. In Manarola the work is dated, the church square in 1863 and the rest of the stream only after 1950. Today the street is lined with small shops, bars and restaurants, and it is where the village does its business. Look above the shop signs. The fronts are plastered and painted and the shutters are narrow. The buildings rise with the slope, so that each one stands a little higher than the last. This is the village's one artery, and everyone and everything passes along it.

Steep in places and crowded in the middle of the day. The lanes off the street are public and lead to quieter corners, but almost all of them are stairs.

3. Castello di Riomaggiore

A squat Genoese fort with two round towers, which spent a century as the village cemetery.

Look at the two round towers. They are thick and low rather than tall, and the walls between them form a rough square. The castle stands on the hill of Cerricò, which divides the two valleys of the village. From this terrace you look down on roofs on both sides and out to open sea. A first fortification was raised here by the marquises Turcotti in 1260. After the rule of the Fieschi counts, the Republic of Genoa completed the fortress you see between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Genoa held this coast and watched it from points like this one. A small castle on a coast like this was a lookout as much as a fortress. Its later life was stranger. In the Napoleonic years, under the Ligurian Republic, the interior was filled with earth and the enclosure became the village cemetery. Only a restoration at the end of the twentieth century emptied it again. The comune now runs it as a cultural centre and a venue for events. Beside it stands the Oratory of Saints Rocco and Sebastiano, dated 1480, two saints people prayed to against plague.

The terrace outside is open ground with a wide view, but hours for the interior change with the season and with events. The climb from Via Colombo is all steps.

4. Church of San Giovanni Battista

A church of 1340 wearing a nineteenth century face, with its medieval rose window kept.

Look first at the rose window above the door. It is white Carrara marble and it is medieval, carved in the fourteenth century. Then look at the rest of the front. The pointed arches and neat stonework are neo Gothic, from a rebuilding of 1870 to 1871 that lengthened the church and gave it a new facade. The old window was kept and set into the new front. The church was founded in 1340 at the wish of Antonio Fieschi, bishop of Luni, whose diocese then covered this coast. Walk round to the right side and you can still find the original Gothic portals, with decoration that looks back to Romanesque forms. Inside, three naves stand under pointed arches. Among the works inside is a triptych attributed to the painter known as the Master of the Cinque Terre. There is also a wooden crucifix by the sculptor Anton Maria Maragliano. The church is dedicated to John the Baptist, patron of Riomaggiore, and the village keeps his feast on 24 June. From the terrace beside the church the whole ravine opens below you, down to the sea.

Opening hours follow services and the season, so treat the interior as a bonus. The terrace in front is public and is one of the best views over the village.

5. Riomaggiore Station and the Mosaic Tunnel

A 157 metre mosaic of the coast lines the tunnel between the village and the trains.

Look at the walls of the pedestrian tunnel that joins this square to the village. They are covered in a mosaic of cut tiles, glazed majolica, pebbles, marble, mirror glass, shells and pottery. It runs for 157 metres and it shows the coast of the Cinque Terre. The work is called The Sequence of Memory. Its author was Silvio Benedetto, a painter and sculptor born in Buenos Aires who settled in Italy. From 1999 the national park engaged him on a project named the artistic itineraries of the Cinque Terre. Under it he decorated all five railway stations of the villages. The tunnel is the part of that project most people walk through without knowing it. The railway is the reason this square exists. The Genoa to Pisa line reaches the villages through tunnels cut in the cliffs. It remains the easiest way in, since the road is narrow and difficult. The gate to the Via dell'Amore, the cliff path to Manarola, stands beside the station. That path began in the 1920s as a service track for railway works, so the line and the walk are the same story.

The Via dell'Amore is ticketed. You need a Cinque Terre Card with a timed slot for the path, booked on the park's website or at a park info point. Entry is from Riomaggiore only and the walk is one way to Manarola. Slots sell out in high season, so book before you arrive.

6. Via dell'Amore, the Cliff Path Via dell'Amore

A path cut into the cliff in the 1920s for railway workers, which lovers renamed.

Look at the rock face beside you and the sea below. The path is a shelf cut into the cliff, barely wider than a lane, with the railway running inside the mountain at your back. It links Riomaggiore and Manarola over a little more than a kilometre. Before it existed, the two villages were joined only by a long and arduous route inland. It was not built for walking. From 1920 the railway tunnel between the two villages was being enlarged, and the works needed somewhere to store explosives. A powder magazine was placed halfway along the cliff, and tracks were cut to reach it from both ends. When the works finished, local people kept using the tracks, and the two halves became one path. The name came later, and nobody is sure from whom. The path became a meeting place for young couples, and someone is said to have written Via dell'Amore in whitewash at both ends. In the 1960s the comune of Riomaggiore made the name official and installed benches dedicated to heroes and deities of Greek and Roman mythology. A piece of railway engineering had become the most famous walk on the coast.

The path is one way, from Riomaggiore to Manarola, within the time slot on your ticket. It is mostly level and paved, with a few steps at the Riomaggiore end. The park can close it at short notice after rockfalls, so check its website on the day.

7. Via dell'Amore, the Halfway Point Via dell'Amore

Halfway along, where a 2012 rockslide closed the path for twelve years.

Look in both directions along the cliff. From here you can see both ends of the path, and above you the netting and bolts that hold the rock in place. The bar stands at the halfway point, near where the railway works kept a powder magazine about a century ago. On 24 September 2012 a rockslide here injured four Australian tourists, and the path was closed. What followed took twelve years. Only a short section reopened in 2015, and the full length stayed shut while the cliff was bolted, netted and rebuilt. The whole path reopened on 26 July 2024, then closed again at the end of that year after another fall. It reopened once more on 14 February 2025, Valentine's Day. The closure changed how the path works. Entry is now limited to a set number of people in each time slot. The park presents the ticket as the price of keeping the cliff safe. Look at the terraces above the netting. The dry stone walls that hold them were built by hand over centuries. Keeping those walls standing and keeping this path open turn out to be the same job.

Do not lean on the netting or step over the railings for a photo. The path is one way, so going back to Riomaggiore means the train or the steep mountain trail.

8. Church of San Lorenzo and Bell Tower, Manarola

A Gothic church of 1338 with a Carrara rose window, and a bell tower that began as a lookout.

Look at the three buildings around this small square. The church of San Lorenzo faces you with a front of local sandstone and a rose window of white Carrara marble. The square tower standing apart from the church is the bell tower. The plainer building across the square is the Oratory of the Disciplinanti, the chapel of a lay brotherhood. Historical sources date the church to 1338 and call it Ligurian Gothic. The rose window is dated 1375, has twelve small columns and is attributed to Matteo and Pietro da Campilio. Over the centuries the interior was dressed in Baroque, and a restoration at the end of the twentieth century brought back some of the Gothic forms. Inside are a triptych and a polyptych of the fifteenth century attributed to the Master of the Cinque Terre. The bell tower is the older story. It dates from the fourteenth century and was built on the remains of a lookout tower used to watch for Saracen raids from the sea. Its position, above the village and apart from the church, made sense for a watchtower first and a belfry second. Manarola itself is probably older than its church. The name may come from a Latin phrase for a small shrine, Manium arula, or from Magna rota, a great wheel, after a mill. Neither reading is certain.

The square is the highest point of the old village and the one flat place to sit. Services are held in the church, so step out quietly if one is in progress. The lane down to the harbour is Via Discovolo, the main street, built over the village stream.

9. Manarola Marina

Boats parked in the street because there is no harbour big enough to hold them.

Look at the boats. They sit in a row along the street, on trailers and on the paving, as though parked. This is Via Birolli, the main street beside the Marina, and the fishing boats are hauled up here when they are not at sea. The harbour below is a notch in the rock with no room to moor. The ramp down to the water is the village's beach as well as its port. Fishing and wine have long been Manarola's two trades. The wine is Sciacchetrà, a sweet passito made from grapes dried after the harvest. By law it is at least forty percent Bosco, with Albarola and Vermentino making up much of the rest, and it has held protected status since 1973. The vines grow on the terraces above you, on slopes too steep for anything but hand work. The stream that carved this valley ran open through the village until 1950, and the church square higher up was covered as early as 1863. Via Discovolo, the main street climbing from here, runs over it now. Turn and look up the valley. Houses stand on both banks in the same tower form as at Riomaggiore, tall and narrow, painted and stacked. The vineyards close the view at the top.

The rocks around the harbour are a popular place to swim and to sit, and they are slippery. Boats are launched down the ramp, so leave the slipway clear.

10. Punta Bonfiglio

The headland across the cove, where the postcard view of Manarola is taken.

Look across the water toward the village. From this headland Manarola shows itself whole, the houses stacked on the rock, the notch of the harbour below them, the vineyards and the church tower above. This is the view that appears on every poster of the Cinque Terre, and it exists only from here. The headland is laid out as a public walk with benches and a small playground among the trees. At the top of the point stands the village cemetery, looking out to sea. What the headland gives you is distance. From inside the lanes the village is never visible as one shape, and from here it is nothing else. In winter the hillside above the village becomes something else. Since 1961 a nativity scene of lights has been set up there each Christmas season. A local man, Mario Andreoli, built it from recycled materials and thousands of bulbs. It is switched on each year on 8 December. Andreoli died in 2022 at the age of 94. If you are here in that season, come back after dark and look at the slope.

Late afternoon light falls on the village from this side, which is why the railing fills with photographers at sunset. The path round the headland is paved but climbs. The cemetery is in use, so keep voices down near it.