The Hidden Trails Above Cinque Terre That Most Tourists Never Find

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Most visitors to Cinque Terre arrive by train, photograph the harbours, and leave by train. They follow the same seafront paths as a thousand others that day, never once looking up. But above the colourful villages — above the gelato queues and the souvenir stalls — there is an entirely different Italy waiting.

Everyone Arrives the Same Way

The five villages of the Ligurian coast — Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore — attract millions of visitors each year. They tumble down steep cliffs to the sea, all painted façades and fishing boats, and they are genuinely beautiful. But the famous seafront paths only tell part of the story.

What most visitors miss is what lies above: a web of ancient mule tracks, vineyards, and sanctuaries that once connected these villages long before the railway arrived in the 1870s.

The Paths That Built the Villages

The trails above Cinque Terre are not a recent hiking invention. They were the lifeblood of the villages for centuries. Farmers carried grapes down these routes during the vendemmia. Fishermen’s wives walked them to market. Pilgrims used them to reach the hilltop sanctuaries scattered across the terraces.

These paths — called sentieri — fan out from each village into the hills, leading to places the average day-tripper never sees. The Alta Via delle Cinque Terre, the high ridge trail, stretches for 38 kilometres along the spine of the hills, offering views that make the standard seafront look positively ordinary.

What You Find When You Climb

Follow the trail above Vernazza and you reach the Santuario della Madonna di Reggio, a whitewashed chapel clinging to the hillside since the 15th century. There are almost no other tourists. There is, however, extraordinary silence, a cool breeze off the Ligurian Sea, and a view that stretches all the way to the Tuscan archipelago on a clear day.

Above Corniglia — itself the only village with no direct sea access — the trail winds through fig trees and abandoned farmhouses, past crumbling stone walls that mark the edges of terraces no longer worked. The wildflowers in spring are extraordinary.

For anyone planning a broader walking holiday, the guide to the 8 best places to hike in Italy includes Cinque Terre alongside some of the country’s other remarkable trail networks.

The Terraces That Tell the Real Story

The most striking feature of the Cinque Terre hills is not the view — it’s the terraces themselves. For over a millennium, local farmers cut into the steep hillsides and built stone retaining walls called fasce, creating narrow strips of arable land from what would otherwise be impossible terrain.

At their peak in the 19th century, these terraces stretched for 6,700 kilometres of dry-stone walls — more than the distance from Rome to New York. They produced Sciacchetrà, a sweet amber wine made from dried Bosco, Albarola, and Vermentino grapes that was once among the most prized in Italy.

Many of the terraces are now abandoned, reclaimed slowly by scrub and wild herbs. Walking among them is oddly moving — you can feel the labour, the stubbornness, the love for a difficult land.

The Hamlets They Forgot to Mention

Even those who know Cinque Terre well often miss the satellite villages above. Drignano, Volastra, Groppo — small hamlets perched on the ridge with no particular fame and no particular crowds. They look as they have for centuries: a handful of stone houses, an old church, cats sleeping in doorways.

Italy rewards those who venture beyond the obvious. If you have a taste for that kind of discovery, the collection of 8 small towns in Italy worth venturing off the beaten path will give you plenty more to explore — and none of them require fighting for a restaurant table.

How to Walk It Well

The best time to walk above Cinque Terre is early morning — before the trains arrive from La Spezia and Genoa and the paths fill up. Pack water, wear proper shoes, and ignore the urge to rush. These trails were not built for rushing.

From Riomaggiore, the trail to Manarola via the high route takes about an hour and a half, with views that stop you in your tracks every few minutes. From Vernazza, the path north to Monterosso through the vineyards is steep but rewarding for anyone in reasonable fitness.

And if you find yourself wanting more of Italy’s less-crowded coast, the experience of a romantic retreat on the Amalfi Coast shares that same particular magic — the sense that beauty in Italy is always richest when you have to earn it slightly.

The villages will still be there when you come back down, still colourful, still beautiful. But once you’ve seen them from above — with the terraces falling away to the sea and the Ligurian light making everything golden — it is almost impossible to go back to the seafront crowd.

You Might Also Enjoy

• 8 Best Places to Hike in Italy
• 8 Small Towns in Italy Worth Venturing Off the Beaten Path
• A Romantic Retreat on the Amalfi Coast

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