Daily Itinerary

Day one – Settling in

Everything gets kicked off in the afternoon, once everyone in the group has arrived in Levanto and we have transported you to your hotel.  We all meet together in the private gardens of the hotel’s restored villa, then take a walking tour of Levanto, an ancient maritime city that dates back to the feudal period and the Genoa Republic.  We’ll walk the elegant central streets with their shops and markets, then head to the old town through its caruggi (narrow alleys) to visit the Cathedral and the castle, from which you’ll get your first peek at the Bay of Levanto.  We head down a steep series of stone staircases between elegant villas until we reach the boardwalk.

We stop at one of the beach cafés for aperitivi, the Italian tradition of wine and light snacks before dinner.  As the sun goes down over the Mediterranean, we take this opportunity to get to know each other, talk about your expectations for the trip, and discuss the itinerary for tomorrow.

As some of you may be travel-weary or jet-lagged, we give you the opportunity to make your own arrangements for dinner.  If aperitivi are enough for you, we’ll help you get back to the hotel.  If you are looking for something a little more substantive, we’ll help you choose the right kind of eating establishment.

 Day two – Your first Cinque Terre

After breakfast at the hotel, we walk to the train station and take the 25-minute ride to Riomaggiore, the first of the five Cinque Terre.  After a visit of the town (including breaks for refreshments – the Cinque Terre are famously hilly) we head off along the Camminata dell’Amore (Lover’s Walk) that connects Riomaggiore with Manarola, the next town up the coast.  Without stopping, this easy hike along the cliffs above the sparkling Mediterranean takes about 30 minutes, but we factor in time for gawking and photographs.  Once in Manarola, we will visit the town before hiking up the hills to Volastra, passing terraced gardens, olive groves, and vineyards, to visit Nostra Signora della Salute Sanctuary, a Romanic-style church and sanctuary that dates back to 1240.  The hike is not too difficult, and takes about 60 minutes.

After a tour of the sanctuary and its grounds, and a stop for lunch high above the Mediterranean,  we get back on the trail (downhill this time) to Corniglia.  This stretch of the hike is one of the most spectacular in all the Cinque Terre, taking you literally through vineyards that cling to their narrow terraces.  Once we get to Corniglia (about 90 minutes) you will have time to visit the town and get some refreshments before hopping back on the train to Levanto.

Dinner is at an excellent local seafood restaurant where the main dishes are made from today’s catch that came in with the fishing boats.  If you didn’t try it already at lunch, now is the moment to end your meal with a limoncino, the lemon-flavored digestivo made in the local citrus groves.  (As for all meals, if you are not a fish lover or you are a vegetarian, there are numerous other plates to choose from.)

Day three – To the water

It’s a leisurely pace today: you have time to poke around Levanto this morning, perhaps trying the spectacular pastries or reading your paper over a cappuccino in a crowded cafè.  But bring your bathing suit, because in the late-morning we hop on a traditional fishing boat for a guided boat trip along the cliffs and grottos that dot this coastline.  Our guide, a local character of great charisma, will take us to crystalline snorkeling waters and hidden bays where we can swim, splash, and get some sun.  All the while, our guide will pass on his wisdom about this area, its traditions, and the sea.

Everyone is on his or her own for lunch, though as always, we point you in the right direction.  In the afternoon, we rent bikes for an easy ride through a restored train tunnel to Bonassola, a quaint seaside town just 2 miles up the coast that has an excellent beach and the area’s best focaccia.  We will stroll the town, get some gelato, hit the beach, and take it easy until everyone is ready to head back to Levanto.

[As an alternative to the bike ride, you can rent kayaks or pedal boats and head out on the water again, or sign up for scuba-diving in the waters of the Cinque Terre National Maritime Park, a protected area along the coast where you can sometimes even see dolphins and whales.]

Dinner tonight is in a restaurant located in a typical Ligurian house with stone walls in the old part of town.  The menu features the other side of the Cinque Terre: the land.  Here you can try the local speciality of gattafin (fried vegetable-stuffed ravioli), once a staple food for the impoverished stone-quarry laborers of the area but now a recognized delicacy, or the truly local panigacci pasta with your choice of sauce.  And for the brave, there are cinghiale dishes made from the wild boars that still roam these hills and are hunted by locals. 

Day four – Scarpinata and Sciacchetrà

We get an early start today for our scarpinata (hike) from Levanto to Monterosso al Mare, the last of the Cinque Terre.  Trail number 1 starts right in front of the Cathedral of Sant’Andrea in Levanto and heads up (and we do mean up) above the Bay of Levanto before turning the corner and levelling out along the coastal walk to the furthermost promontory, Punta Mesco.  Bring enough film (if anyone still uses film) because the views are spectacular.  As we hike, we will teach you about local history and its indissoluble link to hardscrabble agriculture in these steep hills, where olive trees and grape vines cling to the cliffs with their incredible will to live.  From Punta Mesco, where on a clear day you will see all five of the Cinque Terre laid out before you, we follow the trail down to Monterosso, where we will stop in a cafè to catch our breath and take in the scene.  In all, the hike lasts roughly three hours.

We will visit the picturesque old town of Monterosso before going to a renowned vineyard located just outside of town.  You will be given a guided tour of the vines and the cellars, marveling all the while at the amazing coexistence between man, grape, land, and sea in this almost vertical terrain.  After the tour, we go inside for wine-tasting and lunch.  You will taste both of the nationally-awarded red and white wines that these enologhi draw carefully from this earth, and then finish off your experience with the much-sought-after sciacchetrà, a dessert wine so costly and so stingy to produce, that you often find half-sized bottles of it for 100 dollars and more.

After lunch, your afternoon is free to be spent as you wish, though we highly recommend the beach of Monterosso.  We can also arrange for a visit to Vernazza, where you can witness for yourself the effects of the October flooding in the region and see the heroic rebuilding process that is going on.

For dinner, we take you away from the beach and up into the hills for a meal in a traditional Ligurian trattoria in an even-more-typical Ligurian borgo. A borgo is a small village situated on the top of a hill, and Lavaggiorosso, where we will be taking you, is worth a visit all on its own.  But when you throw in the home-style cooking served informally to people who come from all over Northern Italy to eat here, it will become a highlight of your trip.  (And no, no more walking today … we’ll drive you up this hill.)

Day five – Genoa

This morning, we take the train to Genoa, one of Italy’s hidden gems, as beautiful and intriguing as any Italian city, just less-well-known.  In the morning we will take a walking tour of the regal side of the city, stopping and touring the palatial town-houses built by the fortunes of the Genoa Republic’s domination of the Mediterranean.

Later, we will stop at the kitchen of one of Genoa’s most renowned chefs for a personal cooking lesson in how to make Basil Pesto the old-fashioned way: with a mortar and pestle.  After working up an appetite, we will then move to the dining hall for a full-course Genovese meal cooked by our chef/teacher.

The afternoon is free for everyone to do as their heart desires.  If you want to return immediately to Levanto or another beach town for some R&R, that’s great.  If you want to wander the caruggi of the old town of Genoa or check out some of its museums, by all means do so.  We won’t be meeting up again until dinnertime in Levanto.  After working hard for our lunch this afternoon, dinner tonight takes us to the sophisticated side of Levanto to be pampered in an elegant garden restaurant where we will eat our last meal together, a meal that you will remember long afterwards.  And we’ll clink glasses in one last toast to Liguria, this magical land forever nestled between the mountains and the sea.

Day six – departure

We’re sorry to see you go, but after breakfast, all that’s left for us is to help you get to the train station for your next destination.  Many of you will have plans to go on to other Italian cities at this point, and if we can be of any assistance in getting you there or getting you a place to stay, we will be.  Buon viaggio, e grazie!