By Ines Keane
Most pictures show five colourful villages. The land around them is the bigger story, and it is held up by hand-built stone walls.
Where it is
The five villages are Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, according to the Italian Ministry of Culture’s UNESCO page. They sit on the Ligurian coast. The Italian Ministry of Culture’s UNESCO page says the listed property covers about 15 kilometres of the eastern Ligurian coast between Levanto and La Spezia, running from Punta Mesco in the west to Punta Persico in the east. It also takes in Portovenere and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto.
UNESCO’s page gives the 1997 inscription and records a minor boundary modification in 2021.
What UNESCO says
The listing describes a cultural landscape shaped over about a thousand years. Steep ground was developed with stone-walled terraces for vines and olive trees, and UNESCO says most were built in the 12th century. The ministry page adds that the terraces climb from a few metres above sea level to about 400 metres, “the highest altitude suitable for cultivation”, that some run up to 2 kilometres long, and that the walls use rough sandstone blocks bonded with pebbles taken from the ground. Small stone huts scattered over the slopes gave temporary shelter at harvest.
The same page says the area was nearly cut off except by sea until the Genoa to La Spezia railway opened in the 1870s.
The villages, one line each
The ministry page gives a short sketch of each. Monterosso al Mare is a fortified centre along two short valleys, facing one of the few beaches. Vernazza is built along a stream on a rocky spur that shields it from the sea. Corniglia is the only village not on the coast itself, on a high promontory. Manarola sits partly on a spur and partly along a stream. Riomaggiore lines a narrow valley, and its stream is now covered and serves as the main street.
Side by side: how much wall, how much land
Two sources give figures, and they do not describe the same thing.
- Atlas Obscura, a magazine, says the terraced plots peaked in the 19th century at nearly 4,000 acres.
- A conference paper on the park landscape, published on the Europarc site, gives about 1,800 hectares of productive vineyard in the period 1800 to 1900, 1,200 in 1973, 110 in 1999, 82 in 2005 and under 90 in 2017.
Our reading: 4,000 acres is about 1,620 hectares, so the two sources are in the same range for the peak, but one counts terraced plots and the other counts vineyard. We have not made them match.
Dates in order
- 12th century: most terraces built, according to UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture.
- 1870s: Genoa to La Spezia railway opens, according to the Ministry of Culture.
- 1997: UNESCO inscription.
What kind of sources these are
UNESCO (the listing body) and the Italian Ministry of Culture’s UNESCO site (government).
What we left out
Opening hours, trail passes, crowd levels and transport timetables, which change. Local food and drink, which we did not read deeply enough to report. Names of private individuals.
Quick answers
When was the Cinque Terre listed by UNESCO? In 1997, according to UNESCO.
When were the terraces built? UNESCO says most were built in the 12th century, on a landscape shaped over about a thousand years.
Which village is not on the coast? Corniglia, according to the Ministry of Culture’s UNESCO page; it sits on a high promontory.
Related on this site: marrone-del-mugello-igp-chestnut-harvest, castelluccio-lentil-igp-flowering-plain, calangianus-cork-sardinia-museum
Roam first. Shop later.