Why is Riomaggiore famous?

Known for its colorful stone houses that seem stacked on top of one another and its harbor filled with traditional fishing boats, Riomaggiore is part of the string of five villages that make up the Cinque Terre, a UNESCO Heritage Site. It's also one of Italy's most sought-after travel destinations.



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Vernazza: Located to the north of the Cinque Terre, Vernazza is probably the most beautiful and picturesque fishing village of Cinque Terre, where its colourful houses hang above the sea level on rugged cliffs. It has a charming natural port and an old castle, built to protect the area from pirates.

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Shopping and prices The Cinque Terre is not cheap. As everywhere in the world, tourism has raised prices. I often go to the market of La Spezia to shop for food, it's much cheaper than the stores of the villages. In restaurants, you have to expect Western European prices.

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How to Get to Riomaggiore. Situated at the southernmost point of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore can be reached by train from either La Spezia or Levanto. From La Spezia, take the local train (treno regionale) in the direction of Sestri Levante and get off at the first stop.

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Vernazza was founded about 1000 A.D. and was ruled by the Republic of Genoa starting in 1276. The medieval castle, Belforte, was built in the mid-1500's, primarily to protect the village from pirates. An ideal way to arrive to this breathtaking village is by sea.

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Riomaggiore is a climb in the region Liguria. It is 1.7km long and bridges 113 vertical meters with an average gradient of 6.6%, resulting in a difficulty score of 80.

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You can walk the entire route in about six hours, if you take short breaks—although many hikers prefer to spread the route out over a few days at a strolling pace, stopping to enjoy the towns along the way. You can start from either direction (Monterosso, heading south, or Riomaggiore, heading north).

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Corniglia is the only one of the five Cinque Terre towns that isn't a fishing town and you need to walk up around 365 steps to get there. That puts most people off and means that Corniglia is the Cinque Terre town with the fewest tourists.

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The resident population of the five towns (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manorola, and Riomaggiore) is just four thousand — but it's estimated that some 2.5 million travelers visit annually. And it's not just foreign tourists who flock here: Italians love the Cinque Terre too.

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Two to three days would allow you to enjoy its beaches and discover the culture via a cooking class. And with four to five days, you could get to know every inch of Cinque Terre on boat trips, hikes of the surrounding mountains, and even make an extra trip to historic Genoa.

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