I Explored Italy’s Ligurian Coast on Foot

In Genoese dialect they’re referred to as crêuze—slim cobblestoned paths that cross the hillsides alongside Italy’s dazzling Ligurian coast. These centuries-old mule tracks have been initially utilized by farmers to move grapes, olives, and lemons grown on terraces minimize into the steep, mountainous panorama. Right this moment locals use the paths to stroll into city from the agricultural inside. As I found late final October, mountaineering them makes for a fascinating strategy to expertise the Portofino Peninsula, a rocky promontory about 15 miles east of Genoa.

Though it definitely sees its share of tourists—primarily to the fashionable city of Portofino—the peninsula tends to be overshadowed by the Cinque Terre, which I first visited after graduating from faculty in 1995 and returned to on my honeymoon just a few years later. At the moment, the 5 villages tucked improbably into cliffs above the ocean had barely registered on the vacationer radar. Since changing into a UNESCO World Heritage website in 1997, the area’s reputation has exploded—particularly throughout the summer time—and it has begun to sag beneath the strain. Crowds, many arriving by cruise ship, clog the cosy streets and queue to hike the once-tranquil trails, specifically the By way of dell’Amore, the coastal path connecting Riomaggiore and Manarola. After a landslide compelled its closure a dozen years in the past, the trail not too long ago reopened; reservations at the moment are required.

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However simply an hour’s drive north on this similar stretch of shoreline, often called the Riviera di Levante, labyrinthine crêuze recede into the luxurious quietude of the Parco Naturale Regionale di Portofino, a 2,610-acre swath of protected land, and hyperlink the cities of Rapallo, Santa Margherita Ligure, Portofino, and Camogli. There I discovered not solely respite from the fray but additionally a a lot much less impactful strategy to go to the world.

On the airport in Milan, sheets of rain fell from gunmetal skies. I slept off my jet lag on my two-hour automotive switch to the coast, waking simply previous Genoa to catch my first glimpse of the ocean. It churned and frothed like Neptune had an axe to grind—a far cry from the sun-kissed Italian autumn I’d hoped for.

My outlook improved once I pulled as much as the Grand Lodge Bristol Spa Resort (doubles from $353), in Rapallo. Petal-pink, with white wrought-iron balconies overlooking the ocean, the Liberty-style grande dame has been a Portofino coast landmark since 1904. The 80-room property was bought in 2009 by the R Assortment, a gaggle of 12 luxurious lodges owned by the Rocchi household, and has since been polished to five-star requirements. I settled in to the Silk Lounge Bar, the identify a nod to the city’s historical past within the textile trade, and devoured a bowl of trofie with recent pesto, a pasta dish lengthy synonymous with Liguria. Shiny and delicate, the sauce had the unmistakable fragrance of Genoese basil.

From my balcony late that afternoon, I spied a valiant ray of solar piercing the cloud cowl, casting a glow over Lungomare Vittorio Veneto, Rapallo’s waterfront promenade. The night passeggiata was below method. On benches beneath an enormous palm tree, a gaggle of older gents talked and gesticulated, umbrellas propped between their knees. Two nuns sporting matching cardigans strolled arm in arm as households walked their canine and kids darted between the fishing boats moored on the pebbly shore. I wandered the rain-washed streets, relishing the rhythm of day by day life in a small Italian city.

As night time fell, I ducked in to Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo (entrées $15–$33), the place I ate little pasta parcels referred to as pansotti in a creamy walnut sauce, adopted by a dish of potatoes topped with porcini mushrooms.

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I woke the subsequent morning to a sky so blue it felt like a miracle. I’d deliberate to hike from Camogli to San Fruttuoso Abbey, a Tenth-century Benedictine monastery set in a secluded cove, and return to Rapallo by ferry. However the Bristol’s concierge, Paola Arata, mentioned the seas have been too tough for the boat to run. Over breakfast—crusty bread with prosciutto and a white peach—I made a decision to trek from Santa Margherita Ligure to Portofino as an alternative.

Trains zip alongside the shoreline between Genoa and La Spezia a number of instances a day, making it easy to hop from one city to a different. From Rapallo it was a five-minute trip to Santa Margherita, the place I walked amongst Nineteenth-century buildings washed in shades of rust and goldenrod, their façades embellished within the fanciful trompe l’oeil model standard all through the Italian Riviera. The fake balustrades, pilasters, and window frames have been so artfully painted I usually couldn’t distinguish phantasm from actuality.

On a facet avenue just a few steps from the city’s port, I discovered the footpath to Portofino. Cement stairs shortly gave strategy to a cobblestoned mule monitor that led via groves of chestnut and holm oak. Excessive stone partitions cloaked in vines sequestered villas surrounded by olive timber, nets unfold out from their trunks to catch late-harvest fruit. At a crossroads within the hamlet of Gave, I crammed my water bottle from a spigot beside a small yellow chapel and spied glimmers of azure sea via the thick, pine-scented woods. The path deposited me in Paraggi, a tiny village the place, in summer time, well-heeled bathers bask at seashore golf equipment ringing a cerulean cove. I traced the coastal street till Portofino appeared, a jewel field of pastel palazzos balanced on the sting of the ocean.

Within the spring of 2023, Portofino’s beguiling city sq. was designated a “no-waiting zone” to stop the lots from creating what the mayor referred to as “anarchic chaos.” On this autumn Saturday, I discovered it delightfully uncrowded. I bypassed Dior and Ferragamo in favor of a waterside desk at Ristorante Lo Stella (entrées $31–$46). Over a chilly glass of Vermentino from the Cinque Terre and a bowl of completely al dente spaghetti heaped with briny little clams, I toasted my efforts, lifting my ft sometimes when the ocean rose up and washed over the cobblestones.

The subsequent day, roiling surf once more foiled my plans to go to San Fruttuoso. Thankfully, the park’s 50 miles of trails offered loads of alternate options. This time I took the prepare to Camogli, a fishing village on the peninsula’s westernmost edge. Legend has it that Camogli’s multicolored homes as soon as served as beacons for fishermen coming back from the ocean. One other story says that the city’s identify derives from case delle mogli—homes of the wives—for the ladies these fishermen left behind.

An almost vertical staircase dropped down from the station to By way of Garibaldi, the pedestrian esplanade that arcs above Camogli’s pebbled seashore. Retailers lined the walkway, doorways thrown open to the salt-tinged breeze. At Revello Focacceria & Pasticceria I watched as bakers spooned dollops of creamy stracchino cheese onto sheets of dough, so skinny they seemed translucent, to make focaccia di Recco col formaggio, a regional specialty. As I savored my piece, crisp, golden, and effervescent, on a bench by the ocean, I chatted with a younger lady from Milan, who’d additionally come by prepare to discover Camogli’s coastal trails. She’d realized in regards to the park from associates, she informed me. After I talked about that I used to be from New York, she expressed shock. “A lot of Italians don’t even know in regards to the mountaineering right here,” she mentioned.

Duly fortified, I headed into the park, scaling a whole lot of steps that climbed between mossy stone partitions towards the hamlet of San Rocco. There I emerged into a wonderful, half-moon-shaped piazza the place towering umbrella pines framed a panoramic view of the aptly named Golfo Paradiso. At Dai Muagetti—which in Ligurian dialect means “within the small partitions”—I paused for a macchiato. The tiny bar occupies a grotto carved into the cliff by San Rocco residents for defense from bombing throughout World Struggle II. Far under, waves lashed Punta Chiappa, a rugged promontory that stretches from the bottom of Monte di Portofino into the ocean.

From San Rocco, the path meandered previous a cluster of tidy homes, their gardens aromatic with rosemary and citrus, earlier than plunging into the forest. I adopted the trail to La Batteria, a protection complicated constructed by the Italian Royal Military in 1941 to safeguard the Gulf of Genoa. Cloistered inside the dense Mediterranean scrub lay crumbling remnants of bunkers and barracks.

A signpost between swaths of gorse and wild thyme marked the rugged descent to Punta Chiappa. Gripping a series handrail, I switchbacked towards the sound of the ocean. Till then I’d encountered only a few others on the paths, however at Punta Chiappa a smattering of individuals strolled the rocky spur—together with my Milanese pal, who smiled and waved as I handed. 

About midway out, a blinding mosaic depicted Stella Maris, or “Star of the Sea”—the title given to the Madonna by sailors and fishermen. Excessive within the hills stands a villa turned lodge named for her, the place Lord Byron allegedly penned a part of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The phrases rang true: “There’s a pleasure in the pathless woods / There’s a rapture on the lonely shore / There’s society the place none intrudes / By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.” 

A model of this story first appeared within the April 2025 subject of Journey + Leisure below the headline “The Inside Monitor.”