Cinque Terre, after eleven years of closure the Via dell'Amore will reopen in 2023

The reopening of the Via dell’Amore, the marvelous path overlooking the sea that connects Riomaggiore and Manarola (the first two of the Cinque Terre), in one of the most beautiful landscape areas in Italy and the world, capable of attracting thousands of tourists from every corner of the globe every year, is scheduled for 2023. The Via dell’Amore has been closed since 2012 due to a landslide, and a short section has been reopened since 2015, but for seven years visitors coming to this corner of eastern Liguria have been unable to cross the entire path.

The project for the reopening is worth twelve million euros, which will be covered by regional funds, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of the Environment: the feasibility project for the reopening (financed with Civil Defense funds) has been presented in the region. The construction site will require twenty-eight months of work. The package of interventions also includes the extension of another 80 meters of the tunnel where the collapse occurred that led to the closure, and then there will also be safety work involving the walls that loom over the path. This will be a construction site that is far from easy, since the area is impervious: consider that the materials will be transported from the ridge of the promontory to the path via a cable car that will be specially built.

“The Via dell’Amore,” said the governor of Liguria, Giovanni Toti, “is a symbol on which the money of all Ligurians is invested, and it is unacceptable that one of the symbols of the territory known throughout the world was no longer accessible. Important was the work of synergy between institutions.” The president of the Cinque Terre National Park, Donatella Bianchi, said that “it is a challenge for us as the Morandi bridge was for this region, a reopening awaited by the whole world.” Satisfaction also came from the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Dario Franceschini: “another fundamental step for the reopening of the Via dell’Amore and the full return of this national monument to the communities of Riomaggiore and Manarola and to the many travelers who until the landslide of 2012 walked along this evocative path, the result of the centuries-old interaction between man and nature. The full harmony between the municipalities, the Ministries of Environment and Culture, the Region and the Cinque Terre National Park allowed this first, important result. Now an intense period of work awaits us to arrive at the executive project and the implementation of the complex works necessary to reopen the trail. The maximum collaboration of all the institutions involved is the key to conduct this work in the best possible way.”

The Via dell’Amore will thus be able to be opened again for its full length after an 11-year stop. The mode of access will not change: to walk the Via dell’Amore one must pay a ticket, the proceeds of which go to the National Park. The name of the path derives from the fact that, shortly after its opening between the 1920s and 1930s (initially it was a network of paths created to deposit construction material for the La Spezia-Genoa railway, and shortly afterwards they were all united into a road capable of connecting Riomaggiore and Manarola), it became a frequent destination for couples in love, given the romanticism that its views inspire. It is currently the smoothest and easiest stretch (in fact, it is covered by a comfortable paved road) of the entire so-called “Blue Trail,” which crosses all of the Cinque Terre.

In the photo: a section of the Via dell’Amore. Ph. Credit

Cinque Terre, after eleven years of closure the Via dell'Amore will reopen in 2023

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