Cinque Terre, some steps of the Monesteroli Steps landslide: closed

Easterbitter for hikers who were planning a walk on the Grand Staircase in Monesteroli (La Spezia) on Easter Monday: Saturday it was in fact transennaded because 5 stone steps part of the steep path, overlooking the sea, collapsed, and after the inspection of the Cinque Terre Park technicians and the Fire Department, noting the erosion under the stones at that point, it was decided to close it as a precautionary measure by closing to pedestrian transit the section of trail 536 from the junction with trail no. 535. After the investigations that will be made to restore that point, a decision will be made to reopen the stairway, which, we recall, had undergone a major rehabilitation last summer.

The Monesteroli staircase is one of the most famous routes in the Cinque Terre, in the notebook of every trekking lover, included in the Unesco heritage area and among the Fai’s Places of the Heart, has long been the focus of attention because of its fragility, also in relation to the ever-increasing number of visitors that could undermine its integrity. On the other hand, the more than 1,200 stone steps offer a unique naturalistic spectacle.

The staircase-monument of the Cinque terre was made, by hand, by the peasants of the small village of Monesteroli to get to the vines on the terraces of the hill, and so they walked down and up those stairs - without railings - for 400 meters in height difference and one kilometer in length (in the steep territory of Tramonti, a steep path on a sharp ridge), several times a day even with so much weight on their shoulders. It would be unthinkable today; it is a monument to the toil of the working man.

The small village today is uninhabited but in summer it is populated with tourists ready to enjoy the view of the blue sea. It is the eternal dilemma between protecting and living a place that we find ourselves a dowry from those who came before us. Just on Easter Day, the mayor of Riomaggiore Fabrizia Pecunia returned to call for a ’special law’ to control tourist flows that threaten to collapse the Cinque Terre and the entire coastal strip of Liguria, which is extremely fragile in its natural ecosystem and landscape.

Image: the Monesteroli Steps. Photo: Naioli/Wikimedia Commons.

Cinque Terre, some steps of the Monesteroli Steps landslide: closed

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