Corniglia

Corniglia is the only village that does not meet the sea. It sits a hundred metres up on a rocky promontory, reached from the station by the Lardarina: a zig-zag of 382 steps in thirty-three flights. Its name is Roman, from the Cornelia family who once held this land.

Ringed by terraced vineyards, Corniglia feels more like a hill town than a coastal one — low, wide houses, narrow lanes, and the Gothic-Baroque church of San Pietro at its heart. The fewest people live here, and that is its gift: stillness.

Corniglia is the village you sail past rather than into — the only one of the Cinque Terre without a harbour. That makes the boat the best seat there is: from the water you see what walkers never can, the whole promontory at once, vineyards falling away on both sides. Those vines were famous enough in the 1300s for Boccaccio to praise the wine of Corniglia in the Decameron.