Cinque
Terre’s Path of Love reopens with charges to ease Insta-tourism
Visitors
will need to pay up to €15 to stroll – and take photos – along romantic
900-metre walkway in Liguria, Italy
Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Sat 27 Jul 2024 09.00 CEST
Stifling though the crowds of tourists can be at the height
of summer, a hint of love is in the air across the five villages of Italy’s
Cinque Terre as a Ligurian riviera coastal path famed as a meeting point for
courting couples reopens after an almost 12-year closure.
Sculpted into the steep cliffs wedged between the villages
of Riomaggiore and Manarola, the Via dell’Amore (Path of Love) had been closed
since being damaged by a September 2012 landslide that injured four Australian
tourists.
It reopens to residents on Saturday, and to tourists from 9
August.
The paved path is only about 900 metres long, but with its
breathtaking views of the rugged coast, it is perhaps the most popular of the
48 trails that run through the villages of the Cinque Terre, a Unesco world
heritage site.
The restoration works were a labour of love, too, costing
€22m and involving building a system of steel harnesses and netting to secure
the rocks above and below the path.
“The reopening has been eagerly awaited by everyone here,”
said Fabrizia Pecunia, the mayor of Riomaggiore and Manarola. “The path has
always represented a landmark for us. There is a feeling of great satisfaction
after all the hard work.”
Pecunia concedes, however, that in the lead-up to the
reopening there were concerns about the effects that the hyped-up image of
romanticism may have on a hotspot already struggling with overcrowding.
Before its closure, more than 850,000 visitors would stroll
along the path every year, with many carving their names or messages of love
into the cliff walls.
The ritual was tolerated, but that was back in 2011, before
the era of rampant Insta-tourism. The site attracted a record 4 million
visitors last year.
The newly restored Via dell’Amore comes with restrictions.
Not only will writing on the walls be banned, but visitors will need to pay to
walk along it, at least before 7pm. The path is accessible with the purchase of
a daily Cinque Terre card, paying a €10 supplement on top of the standard
€7.50, or €15 on peak days, which gives access to all footpaths. There will be
time-slotted guided tours with groups of no more than 10 people every 15
minutes.
Pecunia said the guides were intended to give walkers better
knowledge about the path and awareness about the wider Cinque Terre – which
also includes Monterosso, Vernazza and Corniglia – and its community.
Before the railway connecting the five villages was built in
1874, travelling from one to another involved steep mountain climbs. Few
ventured by boat, especially because the sea was the target of persistent
pirate attacks. This meant that the communities of the Cinque Terre had little
contact with each other.
The initial idea for Via dell’Amore had nothing to do with
love. During the blasting of a second train line in the 1920s, a rudimentary
path was made to allow labourers to carry materials as well as create a
warehouse used to store gunpowder.
But then the determined residents of Riomaggiore and
Manarola saw an opportunity for the path to be extended between the two towns,
and came together to build it, many of them working for free. Pecunia’s
grandfather was among them. They called it Strada Nuova (New Road).
The path was closed off during the second world war, but
after reopening it became established as a meeting point for lovers from the
two villages.
It was renamed Via dell’Amore after someone wrote the words,
with chalk, on the door of what was the gunpowder warehouse. The writing was
spotted by Paolo Monelli, a journalist with Corriere della Sera holidaying in
Cinque Terre, who in an article urged local authorities to rename the path.
“Via dell’Amore was built by our ancestors to connect the
two communities,” said Pecunia. “It was an enormous feat, and so for us
represents the strength and determination of the people here.”
The Ligurian regional authorities and the Italian tourist
board were keen to make the most of the romanticism in their publicity
campaign, placing at the path’s entrance a placard depicting Venus, the Roman
goddess of love, as an influencer. But a proposal to host a “longest kiss”
competition was flatly rejected by Pecunia, who feared it could trigger even
bigger surge in the numbers of tourist only there to curate their social media
profiles.
“Over my dead body,” she said. “Via dell’Amore is a
beautiful spot but we are working with the national park to give it a more
authentic image and are sure that in the future we’ll manage to market it in a
way that creates better awareness.”
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