Le Cinque Terre
The Cinque Terre are one of the attractive site of the Ligurian coast.
They arise on a hill territory, in hundreds of years mankind modified these places and built more than 6000 km of drywalls, by building terraces for cultivation that descend to the sea with strong slopes. These terraces are cultivated with vineyards that produces a unique wine as the place from which arise.
The best way to discover Cinque Terre is to walk along the natural paths or by railways. Starting from La Spezia the villages to visit are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. With the steep cliffs over the sea, the typical houses, villages and sanctuaries, paths come from the coastal and goes inland to other characteristic villages.
The Cinque Terre are listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site and today are National Park and Sea Protected Area with the goal of preservation of cultural and local tradition and valorization of biological resources.
Portovenere
The village of Portovenere offer a unique landscape with his steep cliffs over the sea with caves, ccreeks and vegetation that change colour in every season.
The beautiful sea is the perfect frame for the village of Portovenere, the water sometimes quiet and transparent reflects the sunrays on the rocks of the Gulf of the Poets, sometimes furious he hits the cliff under the St. Peter Church.
The west coast of Poets's Gulf stretches along the sea with three little islands: Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto of which only the Palmaria Isle, that is in front of Portovenere, is inhabited
Lerici
The village of Lerici is located on the far east of La Spezia's Gulf. It's one of the most beautiful creek of the east side of Poet's Gulf, due to his beauty it's called the Pearl of the Gulf. It was the choosen residence of the English Romantic Poets and also nowadays the home of many contemporary literates.
After La Spezia, Lerici is the most important place of Poets's Gulf, a city rich of historical monuments and turistic facilities. From Lerici it's possible to reach in few minutes the archeological sites of Luni, the Marble caves of Carrara and the pretty city of Sarzana. Few meters away from Lerici there are other creeks of striking beauty like San Terenzo, Fiascherino and Tellaro.
La Spezia
La Spezia is locate ad the far east of Ligurian territory at few kilometers from the border with Tuscany in the middle of a deep natural gulf that for his beauty has been the goal of many important poets and therefore referred to as the Gulf of Poets.
His own shape, sheltered from the storm and from enemy attacks, has guaranteed to La Spezia to being the choice for the building of one of the greatest Military Arsenals of Italy. In years it also develop itself as a major commercial port of Mediterranean sea.
The Military Arsenal, contains the Naval Museum moved there by Emanuele FIliberto in 1870 from Villafranca di Nizza, after that Nizza and Savoia became properties of France. The museum contains thousands of objects and memorabilia, ship models, figureheads, battle flags, underwater weapons, artillery, etc..