Manarola Vineyards

Walk twenty minutes up from the church and you're in the terraced vineyards that have been the village's economic backbone since the Middle Ages. Vines climb the hillside on dry-stone walls (muretti a secco) that step down to the sea — grown thick with sangiovese, vermentino, and the small, prized bosco grapes used for Sciacchetrà.

Try the loop trail that runs up past the cemetery, around the back of the hill, and down through the vines to Volastra: about an hour, almost no shade, with the best views over Manarola coming from the upper switchbacks. There are no cafés or fountains along the way — bring a bottle of water and a hat.

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The dry-stone walls that hold up the Cinque Terre vineyards add up to roughly 7,000 km — more, by length, than the Great Wall of China. They were built by hand over a thousand years, mostly by Ligurian peasants moving stones one terrace at a time. UNESCO listed the cultural landscape in 1997, partly to slow the gradual abandonment of the terraces.

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