North-Western Italy, Eastern Ligurian Riviera – Province of La Spezia, Liguria Region
The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The layout and disposition of the small towns and the shaping of the surrounding landscape, overcoming the disadvantages of a steep, uneven terrain, encapsulate the continuous history of human settlement in this region over the past millennium.
In 1997 the Cinque Terre, Portovenere and its small archipelago, were included into the list of the UNESCO’s World’s cultural and natural heritage as «cultural area of exceptional value, which represents the harmonious interaction between man and nature, to whom and to which we owe a landscape of extraordinary quality and beauty that shows a traditional lifestyle, preserved for millennia».
The area covers some 15 km along the extreme eastern end of the Ligurian coast, between Levanto and La Spezia. It is a very jagged, steep coastline, which the work of man over the millennia has transformed into an intensively terraced landscape so as to be able to wrest from nature a few hectares of land suitable for agriculture, such as growing vines and olive trees.
The human communities have adapted themselves to this seemingly rough and inhospitable nature by building compact settlements directly on the rock, with winding streets. The general use of natural stone for rooting gives these settlements a characteristic appearance. They are generally grouped round religious buildings or medieval castles.
The five villages of Cinque Terre date back to the later Middle Ages. The cultivation terraces that typify much of the Cinque Terre landscape were mainly built in the 12th century, when Saracen raids from the sea had come to an end.
Portovenere is an important cultural centre. The town is a Roman foundation, Portus Veneris. It was occupied by the Genoese in 1113. It is compact in form, giving the appearance of a fortified town, culminating in the Doria castle (early 12th-16th centuries), which dominates the settlement and is an historical palimpsest, with many traces of its medieval predecessor.
Off the coast at Portovenere are the three islands of Palmaria, Tine, and Tinetto, which are noteworthy not only for their natural beauty but also for the many remains of early monastic establishments that they contain. Palmaria and Tino have a strategic military function because of their proximity to the NATO base at La Spezia across the gulf of the same name. Because of the restricted access (Tine may only be visited once a year) their natural environments are especially well protected.
One final point should be noted. This landscape has attracted many writers and musicians, among them the English Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the French novelist George Sand, and the German composer Richard Wagner, as well as Italian artists and writers.
The area was almost inaccessible, except by sea, until the Genoa-La Spezia railway was built in the 1870s passing through all the villages and Portovenere. This coincided with the building of the Arsenal at La Spezia, which provided alternative employment for the local people. From this time onwards there was a gradual change in the socio-economic basis of life in the Cinque Terre and Portovenere.
Source Unesco Website
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