How to Hike from Monterosso to Corniglia on the Sentiero Azzurro

On the coast of Liguria — a crescent-shaped region in the northwest of Italy — lies a string of five exceptionally charming fishing villages.

This is Cinque Terre: the “Five Lands.”

Many visitors to Cinque Terre travel between the towns by trains, which are frequent and easy. But there is another option: hiking along the coast.

There are several hiking trails throughout Cinque Terre, but the best and most accessible option is the Sentiero Azzurro — the “Blue Path.”

Due to damage caused by landslides, portions of the Sentiero Azzurro are currently closed for restoration work. But you can still walk from Monterosso al Mare to Vernazza to Corniglia, or vice versa. It’s a wonderful hike, full of spectacular coastal views and the vibrant colors of the villages.

This is what to know about hiking the Sentiero Azzurro.

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Know Before You Go

TIP: This map contains the locations and hiking route discussed in this blog post. To save it to your own Google Maps account, click the star next to the map’s name. You can then find and use the map from your Google Maps app by going to “Saved,” then “Maps.”

Cinque Terre Trekking Card

Warning: it is not free to hike the Sentiero Azzuro.

In order to access the trail, you will need to purchase a Cinque Terre Trekking Card. This card costs €7.50 on most days, or €15.00 on certain peak days (marked in red here). You can also purchase a two-day or three-day Trekking Card if you plan to split up your journey over multiple days.

Alternatively, you can purchase a Cinque Terre Train Card, which gives you unlimited train journeys in Cinque Terre for 1, 2, or 3 days. This card also includes access to the hiking trails and doubles as a Trekking Card.

Throughout the trail are manned checkpoints where you will be required to show your Trekking Card or Train Card.

What about hiking the whole way to Riomaggiore?

The trail I describe in this post will get you from Monterosso to Vernezza to Corniglia (or vice versa).

But what if you’d also like to keep walking from Corniglia on to Manarola and Riomaggiore?

If so, you can — but there are some major caveats. This is because the sections of the Sentiero Azzurro between Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore have been closed for years due to damage from landslides.

Wonderfully, in August 2024, the Sentiero Azzurro reopened between Manarola and Riomaggiore. This section of the trail is called the Via dell’Amore (the Way of Love). Unlike the trail between Monterosso and Corniglia, the Via dell’Amore is a flat, easy walking path along the sea. However, walking the Via dell’Amore requires a reservation, which you can make online here or in person at various Info Points through Cinque Terre. There is an extra cost of €10 on top of your Trekking Card or Train Card.

Additionally, the Via dell’Amore is currently a one-way trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola. So, if you have your heart set on walking the whole way between Monterosso and Riomaggiore, you’ll either need to walk south to north — from Riomaggiore to Monterosso — or take a train from Manarola to Riomaggiore and then walk back to Manarola on the Via dell’Amore. (Or, you can skip the Via dell’Amore and hike an alternative, difficult high trail over the mountains.)

Here’s the final caveat: the Sentiero Azzurro is still closed between Corniglia and Manarola. There is an alternative high trail through the mountains and the town of Volastra, but be warned that it’s much more difficult than the Sentiero Azzurro.

So, to summarize, here is the current state of the Sentiero Azzurro:

• Monterosso to Vernazza: open
• Vernazza to Corniglia: open
• Corniglia to Manarola: closed
  • Alternative high trail available
• Manarola to Riomaggiore: open
  • Reservations required!
  • Costs €10
  • Can only walk north, from Riomaggiore to Manarola
  • Alternative high trail also available

You can find more information on the status of each of the trail options here.

How to Hike from Monterosso to Corniglia

This is how to hike from Monterosso to Corniglia on the Sentiero Azzurro.

Getting to Monterosso

If you are not staying overnight in Monterosso al Mare, the first step for hiking the Sentiero Azzurro is to take the train to Monterosso.

Trains in the Cinque Terre run regularly and quickly. During the warmer months, trains run every 20 minutes.

And, because the towns in Cinque Terre are so close together, train journeys are very short. Trains between Riomaggiore and Monterosso, the farthest of the towns, take only 15 minutes or so.

If you are hiking in the summer, I recommend starting your day relatively early in order to beat the heat.

Entering the Sentiero Azzurro

Once you arrive in Monterosso, go to the right out of the train station if you’d like to get a better look at the beach, which is filled with brightly colored umbrellas in the warm months.

Otherwise, take a left out of the train station and begin to follow the road along the beach. As it begins to rise up the hill, you will encounter the trailhead here, beside the entrance to Hotel Porto Roca.

The first trail permit checkpoint comes about 5 minutes into the trail. Be sure you have your Trekking Card or Train Card with you!

Hiking to Vernazza

Leaving Monterosso, the trail steadily climbs up a hill beside the sea. There are many, many stairs, and they are often steep.

Be sure to look behind you often — there are a lot of really wonderful views of Monterosso as you climb up the hillside, but they’re generally to your back so you’ll need to look for them.

About 1.3 miles into the trail, you will get your first decent glimpse of Vernazza ahead of you.

The most famous views of Vernazza, though, are found as you begin to descend toward the town. You get a wonderful look at the colorful buildings of Vernazza, plus Doria Tower perched above the town and the bright blue cove where people swim, fish, and park their boats.

The trail between Monterosso and Vernazza is about 2.2 miles long. It took me nearly 90 minutes to walk, including lots of pauses for photos and water.

HIKING TIP: I love hiking with this collapsible water bottle. It’s incredibly lightweight and has a carabiner, so if I’m carrying a backpack, I can easily attach the water bottle to my bag for easy access while I’m walking. Plus, it rolls up into almost nothing when it’s empty.

Exploring Vernazza

I recommend giving yourself some time to explore Vernazza before continuing on to Corniglia.

The cove is my favorite part of Vernazza — it’s a wonderfully picturesque place to people-watch.

If you’re up for more climbing, you can also pay €2 to access Doria Tower and get great views of Vernazza from a different overhead perspective.

I also stopped for lunch in Vernazza, paying a few euros for a decent sandwich from a shop near the train station, and eating it as I sat around the cove.

Hiking to Corniglia

When you’re ready to leave Vernazza, head toward the next section’s trailhead, which you’ll find here, just past the train station.

As you climb out of Vernazza, you’ll get more beautiful views of the town, cove, and tower from the other side — plus Monterosso in the distance. You’ll also encounter another trail permit checkpoint just a few minutes away from Vernazza.

Like the trail out of Monterosso, there’s a lot of climbing for the first part of the trail out of Vernazza.

Mercifully, though, about halfway through this section of the trail, you will reach Il Gabbiano — a cafe with bathrooms, cold drinks, snacks, and beautiful views of the coast and Corniglia in the distance. If there’s room, you can sit inside the cafe, but they also have an outdoor seating area above the trail.

Personally, I stopped for a frozen lemonade and it was hugely refreshing on a hot, sweaty day of hiking. I absolutely loved sitting with a cold drink while looking at Corniglia in front of me — it was exactly the break I needed.

Il Gabbiano marks the high point of the Sentiero Azzurro. From there, much of the trail to Corniglia goes downward.

The trail from Vernazza to Corniglia is a bit over 2 miles, and it took me 75 minutes.

Exploring Corniglia

To get into Corniglia from the Sentiero Azzurro, take the path across the street from the checkpoint.

Corniglia is the only one of the five main towns in Cinque Terre that’s fully perched high above the sea. In my opinion, it’s less picturesque than Riomaggiore, Manarola, or Vernazza, but in exchange, it’s more cozy and feels less touristy. I grabbed an ice cream cone and walked around, just soaking up the vibes of the town.

I also found this panoramic viewpoint, where you can look south toward Manarola and Riomaggiore beyond it.

Returning to Your Home Base

If you’re not staying overnight in Corniglia, you’ll need to take the train back to your home base.

For better or worse, the Corniglia train station is located well below the town, so you’ll need to walk down a long, zigzagging staircase with more than 400 steps. (There’s also a shuttle bus connecting the train station to the town.)

Hopefully you’ll have better luck at Corniglia’s train station than I did — I just barely missed a train but thought it was no big deal, since the next one would come by in 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, before the next train arrived, there was an accident elsewhere on the train line and the Cinque Terre trains stopped running entirely. Madness ensued: the station was so full of visitors that I could barely move, and none of the station employees could tell us when the trains would restart. Since this problem was affecting all of Cinque Terre, every taxi in the area was booked up for several hours, and I had no other way to return to Riomaggiore other than hiking for several hours on the difficult alternative trails through the mountains — and it was already the late afternoon.

If I had been in any of the other Cinque Terre towns, I would have been happy to walk back into town and hang out while the problem was resolved. But I was in Corniglia, where I would need to walk up hundreds of steep steps in order to return to the town. No thank you!

Thankfully, after two very unpleasant hours in Corniglia’s train station, the trains started running again, and I was finally able to return to my home base in Riomaggiore.

Final Thoughts

HIking the Sentiero Azzurro is one of the very best things to do in Cinque Terre, and my top recommendation for anyone with at least one full day in Cinque Terre and the ability to climb lots of steps. The views can’t be beat, and it’s a wonderful way to experience most of Cinque Terre’s unique towns.

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