Cinque Terre and the Gulf of Poets

In the Ligurian Levant, squeezed between the mountains and the sea, the Cinque Terre ( Monterosso , Vernazza , Corniglia , Manarola and Rio Maggiore ) and the Gulf of poets have always attracted tourists and legends: it is said, in fact, that God himself created this corner of paradise with five boulders thrown in bulk in the aftermath of the creation of the world, but not only that, even Hercules seems to have passed through here, and to have clashed with the strong character of the inhabitants of these rugged and magnificent places.

Leaving aside the mythology, it is certain that these legendary places have attracted the poetry of authors such as Eugenio Montale who, to the land where he spent his holidays with his family as a boy, dedicated the collection Ossi di Seppia , and many others during centuries, from Virgil to Petrarch , from Lord Byron to the French writer George Sand , who have contributed to giving the poetic name to the gulf that reaches La Spezia from Portovenere .