Along the Ligurian Coast

The holiday as a whole was fantastic. In these thought conditions (with COVID-19) we still managed to have one of the best holidays of our lives. I will definitely recommend using Intravel and will do so in the future.

This was a really well constructed holiday, thank you to all at Inntravel who helped us with suggestions, working around flight cancellations and alterations. It became a fantastic two week holiday. 

We would recommend extra days in Montorossa and Portovenere to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. We also had two days in Pisa, using one of them to visit Florence. The add on at Camogli was also really enjoyable. 

The Ligurian Coast is beautiful, having never visited before we were amazed at how generations have developed this hilly area. We ate at many excellent restaurants. Travelling by train is easy and lets you enjoy the coastal scenery. 

We particularly enjoyed Cafe del Mar in Levanto - the meals were excellent, two of the best we have had in years! 

Tratorria da Iseo in Portovenere was really good for seafood.

As usual Inntravel did all the hard work for us and we just had to turn up and walk!

Thanks for making a holiday possible in the lottery of Covid regulations. At short notice you organised our trip, for a small premium organised our flights and rail travel, and we had the security that everything was covered by ATOL should lockdown or restrictions be imposed. You also showed flexibility when we wanted to extend either side of the walking holiday, and we booked our own apartments so we could cook rather than eat out every night. You made it happen for us, and it was wonderful.

We loved this holiday, the walking, scenery and accomodation. Apart rom 3 days in Portovenere, which we found too long, the stops were about right. We were fortunate that the crowds were less due to Covid. I am not sure how we would feel in 'normal' times - it is certainly very popular.

We thoroughly enjoyed our walking holiday to the Cinque Terre. The organised walks were excellent and we would never have seen as much as we did if it hadn't been for the professional and easy daily guided notes we had from Inntravel.  The hotels were clean and staff friendly. Portovenere was certainly our favourite with a spectacular view from our room especially waking up to that sunrise every morning. Don't hesitate to book this holiday. If you enjoy walking and don't mind a few hills here and there it was certainly worth the climb , the views are breathtaking!

personal highlight was walk from Monterosso to Vernazza and the sea swims. Sorry I hadn’t taken 2 swimsuits!

A hugely enjoyable holiday. Lovely countryside, good walks and comfortable accommodation.

Too many personal highlights to single one out! It was all very good and really enjoyable. In fact our third Inntravel holiday has more than met our expectations yet again!

All the walks had highlights of their own.  We did not do the last walk in Portovenere as it looked difficult.  With hindsight we should have bought some walking shoes.  Not much occupational health and safety on these walks, but I think that is just Italy.  Australia is a bit of a nanny state, so there was quite a marked difference!

We loved this holiday - one of the best we have had with Inntravel.  The scenery is spectacular and the villages, although touristy and crowded, are pure picture-book material.  We were pleased we chose to do the add-on in Camogli, from which we had a lovely walk over to Portofino.  The various options of walking or using trains or ferries to get back to base offered a nice variety - you can get great photos from the ferries.

In Levanto we can confirm that La Loggia is extremely good, and would advise getting there early if you want a table outside.

For really good aperitivi, we can recommend Controventro in Levanto.

In Monterosso, L'Ancora della Tortuga is excellent, but you must book ahead, probably before you arrive in the town.

In Portovenere, we would recommend La Marina, and also Trattoria Tre Torre which is excellent and where we enjoyed the best meal of the holiday.

In contrast, Pizzeria Il Timone in Portovenere was very disappointing, but this was the exception - generally the food throughout the week was really good.

Incredibly well organised and enjoyable holiday. Walks slightly steeper than we imagined. Think amount of climbing and descent could be emphasised. We thought the description of parts of the walk between Monterosso and Portovenere as “vertiginous “ was excessive. It was less vertiginous than the path through the vines between Valestra and Corniglia, and caused unnecessary anxiety. The paths is more difficult, but that is due to the fact that it’s very uneven in places and required some scrambling. It is not vertiginous!

We particularly enjoyed restaurants Ely, Osteria and Le Marina in Monterosso. Restaurant Oasis in Levanto was superb. More expensive, but the best in town according to hotel owner. In Portovenere, Le Bocche, at the entrance to the harbour was perhaps the best restaurant of our trip. Couldn’t fault it. Ristauranti Galileo in Pisa [city add-on] was recommended by hotel. A must. Totally authentic, no tourists other than us. Immaculate surroundings, great food & wine.

I would grade the walks as 2/3, but we have come to realise that age is catching up with us and that we are not as capable of arduous treks as we once were, and note that some of the coastal paths are still closed with little prospect of reopening. Travel by boat is very easy but, just as the towns, very crowded even this early in the season.

Whilst the walking was neither too difficult nor outside our expectations, it can be slightly vertiginous in places. Additionally the weather was ideal for walking but wet at times. This meant that some of the descents were slippery and tricky. We were definitely glad to have our walking poles with us.

All the hotels were super, with crisp white bed linen and modern bathrooms. All staff were very friendly and helpful. The locations of the hotels were perfect as they were in lively and pretty towns, but not in the overcrowded main tourist areas. Hotel La Colonnina in Monterosso exceeded our expectations for a three star hotel. The roof terrace was delightful where we really enjoyed drinks with lovely views at the end of each day.

The high routes along the coast were really interesting, often through terraced vineyards and quiet lanes, with fantastic views. The Palmaria island ferry service between mid Sep and mid June is very limited (approx every 3 hours).

This is a wonderful trip. Not a much of it involves walking along the Cinque Terre coastal routes and this is good for two reasons. Firstly, they are very busy, even in early May, and secondly, parts are closed. In the first week of May, only the path between Monterosso and Venazza could be walked, but this can change regularly. However, the whole trip is based on varied and interesting paths, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

This was a fabulous holiday and I was very impressed with the quality, organisation and overall management by Inntravel, so much so I would be very happy to recommend and use again.

My sister and I loved the fact it was self-guided as we hate group walking and it really is very private and can be done at your own pace, which is a real bonus. There is no fixed time to have bags ready for onward transport to the next hotel and we were able to have a leisurely start to each morning with breakfast which was much needed after the walking efforts of the day before.

Having the freedom to plan our own dinners too and explore the little villages where we stayed was also very special (and the few restaurant recommendations were also much appreciated).

Full credit to Inntravel for the choice of hotels and the plan for the week's walking which gave us the challenge of the Cinque Terre terrain, aspects both in land and coastal, some breathtaking views, the beautiful villages viewed from different perspectives and only one day of rain!

I will not forget the first glimpse of the Cinque Terre coast as we walked from Levanto to Monterosso. It was breathtaking looking at these 5 colourful villages dotted along the edge of the vivid blue ocean. We enjoyed walking along tracks as suggested in the notes that took us away from the main pedestrian tracks through each village. This region is heavily overrun with tourists...even in April.The day we walked through the terraced vineyards was a stand out. Clambering up and down rocks along the sometimes narrow path between Riomaggiore and Portovenere was worth the effort. Again,we were rewarded with magnificent views of the coastline, plus a sense of achievement having negotiated successfully this pathway. Rather than rushing through each walk, we took our time to also relax at various points along the way. The walking notes were very detailed, and enabled us to plan each day to suit us. The food in this region is very tasty, and we appreciated the information in our notes about the local cuisine and suggested restaurants. We had an extra night in Monterosso, which enabled us to have an additional day to enjoy this area. As it turned out, we had one day while here where it was raining, and the extra night meant that we didn't miss any of the suggested walks. Levanto was a lovely village too. If we had time, we felt an extra night here would have been worth it as well.