SP51 Cinque Terre: Monterosso a Mare(sh) - Manarolo
Riding along the Cinque Terre terrace road is one of the
great scenic experiences of the Italian Riviera coast. If
you consider all the various sideroads down to the cinque
coastal villages, there are enough climbing roads to keep
you busy for a long long time. You could also think of these
roads as approaches to summit points on the terrace road.
Most of these would be shoulder summits. I think you would
have to live here to ride all of these possibilities.
However - even just staying on the Cinque Terre terrace
road, the route conveniently divides itself into two summit
points. Coming from the north, first comes the lower summit
point, the approach starting in La Spezia. It crests, and
then descends to the turnoff to the first village, Manarolo.
From the turnoff the terrace road starts climbing again and
reaches a higher point - the one described here - before
descending again to the turnoff to Monterosso a Mare. The
profile includes the two descends to the villages at the
coast.
This more northerly part of the Cinque Terre (that is this
summit point) road is quieter, has less traffic and even
better cycling conditions than the southern part.
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1.(10m,00.0km)
START-END EAST: beach in Monterosso a Mare
2.(340m,05.6km) profile turns right onto Cinque Terre
road
3.(540m,5.5km) Foce de Termine, route stays right at
this intersection
4.(550m,9.7km) TOP: highest point of altitude
5.(470m,11.6km) earstern turnoff to Vernazza
6.(470m,17.0km) western turnoff to Vernazza and
Corniglia
7.(180m,23.6km) profile turns right, from Cinque Terre
road to Riomaggionr
8.(20m,24.9km) START-END WEST: Riomaggiore, western
side; the last part of this is a footpath
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Approaches
From West. (described upwards)
Before you can ride this upwards, you have to ride it downwards,
and it may be difficult to leave this small, artfully sculpted
beach with its monuments, natural and man made, its model like
railroad burrowing through the village like an earthworm. And
for some it may be hard to leave its restaurants. This last
point is, not from my own experience, but what I observed in
others.
This place is tiny. But I found it impossible to leave before I
had walked up to the castle tower on a protruding rock. This
rock acts like a rock curtain, separating the viewsheds for this
beach, from the other part of town, on the other side of the
mountain, and I just had to see what was over there.
But there is plenty to focus attention on this side too. Through
the middle of this beach in an amphitheater runs a railroad,
emerging out of the mountain on one side. Only a handful of
railroad cars ever see daylight at the same time, before
disappearing again in the tunnel on the opposite side. The
tracks along the beach run over a bridge, which doubles as a
building for tourist businesses. Automobiles have no place in
this scene. They had to be abandoned (parked) next to the road,
700ft above. On a bicycle you can ride into this magic little
space.
Now for the actual riding part, upwards - leaving Monterosso a
Mare up towards the Cinque Terra road. the first part is very
steep. But I didn't have time to really notice because I was
preoccupied stopping numerous times, to see how this magic beach
space looks from above. Even when you reach the part of the road
where the cars are allowed to move again, there really are only
very few. The road soon becomes regular width and passes through
two short tunnels before joining SP36. After a short distance
the profiled route stays right (it stays on the mediterranean
side), turning onto SP71. You need an altimeter to figure out
the actual summit point. But it is located soon after the
turnoff.

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From East (described downwards) Taking the next right
back down to the town Venazza still makes this same point the
highest point on the profile. Heading down towards Venazza there
are some nice birdseye views only a few hundred feet after the
turnoff. But I didn't actually see them until I climbed back up,
because -paradoxically- that's the direction they face, and
sometimes you have to watch the road too. Venazza seems to be a
quieter village than Monterosso or Manarolo. But during my
visit, this was not surprising because the lower part of the
road was closed because of a landslide.
Back up on the terrace road, it stays at about the same level
and then descends towards the coast ever so slowly, delivering
one great view after another. I did not try the next descend to
Corniglia for time reasons. The turnoff to Manarolo is much
lower than the to the previous villages, only about 100m above
sealevel. Many more tourists frequent this town. Many arrive by
train and emerge from the underground railroad station, to
wander around the church and copious amount of small houses,
squeezed into a tiny space between two cliffs.
Dayride with this point as highest summit:
COMPLETELY PAVED:
SP51 Cinque Terre: Manarolo - Monterosso a Mare x2 , SP51
Cinque Terre: Vernazza - Manarola(sh) , SP370Cinque
Terre: La Spezia - Manarola s(u) : La Spezia > SP51
Cinque Terre: La Spezia - Manarola > Manarola << SP51
Cianue Terre: Manarola - Monterosso > Monterosso a Mare
<< SP51 Cinque Terre: Vernazza - Monterosso a Mare >
turnaround point several hundred feet above Vernazza > SP370
La Spezia - Manarola > back to starting point in La Spezia
with several km of grocery shopping detour: 64.3miles with
6294ft of climbing in 6:33hrs (Garmin etrex30 14.5.28)
Notes: basically this is an out and back ride between La
Spezia and Monterosso a Mare, and taking sidetrips to whatever
Cinque Terre Villages that seemed the most interesting.
The last day with different start and endpoints on this tour
was: SP10 Castelnuovo
di Garfagnana - Cerrovezzo

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