Alta Via dei Monti Liguri: 440 km Along the Ridge Between Sea and Plain

There is a trail in Liguria that few people know about and even fewer walk in its entirety. The Alta Via dei Monti Liguri runs for 440 kilometres along the Apennine ridge, from the French border all the way to the Lunigiana, holding a steady altitude between 600 and 1,800 metres. The sea on the right, the Po plain on the left: a double panorama that opens and closes with the forests and never stops surprising you. It takes roughly twenty to twenty-five days to complete the whole route, but every single stage can be walked on its own.

The ridge and its villages

The path touches Ligurian hinterland villages that coastal tourism has never reached: Triora, the 'village of witches' where in 1587 Italy's largest witchcraft trial was held; Pigna, with its spiral medieval alleys; Zuccarello, a hamlet completely abandoned and then reclaimed by a single family. Between one village and the next, chestnut woods, cliffs dropping steeply to the sea, the ruins of Saracen watchtowers dotting every headland. The light at sunset, when it colours the Gulf of Genoa from above, is one of those images that stays with you.

Huts and logistics

The Alta Via is equipped with a network of CAI mountain huts, bivouacs and partner agriturismos, spaced on average 15–20 kilometres apart. Rifugio Don Barbera on Monte Beigua, Rifugio Pian Rosso on the Antola and Rifugio Pratorotondo on Monte Ramaceto are the busiest; many others are run by volunteers and open only by reservation. The average cost of a night with dinner and breakfast is 45–55 euros. The waymarking — red-white-red blaze with the AV initials — is reliable but in some intermediate stretches less recently refreshed.

The right season and the seasonal landscape

Spring — April and May — brings rhododendrons and broom to the sunny slopes and wild orchids to the limestone meadows. Autumn — September and October — offers chestnut woods in full fruiting and the porcini-mushroom harvest, which in the ridge villages is sold fresh at the roadside for unbeatable prices. Summer is walkable but hot on the south-facing stretches; winter turns the Alta Via into a ski-mountaineering route on its higher sections. Those who want just a taste can start from Savona and reach Genoa in three days: it is the most varied stretch, with the greatest concentration of villages and the Beigua Park, a UNESCO geopark reserve.