LAND and SEA TOUR Bike & Boat

LAND AND SEA TOUR Bike & Boat

An exciting journey between land and sea. We see the exclusive scenery of the Cinque Terre from the mountains and the sea, suspended on the pedals and aboard our yacht. A light bath and a sea bath. The queen of experiences.

Difficulty: Easy Distance: Bike Km 35 / Boat 5 miles Journey time: Bike about 3 hours / Boat 3 hours Bike type: Mtb eBike Terrain: 50% asphalt, 50% dirt Departure: CicloPoint La Spezia viale Italia, 19

Route: By bike: La Spezia - Biassa - Via dei Santuari - Cinque Terre. By boat: Monterosso - Cinque Terre - tour of the islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto) - Porto Venere Tasting Questo tour si svolge nei periodi in cui la barca è in mare.

Biassa: characteristic hillside village of ancient origin, 8.5 km south-west of La Spezia, is a belvedere over the city and the Gulf of Poets. The architectures of main interest are the church of St. Martino which, despite repeated transformations, retains a Romanesque character and, on a hill outside the town, the remains of the thirteenth-century castle of Coderone, a Genoese outpost against Pisa.

Via Vittorio Veneto, n° 60 – 31032 Casale sul Sile (TV) Tel. 0422/702580 – Fax 0422/783945 P.IVA 04780210268 – N. REA TV-377502 [email protected] – [email protected] – [email protected] www.shantaramviaggi.it

Via dei Santuari: each of the five villages of the Cinque Terre corresponds, halfway up the coast, to a sanctuary to which the inhabitants have always been linked by deep devotion. Five churches connected to the respective village by steep mule tracks, real "Via Crucis" still traveled by believers today during the annual celebrations. Of great historical and naturalistic interest is the so-called Via dei Santuari, the horizontal path that unites all five buildings of worship.

Archipelago: in the waters in front of Porto Venere is the archipelago with the three islands, Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto.

Il Tino, where there are interesting vestiges dating back to the 11th century and the church dedicated to the cult of San Venerio,

The military area and access is allowed only on the occasion of the festivities in honor of the saint (13 September). You can see the ruins of the ancient abbey dedicated to the saint built in the 11th century. As a transformation of the chapel built in the 7th century in the place where the body of Venerio was found, who died in hermitage to Tino.

The islet of Tinetto, bare of vegetation, preserves ancient evidence, consisting of ruins, of the presence of religious communities. Of the three islands of the archipelago, Palmaria is the most popular and well-known one as it was chosen for the clarity of the waters that lap its coasts.

The eastern side of the island gradually descends to the sea covered by a rich Mediterranean vegetation; the western one, on the other hand, is defined by steep cliffs that reach 188 m in altitude. On the Island we find the Fort Umberto I, today Fortress of the sea, built in the last century under the Savoia administration of Count Cavour and used as a prison until the 150s.

For the scents and colors, brooms, cysts with lively blooms, wild orchids, myrtles with a delicate aroma and other plants of the Mediterranean scrub are worth mentioning; the Pozzale inlet where there are some portoro quarries, the characteristic black precious marble with light streaks, active until a few years ago; the Grotta dei Colombi where human and animal remains dating back to the Neolithic were found.

The colored tower-houses of Porto Venere, the church of San Pietro with its unmistakable shape, the imposing limestone walls of Muzzerone stand out and accompany us in the unique vision

Monterosso al Mare is the largest village in the Cinque Terre and also the first documented (1056). Composed of two settlements, the old town and Fegina, the most touristic part, Monterosso al Mare boasts important monuments.

These include the fourteenth-century church of San Giovanni Battista, in front of which stood the medieval Palazzo del Podestà, of which some traces remain. Of great importance, on the Capuchin hill, is the Fieschi castle and the monastery whose church dedicated to St. Francis contains priceless works of art, including paintings attributed to Van Dick, Cambiaso, Piola and Guido Reni.

In Fegina we recommend Villa Montale, where the Nobel Prize for Literature stayed, and the Giant, an imposing statue in reinforced concrete built at the beginning of the twentieth century which originally supported a shell-shaped terrace on its shoulders.

Porto Venere: one cannot fail to be enchanted by the view of the building, a succession of pastel facades facing the sea, a long colorful wall that accompanies along the path that leads to the church of San Pietro, officially consecrated in 1118, right at the end of the promontory, in Genoese Gothic style, which offers a particularly evocative atmosphere among its dark naves.

Also worth seeing is the Arpaia cave, which is accessed via a steep staircase that descends between the rocks, also known as Byron's in memory of the feat that saw the poet as the protagonist, who from here swam to Lerici. A staircase also climbs to the churchyard of the ancient church of San Lorenzo, dating back to the 12th century and in a dominant position over the town (left), inside which the presumed miraculous painting of the Virgin Mary is kept , called the White Madonna for the light of her skin. Higher still, to close the route of the walls of Porto Venere, there is the Doria castle, built between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, located in a dominant position on the fortified core of the village and the narrow stretch of sea that separates it. from the nearby and wooded island of Palmaria