Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)

The property runs about 15 km along the eastern Ligurian coast from Levanto to La Spezia. It takes in Portovenere with the offshore islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto, and the five villages of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. Portovenere's harbour was in use in Roman times but was destroyed by the Lombards in 643. It later belonged to the Republic of Genoa; a castle is first recorded in 1113, the walls went up in 1161, and the church of San Pietro on the headland was consecrated in 1198.

The Cinque Terre appear in documents from the 11th century, and Monterosso and Vernazza were settled first. Once Saracen raids from the sea stopped in the 12th century, villagers built drystone terraces for vines and olives on the steep slopes, from a few metres above the sea to 400 m. Until the Genoa to La Spezia railway arrived in the 1870s, the villages could be reached almost only by sea.

The railway brought emigration and the decline of traditional work, and tourism grew from the 1970s. UNESCO listed the area in 1997, and the Cinque Terre National Park was created in 1999. On 25 October 2011 torrential rain caused floods and mudslides that killed nine people and badly damaged Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare.