1. Northern Italy: Italian Riviera Section 1, Genoa to Sestri Levante

The tour starts with a fascinating ‘urban walk’ that takes you through the historical and commercial heart of Genoa, to the foreshore to the city’s first winter resort.  From here you climb up into the hills, picking up the marked trail that will take you all the way to Sestri Levante, five days later.  One of the characteristics of this route is its flexibility: all the towns are connected by regular local trains, which means you can hop on and off the train to shorten the longer legs. 

For these reasons, we have classified the Italian Riviera as a Grade 2 walk (“several walks on this tour are between 12 and 15 kms; orientation is straight forward and there are some long climbs”).

You will stay in a variety of accommodation: fancy 4-star hotels, comfortable 3-star hotels and a lovely family run ‘agriturismo’, which has its own restaurant.  Hidden Italy uses the best available in each place: it is comfortable and welcoming, with seaview, when possible.  Several of the hotels have their own swimming pools but there are also plenty of beautiful beaches along the way.

Like its inhabitants, the food of Ligurian is austere and reserved, based on the finest ingredients hard won from the rocky slopes of the Apennine Mountains and the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.  The classic dishes are pesto (a basil, pine-nut and garlic paste, traditionally served with a local short pasta and diced potato); focaccia (a dimpled, rustic bread served with herbs and lashing of the excellent local olive oil) and farinata (a delicious flat-bread made from chick peas with more olive oil).  There is an abundance of very good seafood, complemented with very good, locally grown vegetables.  The most celebrated wines of the region are dry whites (Cinque Terre and Vermentino) but Liguria also produces some good reds (Rossese di Dolceacqua, Ormeasco and Colli di Luni Rosso).

Generous breakfasts are included each day (you'll need them for your walks).  With notice, the hotels wil be able to prepare a cut lunch for the walk.  A range of restaurant recommendations with contact details for booking your dinners in each town/village will be included in your tour notes.

To guide you through this wonderful walk, you will receive:  the Hidden Italy roadbook (an eighty-page A5 booklet that includes comprehensive daily walking notes accompanied by detailed maps, updated and revised each year);  access to the exclusive Hidden Italy App to complement the roadbook (the App is downloadable to Apple and Android devices and features information about the routes: maps, GPS tracks, altimetric profiles, etc; GPS navigation on all the routes; an alert function if you stray off the track; and an emergency function);  twenty-four-hour phone support from our Florence-based Operations Manager.