A narrow strip of land between sea and mountains: this is how geography has
modeled landscapes, cities, villages, agriculture and the identity of one of the regions
more particular than Italy.
Liguria is one of the easiest Italian regions to spot even just by looking at it
from above: a thin, arched band, suspended between the Ligurian Sea and the reliefs that the
They close behind. Italian Traditions dedicates an in-depth look to this area
starting from a geographical curiosity that summarizes its identity: here the plain, understood
as a large, open, continuous space, it practically does not exist. It’s not just a given
physical, but a key to understanding the relationship, made of adaptation, ingenuity,
vertical routes and landscapes built meter by meter, between the Ligurians and their land.
The region occupies just over 5,400 square kilometers and extends along an arc
coastal which, according to the traditional geographical description, reaches a depth
maximum of about fifty kilometers between the sea and the summits of the Maritime Alps and
of the Apennines. It is a long, narrow strip of land, where distances as the crow flies
they can deceive: the sea is near, but behind it the ground rises almost immediately,
leaving little room for large flat expanses. The territorial classifications
confirm this peculiarity: Liguria is made up of mountains and hills, without
areas classified as lowland.
The symbolic point of this meeting of mountain ranges is the Cadibona Hill, or
Bocchetta di Altare, conventionally considered the boundary between the Alps and the Apennines. More
that one “clash”, is a passage: to the west the Ligurian Alps develop, while towards
the eastern Ligurian Apennines take shape, which accompanies the region up to the border
with Tuscany. This continuity of reliefs explains why here there have never been
developed large inland plains and why even the most open spaces, such as the plain of
Albenga or the Magra area towards Sarzana, limited exceptions remain, precious
precisely because they are rare.
The consequence is seen first and foremost in the landscape. In Liguria the mountains seem to reach the
sea without mediation, creating high coasts, promontories, inlets, climbed villages
and cities compressed between the railway line, roads, ports and slopes. Genoa is
the strongest example: a long city, grown on several levels, developed more for
adaptation that through orderly expansion, with neighborhoods that rise towards the heights and
a historic center squeezed between the port and the hills. The same happens, in different forms,
along the entire Riviera: from Ventimiglia to La Spezia, space has always been a resource
to be conquered and organized carefully.
This absence of plains has also affected agriculture. Where the land did not offer
large and regular surfaces, man has built terraces, dry stone walls, cultivated strips
and small plots suspended on the slopes. It is one of the most authentic images of the
region: olive trees, vines, vegetable gardens, lemons, basil and flowers grown on difficult soils, often exposed
to the wind and the saltiness. In the Cinque Terre this relationship between nature and human work
gave birth to a landscape recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site,
together with Portovenere and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto.
This verticality concerns not only agriculture, but also the way of living and
move. The historic routes, mule tracks, creuzes, ridge paths and connections
between the coast and the hinterland were born to overcome continuous differences in altitude. Even today this
the conformation of the territory is at the centre of many hiking itineraries, starting from
from the Alta Via dei Monti Liguri, the route that connects the two ends of the Riviera
following the Tyrrhenian-Po watershed, from the Maritime Alps to the area of
Ceparana.
The same goes for the coast. The coastline extends for approximately 359 kilometers, but only one
reduced part consists of sandy beaches. The rest is made up of rocky sections,
cliffs, artificial areas, ports and cliffs. This explains why Ligurian beaches
are often small, collected, nestled between promontories or inhabited centers, and because the
relationship with the sea has always also been linked to work, exchanges and life
daily, not only to tourism: fishing, trade, shipbuilding, navigation and
portuality found a place in an area where every useful surface had to be
enhanced.
The geographical data thus becomes the starting point for understanding Liguria.
The absence of true plains not only defines the shape of the territory, but has affected the
way in which every place was inhabited, cultivated, built and crossed here. The distances
They may seem short, but they are rarely simple: from the coast inland
change altitude, pace and perspective. It is in this continuous tension between limit and
possibility that the most authentic character of this land emerges.