Cinque Terre or the Path of the Gods

Villages and a cliff path, or an easy lake shore

The Blue Trail and the Path of the Gods are both one-day walks, both graded moderate, and both at their best in the same kind of month: late spring, and again in September and October. Summer is the season their pages tell you to treat with suspicion, for heat, crowds or haze. If you want the famous coast and you can pick the month, pick one of those windows. If you want the day to be easy, do not pick either cliff path. Pick the Greenway on Lake Como.

The Blue Trail is about 12 km and 600 m, through the five Cinque Terre villages. The Path of the Gods is about 9 km and 350 m, a balcony above the Amalfi Coast. The Greenway is about 10 km, graded easy, along the western shore of Como. Distance will not tell them apart. The day will.

The Blue Trail, if you want the five villages

Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore: the path links them above terraced vineyards, dropping into each village and climbing out. It is not a wilderness day. You are never far from a cafe, a train or a crowd. The stepped sections are steeper than a harbour stroll, and the 600 m of ascent is why the grade is moderate rather than easy. Stone steps, hundreds of them, are the surface. Wear shoes you trust.

The good months are May to June and September to October. Summer is hot and crowded. June is the end of the first good window. September is the start of the second. A July or August booking is a booking in the season the page is warning you about, even though the trains still run and the villages are still there. Start early. The cliff paths bake, and the lanes fill by the middle of the morning.

You need a Cinque Terre trekking card, sold at park offices and stations. Landslides close sections often. The Corniglia to Manarola leg has spent long periods shut. The Via dell’Amore, between Manarola and Riomaggiore, reopened in 2024 after years of closure. Check the day’s status before you leave the station, and use the trains as the way to skip a closed leg or to bail out. That is a feature of this walk, not a failure of nerve. September and October are when you most want that plan to be about the views, not about a closure you discover at noon. The month those dates sit in is Where to walk in September.

The Blue Trail

The Path of the Gods, if you want the balcony

Walk it east to west, from Bomerano down toward Positano, so the day trends downhill. For most of the way you are on a natural balcony high on the Lattari mountains, with the coast below and Capri out on the water. The main path from Bomerano to Nocelle is roughly 8 km. Continuing down into Positano adds something like 1,700 stone steps. That descent is the knee test. The page’s 9 km and 350 m are the day’s figures. They are not a promise that the stairs feel small.

The good months are April to June and September to October. Avoid the midsummer heat and haze. There is very little shade, and no water once you leave Bomerano. Carry enough, and start early in any warm month. The exposure is real: steep drops, sturdy shoes, a head for heights. There is no scrambling and no special technique. A bus up to Agerola, and off at Bomerano, is the start. Buses and ferries from Positano are the way back.

This is the walk for someone who wants one high line and is happy to finish in a famous town, possibly on tired knees. It is a poor walk for a hazy August afternoon, and a poor walk if anyone in the group dislikes a drop beside the path. September and October are the second clear window, which is why this path belongs in the same September thinking as the Cinque Terre.

The Path of the Gods

The Greenway, if the cliffs are not the point

The Greenway del Lago di Como runs from Colonno to Griante, about 10 km, graded easy, in about three hours if you do not stop. You will stop. The villages, the villas and the old mule tracks are the reason to be there. The path is free. Villa del Balbianello and Villa Carlotta charge their own admission and keep seasonal hours, and both close for part of the winter, so check before you promise someone a garden.

The good months match the coast walks more closely than people expect: April to June and September to October, when the gardens are open and the lake is clear of summer haze. The walking stays low, near the water, unlike the steep paths in the mountains above. It is not flat. Short climbs and stepped lanes come up again and again. Stone and cobbles are slick after rain. The C10 bus runs the shore in parallel, so you can walk one piece and ride the rest. Finish at Cadenabbia and take the ferry to Bellagio if you want the day to end on the water.

Choose this when the group is mixed, when the holiday is already full of gardens and ferries, or when a 600 m cliff day is the wrong demand. Do not choose it when you wanted the Amalfi balcony and hope Como is the same view with less effort. It is a different lake and a different kind of pleasure.

The Lake Como Greenway

A plain way to decide

Walk the Blue Trail if the five villages are the trip, you can handle a moderate day of steps, and you will go in May, June, September or October. Buy the card. Check which legs are open. Use the train without guilt.

Walk the Path of the Gods if you want the high balcony and the stair into Positano, on a clear day in April, May, June, September or October. Carry water. Skip midsummer haze.

Walk the Greenway if easy is the actual requirement: about 10 km on the Como shore, in those same spring and early-autumn months, with a bus as the escape and a ferry as the ending. All three dislike the middle of summer for reasons the pages spell out. None of them is improved by insisting on August because that is when the holiday was already booked.