Pathways

Climbing up the numerous pathways leading to the hills, dotted with churches, villas and country cottages you can discover many of the ancient routes, often skilfully carved out and once upon a time used to reach the city, connected this way to the numerous villages and historical monuments. For example going along the route running from Chiappa to Salto del Gatto, after a thick wood of holm-oak you will reach Marinasco parish church, going past the little 16th century church of St. Lucy. You can then continue from the large Marinasco square until you come to Foce pass, poised between the sea of the Gulf and the woods in Val di Vara, and from here taking the road to Parodi, you go to Sant’Anna and then reach the city again after passing the interesting fortified buildings called Toracche built in the Late Middle Ages, and again Maggiano on the hilltop leading down to La Spezia.
Leaving from the Roman parish church of St. Venerius with its two apses, you can climb up the eastern side along via della Lobbia, turning off at the large villa Passano, to reach Carozzo and from there the village of San Venerio.
One of the many possibilities offered by the pathways on the hills around the Gulf is to cross over in the direction of the sea at Cinque Terre (a part of the national Cinque Terre nature reserve is included in the La Spezia council district in the area around Tramonti) then follow the track descending from the ancient village of Biassa to Fossola with its tiny church dedicated to the Guardian Angel. From here, above an apparently boundless ocean, keeping above Monesteroli then Schiara, you can reach Campiglia with its church dedicated to St. Catherine.