Blue Trail 592: one stretch closed, two for experts

Path 592¹, the Sentiero Verde Azzurro, cannot be walked end to end as of September 1, 2026: the Manarola to Corniglia stretch is closed and the two northern stretches are graded for experienced hikers.

The four stretches, and their state

592¹-1 Riomaggiore to Manarola is open. It is the Via dell'Amore, graded as a tourist path, paid and bookable. 592¹-2 Manarola to Corniglia is closed, with a compulsory alternative running Manarola to Volastra to Corniglia. 592¹-3 Corniglia to Vernazza is open and graded for experienced hikers. 592¹-4 Vernazza to Monterosso is open and graded for experienced hikers.

That status was verified on September 1, 2026. It is a volatile fact: closures and reopenings here follow storms and works rather than the calendar, and any page quoting the trail as fully open has not checked recently.

The route is best read as four separate walks that share a number. Nothing about the difficulty of one predicts the next.

Graded E is not a formality

Two of the four stretches, 592¹-3 and 592¹-4, are classified for experienced hikers. That grading is the most important line on this page and the one most often ignored.

These are not seafront promenades. They are stepped mule tracks cut into terraced slopes, with long flights of stone stairs, exposed sections above the sea and no shade for most of the way. In August the heat does more damage here than the gradient.

By contrast 592¹-1 is graded as a tourist path: level, paved and accessible in a way the rest of the route is not. Someone who walks the Via dell'Amore and concludes that the Blue Trail is easy has walked the one stretch that is.

What the closure actually means

With 592¹-2 shut, the coastal line between Manarola and Corniglia is broken and the official alternative goes inland and uphill through Volastra.

Plan the detour as a climb, not as a diversion of equivalent effort. The terraces above Manarola gain height quickly, and a walker who set out expecting a coastal traverse will meet a different day.

The other option is honest and often the better one: take the train between those two villages and walk the stretches that are open. The regional line runs behind the whole coast and turns a broken trail into two intact walks.

The trail is a toll road

Paid stretches of the Sentiero Verde Azzurro require a Cinque Terre Card. The Trekking Card version costs €10.00 a day for an adult in standard periods and €15.00 in high season, €17.00 for two days and €26.70³ in high season, with a family day ticket at €27.10³.

It covers the paid trails, the Via dell'Amore, the buses inside the villages, the Podere Case Lovara and free entry to the CAMeC museum, and it does not cover the regional trains. If your plan involves riding between villages, the other version of the card is the one to price.

The Via dell'Amore carries its own supplement of €10.00 on top of any card, with a booking, a cap of 400² people an hour in groups of 100² every 15 minutes, hours of 8:00 am to 7:00 pm from April 1 to October 31 and 9:30 am to 5:00 pm from November 1 to March 31, and one way walking from Riomaggiore in high season. Residents walk it without booking.

What we cannot tell you about this path

There is no verified distance, height gain or walking time for the individual stretches on any source we could read, so none appears here. Nor is there a park published GPX track we could confirm.

That gap is worth naming because those are exactly the numbers a walker wants. Take them from the park's own trail status page on the day, together with the current state of 592¹-2, which is the fact most likely to have changed since this page was written.

The four gradings and the closure above are what we can stand behind. See the Cinque Terre, the Cinque Terre Card and Liguria.

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