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Coast length12 km, Monterosso to Riomaggiore
Peak season14 Jul to 22 Aug (Ferragosto)
Monterosso 3BR peak$18,000 to $32,000 / wk
Portovenere 6BR trophy peak$42,000 to $52,000+ / wk
Last updated2026-05
The Cinque Terre are five UNESCO-listed villages along 12 kilometers of the Ligurian Riviera in the Province of La Spezia: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1997 for the cultural landscape of dry-stone terracing and the cliff-village architecture. The five village cores are pedestrian zones; cars stop at the village-edge parking lots. The five villages are connected by the Cinque Terre Express regional rail line (every 15 to 30 minutes, €5 per single trip or the €19.50 day Cinque Terre Card ) and by the Sentiero Azzurro coastal hiking trail.
The rental market splits two ways. The cliff-village stock inside the five villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore) sits at the two-to-four-bedroom apartment-and-house tier, with Manarola carrying the cliff-tower 11th-century stone-tower inventory and Monterosso carrying the largest village stock and the only sand beach. The hill-and-overflow stock above and adjacent to the villages (Levanto 8 minutes north by rail, Portovenere 15 minutes south by car and ferry-connected, plus the hill-stock above Monterosso and Vernazza) sits at the four-to-six-bedroom villa-with-pool tier and is the serious multi-family rental market.
Pricing splits hard. Monterosso entry from approximately €450 per villa per night at the apartment-and-small-house tier (verified May 2026 via Cinque Terre Riviera, the longest-established property manager on the coast with a concierge office in Vernazza since 1991). A three-to-four-bedroom hill villa above Monterosso or Vernazza runs $18,000 to $32,000 per week peak. A five-bedroom Levanto or Portovenere villa with pool and sea view runs $24,000 to $42,000. The trophy six-bedroom hill estate on the Punta Mesco headland or the Portovenere ridge runs $42,000 to $52,000-plus. Add 22 percent Italian IVA on services, Imposta di Soggiorno per Comune (€1.50 to €4 per person per night ), cleaning fee, and chef pre-stock where staffed.
This page covers the five villages, the Levanto-and-Portovenere overflow base, the Sentiero Azzurro hiking pattern, the Sciacchetrà harvest window, the car-and-village access reality, and the cost band by group size. Specific named-villa peak rates carry markers where the Cinque Terre Riviera and broker-channel inventory routes through direct enquiry rather than published weekly rates.