Levanto Days Five and Six: A Beach Day with Friends, the Cliff Tunnels, and One Last Italian Sunset

The first two days in Levanto were heavy with trains and transfers. Days five and six were the correction: nowhere to be, nothing to catch, just the Ligurian coast and two families gradually winding down before our friends headed back to Milan.

We started both mornings the same way. Mel had found a bakery down the street before we arrived, and we made it our first stop each day for chocolate croissants. Remi decided on day one that this was her routine and held the rest of us to it.

The beach

Levanto's beach is long and rocky, like in Monterosso, but there are some swaths of sand for the kids to play in and a welcome break on our feet. A lot of it is divided into private clubs, which I didn't fully understand until we arrived: you pay a daily rate for lounge chairs, an umbrella, and access to the changing rooms and showers. There are public sections too, with attendants renting umbrellas if you want one without the full club setup. We chose the public end and settled in for the morning.

Remi, River and Arlo spent most of the morning at the end of the pier, pulling snails off the rocks and methodically comparing them. It held their attention for hours, and exactly why we wanted to plan in a beach day.

Goodbye to our friends

Mel, Markus and River headed out in the afternoon, and the apartment felt a bit empty after the fun of spending time with them. We bought groceries on the way home and cooked dinner in the Airbnb, which felt right after a week of eating every meal out. The park before dinner helped — there's a fenced trampoline enclosure near the water, six large trampolines, paid by the session. Remi absolutely loved it.

The cliff tunnels

Our last full day in Cinque Terre, we rented bikes and headed north on a trail we'd been told not to miss. The Ciclopedonale Maremonti — the Ciclovia Levanto-Bonassola-Framura — follows an old coastal railway line, which means it runs directly through the cliffs in a series of tunnels — lit inside, wide enough for bikes and pedestrians, with the sea visible through the rock where the tunnels open between the headlands. The shoulder season was perfect for this; we had large stretches all to ourselves.

Bonassola

We stopped in Bonassola for a swim and lunch. It's a small beach town, quieter than Levanto, and we all wanted to cool off so were straight in the water for a swim while the kids did more rock collecting. We ate paninis near the water — fresh bread, good cheese, way more food than we expected. After that, gelato, because that's the rule.

Framura

From Bonassola we pushed further along the trail toward Framura, where it opens out to a small harbor overlook. The path into the village itself was closed for construction, so we took some photos at the edge and turned around. Remi climbed out on the rocks for a better view of the water and didn't want to come back.

By the time we biked back to Levanto, Arlo had made his own decision about the rest of the afternoon.

Manarola

We had just enough time back at the apartment before catching a train for one more village. Manarola is four stops down the coast, the one the Cinque Terre postcard photos are almost always taken from — colorful houses stacked above a harbor, cliffs on three sides, and a wine bar on the terrace called Nessun Dorma that everyone who's been to the area tells you about. We went for the sunset.

The dining room was closed that evening — a pesto-making experience had taken it over, which looked genuinely good and is probably worth booking in advance if your kids are a bit older than ours were. We ordered the to-go tasting menu instead: bruschetta, prosciutto, fresh burrata, melon, tomatoes. There's a playground a few steps up from the terrace with tables nearby, and we set everything out there while the kids ran between us and the climbing structure. They spun each other so fast on the merry-go-round that Remi started to feel nauseated and had to take a break. Two aperol spritzes for the adults, the harbor catching the last light below, the village in all its colors. It was the best version of a meal we hadn't planned.

We caught a late train back to Levanto with tired, well-fed, happy kids, and packed that night for France.