Levanto was a small village set in the greenery of its hills and the blue of its Gulf. Little has changed today; its little gems are still guarded with modesty, the heritage of an ancestral instinct for conservation. The magnificent cliffs and the sandstone banks welcome the visitor from the sea. Pine and chestnut brush hide its paths with their scents of thyme and spartium junceum – Spanish broom – of red strawberry trees and heath tree. Popular devotion is expressed in a rich architectural heritage of a Romanesque origin: the leitmotiv of many Levanto churches. Inside the temples the canvases bear witness to fifteenth and seventeenth century Genoese splendour, while the miniscule aedicules offer up their humble prayers. But let us wind back time and discover the castle, the dock, the walls and towers, all testifying to a tireless will in defence of the people, anchored to the sea but unable to ignore the call of the land. Rural activity is still alive in the vineyards and the olive groves, but above all in the cellars where they keep the casks and other overflowing containers safe. You can taste their contents during a stop at one of the many hamlets which dot the land behind Levanto.