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In the valley are set 18 hillside villages of medieval origin, all easily accessible through a network of trails that winds through olive groves, vineyards, old mills and crushers . Before the valley opens up a wide gulf, the east end of which, facing the promontory of Punta Mesco, was established in the Cinque Terre Marine Reserve, whose grounds are home to several protected species of Mediterranean flora and fauna. The coastline stretches for a mile wide beaches with sand or pebbles equipped with bathing and closed at the ends by picturesque bays separated by rocks and an area for recreational boating. For the particular shape of the waves, the Gulf has become a favorite destination for surfers. The accommodation on offer is very wide: from the most informal to the most elegant bed and breakfast, youth from the hostel housed in a historic building that overlooks the medieval medieval on former dock, numerous houses in the green and quiet of the valley. In the restaurants you can taste specialties of sea and land dressed with local olive oil and accompanied by wines from the valley. A must try is the "gattafin", the characteristic pancake herbs, but they are part of the typical production also honey, pesto and sweet.
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To understand Levanto must go back to its origins , starting from the historical depth of the landscape and retracing the various identities that the town has taken in different periods: from the feudal agricultural and pastoral mountains of Bardellone to the municipal merchant-marine at the time of the Republic Genoa to today's pole configuration with considerable tourist attraction due to its high environmental and landscape value. In Roman times there was a small village called Ceula located in the hills of today's Montale, near which reached the sea, it was a knot of great strategic importance as it was located at the point where the old road coming from the Ligurian touched the coast. After the fall of the Western Roman empire (476 AD), Ceula became part of the Byzantine Empire. In the Carolingian period (early ninth century) the current bell tower of the Church of San Siro served as a watchtower and defense against the dangers from the sea. From the thirteenth century the importance of the town began to decline in favor of Levanto he was widening the sea. Levanto, before it became a fief of the Malaspina, and subsequently passed to pass from the Republic of Genoa in 1229. In the Middle Ages the economic life of Levanto is held mainly on commercial activities - marble "red of Levanto", the local wine and olive oil - fueled as much by way of communication to the Po Valley (the Via Francigena) as the maritime routes that opened on entire Mediterranean, and this is evidenced by the presence of the Lodge and the dock. After the Middle Ages, the ancient town gathered around the Church of St. Andrew and the hills of St. James experienced a remarkable development, a second phase of expansion is dated to the fifteenth century, with the construction of the new town or pond in the plain of Ghiararo due mainly to the significant economic and political functions assigned to Levanto from the Republic of Genoa, which made insufficient medieval village resulting in the birth of the New Village on the alignment of the Via dei Monti connecting the village with the valley, and this settlement still retains its linear character with interesting buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that look at both sides of via Garibaldi and Via Guani, recently restored by the "Project Raphael" of the European Union.
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