For a long stretch of its life, nobody stood guard inside the walls of Riomaggiore castle: people were buried there. Under Napoleon Bonaparte's French rule and then the Ligurian Republic, the inner area of the fort was filled with earth and turned into a cemetery, the oddest chapter in the story of a building made for something else entirely. Historical sources record a first defensive structure raised in 1260 by the Turcotti marquises, lords of the village of Ripalta near Borghetto di Vara, on the ruins of an earlier site known as «castellazzo», by the hill of Cerricò. After the rule of count Nicolò Fieschi the castle was rebuilt elsewhere and completed by the Republic of Genoa between the 15th and 16th centuries.
What to see
The plan is quadrangular, with two large, squat round towers: not a castle for show but a military enclosure meant to watch the sea and the two valleys. It stands on the hill that separates the valley of the Rio Maggiore from that of the Rio Finale, in the upper part of the old town, above the tall coloured houses dropping towards the little harbour.
What remains of its nineteenth-century use is mainly the level of the inner ground, raised when the space was filled in to make room for the burial yard. At the end of the 20th century the whole complex went through a full restoration that gave the courtyard and the covered rooms back to the community: today they host the municipality's conferences, exhibitions and cultural events.
Visiting
You get there on foot from the centre of Riomaggiore, up the flights of steps that leave the main street: a few minutes of steep stairs, with no road alternative. Since this is a municipal cultural centre rather than a museum, opening times follow the events calendar, so it is worth asking in the village or at the national park information office before climbing. From outside, the perimeter and the towers still read clearly, and the terrace is a natural lookout over the houses below.
Our editors' tip
We go up in the late afternoon, once the trains have taken most visitors back down: from the castle you see the village wedged into its ravine and the sea changing colour. And we take the time to walk back down through the carruggi below the walls, where the oldest houses still lean against the rock.