Vernazza came from up here. Before the village on the sea that everyone photographs existed, there was a settlement here called Reggio, on a spot that was already a crossroads in Roman times; around the year one thousand its inhabitants went down towards the coast and founded the first core of Vernazza. Of that starting village this church is what remains.
What to see
The area was probably a pagan burial ground. The church was built on the remains of an older place of prayer, of which traces survive in the crypt, certainly before the eleventh century; the first document naming it is of 1248 and calls it Santa Maria, while a deed of 1318 already gives it the title of Reggio.
The small square in front of the church is ringed by ancient trees, and among them is the oldest cypress in all Liguria: it is about eight hundred years old, so it was already there when the church changed its name. The sanctuary is one of the five sanctuaries of the Cinque Terre, one above each village, all up in the hills and all reachable only on foot.
Visiting
You get there by a paved path of about two kilometres that starts at Vernazza station and climbs through the terraced fields; proper shoes and water. Free entry, hours tied to services. Two hours for the climb, the stop and the descent.
Our editors' tip
Walk the path, do not look for shortcuts. It is dotted with little chapels, one for each Station of the Cross, and that is what it is for: to break the climb into fourteen pauses. Those who walked it were not going to see a view, they were going back to their grandparents' village. Walking it is the only way to understand in what order things came into being here.