Finale Ligure discovery guide

Because a stretch of limestone behind this beach carries more than four thousand bolted climbing routes.

Finale is where Italian sport climbing grew up. From the late 1960s to the late 1980s it was one of the European centres where climbing separated itself from traditional alpinism, and the equipping never stopped: past 4,000 routes by the 2020s, up to 8c+. The same hills carry the Enduro World Series and a 24-hour mountain-bike race on the Mànie plateau.

The friction is that "Finale Ligure" is three towns and a beach resort at once. Finalmarina is the seafront, Finalpia the older coast, Finalborgo the walled medieval capital a kilometre and a half inland — and most visitors never leave the sand.

The smart way is to treat the beach as the base and go up. Walk into Finalborgo in the evening, climb to Castel Gavone for the Torre dei Diamanti, and put aside a morning for the caves — the Arene Candide produced a burial about 26,000 years old.

March to May. The climbing season at its best and the hills green; the 24-hour mountain-bike race on the Mànie plateau falls on the last weekend of May, and the Festa dell'Inquietudine at the end of the month.

June and July. Beach season on a Bandiera blu shore. The Palio delle Compagne Finalesi, in medieval costume with the national flag-throwers' trophy, is the second weekend of July.

August. The peak, and the month Finalborgo is busiest: La Notte dei Tarocchi on the 12th and 13th, and Viaggio nel Medioevo in the third week.

September and October. The best months overall. Finale for Nepal, the annual sport-climbing event, is in September; the Enduro World Series comes in October; and the sea is still warm.

November to February. Mild — the ridge between Monte Settepani and Pian dei Corsi, almost always between 1,000 and 1,400 metres, blocks the cold air that sits over the Po plain — and quiet, with climbing still possible on the sunnier crags.

Work out which Finale you are in

The town is three. Finalmarina is the seafront and the most recent, urbanised by tourism, its people called gnabbri in dialect; Finalpia is on the coast and keeps the original structure; Finalborgo is the walled medieval capital inland, and has its own page here.

Then go up to Castel Gavone

Seat of the Del Carretto marquises from the twelfth century. The Republic of Genoa demolished much of it in 1715, but the Torre dei Diamanti — of about 1490, keeled and rusticated — survives as an extraordinary piece of seigneurial architecture inspired by the military architect Francesco di Giorgio. A lift now runs to the top of the tower.

And to the Spanish fortress above the borgo

Castel San Giovanni, a typical Spanish fortress built in 1642–43, dominates Finalborgo. A third castle, Castelfranco, was raised by Genoa in 1365 against the Del Carretto and later ringed with fortresses whose bastions reached the coast at Finalmarina.

Put a morning into the caves

The Arene Candide, west of the Caprazoppa, held the burial of the Giovane Principe, dead about 26,000 years before present. The Pollera is one of the largest caves in the province and produced Neolithic material including pottery with quadrilobate mouths found nowhere else. The Arma delle Mànie was occupied by Neanderthals.

Climb, or watch people climbing

Over 4,000 routes up to 8c+ on the falesie of the hinterland — Bric Pianarella among them. The pioneers are named: Gianni Calcagno, Alessandro Grillo, Vittorio Olinto Simonetti, Roberto Titomanlio and the Vaccari brothers in the first phase; Giovanni Massari, Martino Lang, Andrea Gallo, Patrick Berhault and others in the sporting one.

And look at what Pietra di Finale built

The local stone runs through the comune: the columns of the loggia at Palazzo De Raymondi in Finale Marina, the tower of the neo-Gothic Castello Vuillermin of 1936–1941, the Romanesque bell tower of the abandoned church of San Cipriano at Calvisio Vecchia.

Finale is a beach town with a marquisate underneath it and a climbing scene on top. Those three identities sit side by side rather than blending: the sand at Finalmarina, the walled capital at Finalborgo, and a hinterland that draws climbers and mountain bikers from across Europe.

Its older identity is Spanish as much as Ligurian. The marquisate was a Spanish possession for over a century, and Finale sat on the Cammino spagnolo — the corridor of imperial territory running from the Milanese through the Valtellina to the Netherlands, indispensable for moving troops to and from Spain and the Kingdom of Naples. Castel San Giovanni is a Spanish fortress; Philip V of Spain stayed at Palazzo Buraggi in 1702.

The festival calendar is medieval and eccentric in equal measure. The Palio delle Compagne Finalesi with the national flag-throwers' trophy; Viaggio nel Medioevo, four evenings of games and old trades in Finalborgo, awarded by the Presidency of the Republic; La Notte dei Tarocchi; and the Festa dell'Inquietudine, a national prize created in 1996 by the Circolo degli Inquieti and given to the "Inquieto dell'Anno".

It calls itself a sporting town and has the title to prove it. Finale Ligure was named European Town of Sport in 2012.

The dialect has its own name. In the Finalese area the local variety of Ligurian is finarìn, and the inhabitants are finarini or finalesi.

The climbing here is a managed resource, not a wild one. More than four thousand routes exist because people equipped and maintain them; the crags sit on private and communal land in a working hinterland.

The caves are archaeology, not scenery. The Arene Candide, the Pollera and the Arma delle Mànie all produced material now in the archaeological museum at Finalborgo — Palaeolithic burials, Neolithic pottery, Neanderthal occupation. Nothing should be moved, and the published finds came from controlled excavation.

Three of this comune's places have their own pages here, and they are not interchangeable. Finalborgo is a walled town of its own character; Varigotti is a frazione with Saracen-style fishermen's houses on the shore. Both are lived in.

The beach has a flag to keep. Finale Ligure has held the Bandiera blu again since 2007, awarded on bathing-water quality and the management of the shore, and two vele from Legambiente's Guida Blu in 2011.

Events concentrate the load on one small place. The medieval festivals, the tarot nights and the concert season all happen inside Finalborgo, a walled borgo that takes an hour to walk. In late May and October the mountain-bike calendar does the same to the hills.

There are published prices here, and they are the museum's. The Museo Archeologico del Finale, at the Chiostri di Santa Caterina in Finalborgo, charges €5 full and €3 reduced (over 65s, under-16s, groups of ten or more, university students), €10 for a family of two adults and at least one child under 12, and free under six, with a European Disability Card plus companion, and for tourist guides and ICOM members. A visit to the Campanile di Santa Caterina is €2, Sunday mornings only, booked by telephone. Cash, cards and bancomat.

Castel Gavone and the Arene Candide cave are guided-visit only. Both are run by that museum under its MUDIF programme, both require compulsory booking on 019 690 020, and both are led by archaeologists. A full-price Arene Candide ticket exists and brings the museum down to €3, though no figure for the cave ticket itself is published on anything read for this page.

The comune itself publishes no admission for anything. No hour and no price for Castel San Giovanni, for the basilica of San Giovanni Battista or for any other building in the comune. Castel San Giovanni is a state site under the Direzione Regionale Musei Liguria; the basilica is a parish church, where you should expect no ticket and no published timetable.

The real costs are the beach, the bed and the bike. This is a Bandiera blu resort: in season a day is a lido, a lunch and parking. In late May and October the mountain-bike calendar fills the beds as thoroughly as August does.

Climbing is the cheap part, and Finalborgo the better-value base. Over 4,000 equipped routes on open crags, with the shuttle, guiding and gear economy around them. Finalborgo is a kilometre and a half inland, quieter than the seafront, and has its own page here.