Finalborgo Culture

The pietra del Finale is the oldest local trade. It cuts easily when freshly quarried and hardens with exposure, which made it the material of choice for carved portals, and Finalborgo’s streets are an unusually dense display of them.

The archaeological museum in the Santa Caterina complex is the other side of that geology. The caves of the Finale area were occupied by Neanderthals and then by later prehistoric populations, and the collection is one of the more significant of its kind in northern Italy.

Climbing is the newest layer and the most visible. Routes were bolted here from the 1970s and 80s, and Finale became one of the founding areas of European sport climbing; mountain biking followed on the same trails. From spring the borgo is full of people with rope bags, and several businesses exist entirely to serve them.

The food is Ligurian and unpretentious: farinata, focaccia, trofie with pesto, and the vegetable-stuffed pasta of the western Riviera.