Presepe di Manarola

This guide to the Presepe di Manarola in Cinque Terre follows Mario Andreoli, a local railway worker, back to 1961, when his dying father asked him to restore a cross on the family's hillside vineyard above the village. Andreoli did more than fix the cross: on his days off he kept climbing, welding scrap iron and wire into shepherds, angels and stranger figures across the old grape terraces. The hobby outgrew his working life entirely once he retired, and the vineyard slowly gave way to scaffolding for what he kept building.