Costarainera (or "Costa dei Raineri", after the name of its founders) is a rural hillside town nestled among olive groves and orchards in the San Lorenzo Valley. Founded in the sixteenth century, it was at the centre of many border disputes between the Lengueglia and Villaregia feudal estates which shared it. When it became an independent municipality it extended its borders towards the sea in the area of the plains, where it exists today as a sun-therapy centre.
The old town area, with its typical narrow alleyways, arcades and porticoes lies at the foot of the hill dominated by the Romanesque church of Sant'Antonio. Probably built by the Benedictines between the twelfth and thirteenth century, it was the town's first parish church and has retained its Gothic portal. It preserves a thirteenth-century christening font made out of a single piece of stone; a wall half-way down the central aisle has unusual Spanish majolica decorations from the sixteenth century. Only a few ruins remain of the rural church of San Sebastiano and of the sixteenth-century tower erected for defence against the Saracens in the Torre del Poggio district. Two fine altar-pieces by Emanuele Macario, a painter born in Pigna, have recently been discovered and restored.
There are excursions leaving from Costarainera for Monte Costa (401 m.) and Monte Sette Fontane (780 m.) and for the nearby towns of Cipressa and Lingueglietta. You can walk up to the town from San Lorenzo al Mare by following an itinerary that traces the ancient mule tracks through the olive groves.The typical products of Costarainera are olive oil and fruit. Do try and taste the stuffed marrow flowers, which are a typical local speciality.
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