What is Portovenere known for?

The thirteenth-century black-and-white striped church on the rocky promontory, the most photographed building on the eastern Ligurian coast. Lord Byron swam from Portovenere to Lerici across the gulf to visit Shelley; the sea cave below San Pietro carries his name. Inscribed with the Cinque Terre and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto as a cultural landscape of stone fortifications and terraces.

Where is Portovenere?

Portovenere is a comune in the province of La Spezia, Liguria region of Italy, about 90 kilometers from Pisa.

Liguria · La Spezia

Portovenere

A Genoese fortress at the western mouth of the Gulf of Poets, the black-and-white church of San Pietro on the Venus-temple rock.

90 km / 56 mi

Nearest hub (Pisa)

3,268

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

UNESCO

Why come

Portovenere closes the western mouth of the Gulf of La Spezia, three kilometers south of the city by water, opposite the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. The Roman Portus Veneris dates to at least the first century BC, named for a temple to Venus on the rocky promontory where the Chiesa di San Pietro now stands. Genoa took control in 1113 and fortified the town as the southern anchor of its Riviera defences, opposite Pisan Lerici across the gulf. The Castello Doria was first cited in 1139 and rebuilt in 1161, expanded again from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. San Pietro, consecrated in 1198, holds the alternating black and white stone bands of the thirteenth-century rebuild between 1256 and 1277. Below the church, the sea cave called Grotta dell'Arpaia took its English name from Lord Byron, who swam from Portovenere to Lerici across the gulf to visit Shelley. UNESCO inscribed Portovenere with the Cinque Terre and the islands in 1997.

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Gallery

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Known for

Chiesa di San Pietro
Consecrated 1198, black and white striped Gothic rebuild from 1256-1277, on the rocky promontory where the Roman temple of Venus stood.
Castello Doria
First cited 1139, rebuilt 1161, expanded into the seventeenth century, the Genoese fortress above the harbour, prison under Napoleonic rule.
Grotta dell'Arpaia
Sea cave below San Pietro, also called Byron's Grotto for the English poet who swam from here to Lerici across the gulf to visit Shelley.
Isola Palmaria
Largest of three offshore islands, 75 meters high, ferry from the Portovenere quay, marble quarries and Grotta Azzurra sea cave.
Carruggio di Portovenere
Single medieval street running parallel to the harbour with tall narrow houses, the original Genoese twelfth-century plan intact.
Chiesa di San Lorenzo
Twelfth-century Romanesque parish church above the harbour, rebuilt after the 1340 Aragonese fire that damaged the upper town.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September to October are the working windows. Ferries to Palmaria run on full schedules from May onwards; the gulf is calm enough to swim by late May. July and August fill the carruggio and the Castello Doria, accommodation runs at three times shoulder rates, and the queue for the climb to San Pietro can reach an hour. The Festa della Madonna Bianca on August 17 brings torchlit processions along the harbour. November through March is quieter. Many restaurants close. Winter storms occasionally suspend the Palmaria ferry. San Pietro in January, the bands of black and white stone slick with rain above the gulf, is the photograph without the crowd in front of it.