Cinque Terre: Portovenere

“Port of Venus”

This town, south of the Cinque Terre villages, is an ideal lodging base for visitors to the villages. It has a relaxed Mediterranean beachfront culture and features an Old Town of multicolored houses on narrow alleys.

Harvest of the sea

The bay of Portovenere yields high-quality anchovies and mussels.

Hotels have private garden grottoes like this
Streets above the waterfront road are pedestrian only and include narrow stepped passageways like these to get between levels
Residential alleyways above the port of Portovenere
Thw lower two alleyway levels are more commercial
All the twisted exposed rock we see testifies to the massive forces it took to convert limestone into marble. Portovenere has its own brand of black marble, Portoro.
Leonardo tells us the story
This cruise ship’s lighter belongs to a specific ship, dedicated to its passengers’ use

The Church of San Pietro

It is built on the remains of a fifth-century church that previously occupied the site

These were the rocks from which Lord Byron swam across the bay to the left of this view to Lerici, to visit his friend Shelley