35 Poetic ports of Italy

After our goodbyes to Marius and Sabina in Genua we went southwards again to the golfo del Tigullio. This time we passed Portofino to head for the less famous town of Chiavari. It turned out to be a gem of a town without the throngs of fancy tourists. It was a pleasure to walk under the many arcades with antique shopfronts and to visit the market and terraces.

The worldfamous Cinque Terre area lived up to its reputation and we admired the five colourful fisherman villages while sailing by. Nestled on the steep rocks the little villages were once hard to reach from the landside and all have a tiny harbour to haul the small fishingboats on the hard. Here they are still being displayed on the street and make for a nice picture if you can keep the many tourists out of it.

From our mooring in the Golfo dei Poeti we made a proper visit to the villages with the tourist hop-on-hop-off boat who took us to the piers which weren’t accessible to deep keeled Kabaal.

In Portovenere, as many say the sixth of the Cinque Terre, we loved the 12th century chapel of st Peter, built on the rocks. It is said that the poet Lord Byron used to swim accross the Golfo dei Poeti from Portovenere to Lerici hence the name of the bay.

Before saying goodbye to the Golfo dei Poeti we anchor near the village of Le Grazie which at night looks like a fairytale with the festive lights on the buildings near the waterfront. The village dates from the first century BC as is proved by the remains of a Roman villa.

In the mean time we solve some minor technical problems of which there are many more to remain 😉 maybe some time we will make a special about it.

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