From Portovenere a short 15 – 20 min boat trip across the bay will bring you to a few other resort towns, all special and spectacular in their own way ..one of my favourites being Lerici with its ancient Castle guarding the town and harbour.
Lerici is quite a bit larger than Portovenere and is more of a local holiday resort town ..not as old or quaint as Portovenere and the villages, but having said that it is not without an old world charm of its own.
From Lerici you can take a relaxed 45 min walk all along the coast to San Terenzo – there are many beaches and resort areas along this seemingly endless boardwalk and many cafes to stop at for a coffee or gelato.
Discover a charming local resort town
A 10 min bus drive from Lerici will get you to Tellaro as it passes high above a stunning little resort cove of Fiascherino. Tellaro is a small seaside village that is lost in time and has a remote yet intimate feel about it – far from the maddening crowds yet is only 10 minutes away from Lerici.
Its easy to get lost in the maze of narrow streets of Tellaro, but somehow you either end up at the tiny beach area… just big enough to launch a few boats, or back at the top near the bus stop – the bus driver should to be on Top Gear for the way he beat the bends and tight corners in and out of the village and I almost found myself counting all my fingers and toes when I got off the bus.
LA SPEZIA
I took the local bus to the busy port city of La Spezia.. after Genoa its the 2nd largest city in the province and is home to a major Naval Base, and is also now one of the largest commercial ports in Italy due to its natural deep water bay.. Many people overlook it when visiting its more glamorous outerlying villages and areas, but it has a charm of its own…old historic and new amenities fused together where you can get a feel for authentic daily life in a lived-in and working port city.
The bus took about 35 min to get there from Portovenere as its a narrow winding road, and if it hadn’t stopped along the way picking up kids and a slight detour into sleepy seaside village of Fezzano, I would have been reaching for my sea sick tabs ….a car or cab would be about 10 to 15 min quicker depending on traffic… but way costlier, and I wanted to experience the local bus trip and see where it stopped along the way.
I liked the city far more than I expected, much of the historic center (centro storico), was destroyed during the war, but there are some nice pockets of preserved buildings and some interesting post-war architecture around. A good part of the shoreline near the harbour has been turned into a waterfront park with Palms and shaded lawn areas creating a nice entrance to the city from the harbour front.
