Italy – Porto Venere (Golf of Poets), Liguria

North-Western Italy, Eastern Ligurian Riviera – Province of La Spezia, Liguria Region 

Porto Venere and its Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)
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The village of Porto Venere (or Portovenere) and its small archipelago in front of its waters (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto islands) lie in Liguria, a region located on the Northwest coast of Italy, enclosed between the Ligurian sea and the Apennines, not far from the Apuan Alps, a mountain range in Northern Tuscany, worldwide famous for its Carrara’s historic quarries where Michelangelo selected his marble. The chief-town of Liguria is the beautiful Genoa.

Portovenere was built between the 5th century and the 13th century in Genoese Gothic style, the village is perched on the rocky promontory of the Mouths of Portovenere (Bocche di Portovenere) at the Western end of the Gulf of Poets, with its forms virtually unchanged over the centuries and the uniqueness of the ancient portals of tower-houses that line narrow in height on three or four floors, in parallel rows, on the alleys and on the descent to where you have the most beautiful image coming from the sea.

On its end stands the romantic St. Peter’s Church, notable for its ancient architecture, consisting of two connected buildings – the one latest Gothic (12th-15th Century), the other Romanesque (11th-12th Century) much older – very famous for its special panoramic and landscape values. Set overlooking the sea, the Church is the subject of numerous and famous photographs.

Its name (Portus Veneris) derives, according to tradition, from a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus built exactly in the place where today stands the St. Peter’s Church (the goddess was born from the sea foam right under the faraglione) or, as it whispers in place, just because Portovenere has always been a beautiful and romantic resort.

Portovenere and its three islands constitute the heart of the Regional Natural Park established in 2001 with the express purpose of helping to preserve biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora in the territory within the Gulf of Poets.

In 1997 the Cinque Terre, Portovenere and  its small archipelago, were included into the list of the UNESCO’s World’s cultural and natural heritage as «cultural area of exceptional value, which represents the harmonious interaction between man and nature, to whom and to which we owe a landscape of extraordinary quality and beauty that shows a traditional lifestyle, preserved for millennia».