Porto Venere: Italy’s Cinque Terre light perfect place to celebrate 10-year anniversary

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society, where none intrudes. By the deep Sea, and music in its roar …”

– Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 1812

PORTO VENERE, Italy – Lord Byron never experienced Cinque Terre as it is today. I can imagine arguably the greatest poet the United Kingdom ever produced sitting at a table on Vernazza’s picturesque harbor. He’s trying to capture the pastel-colored buildings wrapped around the quaint port – and then a massive wave of tourists in Yankees ball caps and flip flops storm by and block his view.

I can just see him throw his quill pen at some frat rat in a USC tank top.

No, the above poem wasn’t inspired by Vernazza or Corniglia or the other three towns that have made Cinque Terre one of the biggest tourist traps in Italy. He wrote those words after visiting a nearby town called Porto Venere.

It’s where Marina and I are now, sitting at an empty bar across the street from an empty beach lining the Gulf of La Spezia. A windsurfer is the lone person on the water on a brisk, gray 62-degree day. Small palm trees sway in the wind. We see dozens of little black pods tied from the ocean floor, traps for the mussels that we’ll eat that night in the restaurant next door.

As the tuna swims, we are only seven miles (12 kilometers) from Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five Cinque Terre towns. Porto Venere is on the southern tip of the peninsula that juts down from Cinque Terre. But it’s seemingly about a two-day journey on the average traveler’s destination radar.

Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, gets 2.5-4 million million tourists a year. Porto Venere gets fewer than 1 million and the vast majority are day trippers from Cinque Terre. The locals tell me it’s because Porto Venere isn’t as quaint as its more notable five northern neighbors. Its population of 3,500 is nearly as much as the 4,000 of the combined Cinque Terre towns. Vernazza has all of 700 residents.

I have lived in Italy for 11 years, 13 over two stints, and I have been to Cinque Terre three times. I had never heard of Porto Venere until Marina mentioned it as a great place to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. On the sea. Good beach. Cool old town. Many sites. Great history. Reachable by public transport.

Hey, Lord Byron lived in Italy for seven years and visited Porto Venere for inspiration. Maybe it’ll give some juice to little ol’ Dog-Eared Passport.

The journey

The trip is lovely. We take a train from Rome four hours north along the Tyrrhenian Sea to La Spezia, the jump-off city for Cinque Terre. A bus takes us 30 minutes along a windy route down to Porto Venere.

I rented an apartment on the water and we walk from the bus stop along the sea. We see no one but some stray locals, seagulls and an occasional car. The long beach, sandy in parts and rocky in others, is empty.

Marie Claire, our kind contact, meets us halfway and leads us to our apartment, a spacious three-room flat with a balcony overlooking the water. I can taste my first glass of Vermentino as I drop my roller bag.

The apartment building is next to Paradise bar, our local open-air hangout sporting neon lights, Italian pop music and a huge screen for European soccer. We take a table and stare at the water while sipping our first Vermentino, Liguria’s trademark white wine. 

“It could be very beautiful with the sun,” Marina says.

It is beautiful. As the late chef-author Anthony Bourdain advised travelers, “Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar.” We just substitute wine and still get his point. The quiet bliss with the spectacular scenery and the sense of having nothing to do yet and nowhere to go, I can’t imagine a better bow for the gift of a 10-year relationship.

Later, we go next door to La Chiglia. It’s a nice but un-stuffy restaurant with a nautical theme. (Chiglia means “keel” in Italian.) A big model boat is at the entrance. Sailors’ ropes decorate the tablecloths. Crab images adorn the wallpaper.

We order the best seafood salad we’ve had in Italy: calamari, octopus, cherry tomatoes and mussels topped with a huge shrimp and served warm. 

I order the trofie con pesto e basilico (short, twisty pasta with Liguria’s trademark pesto sauce and basil). The pesto, made from pine nuts, basil and parmesan and which I’ll blog about next week, makes the pasta so creamy, so tangy, so good.

As we stare at the dark sea, illuminated only by a couple lights from distant boats, I couldn’t feel farther from Cinque Terre than if I was in Tierra del Fuego.

Sites of Ponte Venere

Then the next morning, we’re reminded of what part of Italy we’re in. 

We walk 10 minutes to the old town and the narrow main pedestrian street of Via Giovanni Capellini is lined chock-a-block with souvenir shops. Seemingly every store sells pesto. Basil plants in full bloom are everywhere. Bars and restaurant owners set up outdoor tables on a sunny 60-degree day.

The end of Giovanni Capellini empties out onto a stone promontory with the Ponte Venere’s two main sites. Crawling all around Chiesa di San Pietro and Byron’s Grotto above it are hordes of tourists. Tour guides with little flags lead pods of tourists in Italian, English and Spanish. 

It’s not Vernazza in July, but it seems like Porto Venere gets the spillage floating down from Cinque Terre. I pat myself on the back for renting a flat outside Old Town. I’m also reassured by the crowds at the dock. They’re day trippers. They’ll be gone by evening.

Undeterred, we join the procession up the stone steps to the eerie Chiesa di San Pietro. I’ve never before seen a church of black and white horizontal stripes. Built in 1198, the Gothic-style church is on the same ground as a 5th century Christian church and before that, a Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Venus where the town got its name.

Inside isn’t nearly as nice. Stone columns hold up a brick vaulted roof hovering over a crude, stone altar. It shows every bit of its 800 years.

Just above on a rocky ledge is a stone gate with a plaque commemorating the spot where Lord Byron allegedly swam to visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Shelley in Lerici, four miles (7.5 kilometers) away. Not that the dubious story left an impression on the locals but on July 27 Porto Venere will host the Coppa Byron open water race for the 42nd year.

Byron inspired more than just open-water swimmers and American travel bloggers. Other poets who followed him to Porto Venere were August von Platen-Hallermunde, renowned for his classical influence; Grouse Carducci, Italy’s greatest modern poet; and Eugenior Montale, winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in literature.

Even before Byron came the likes of Dante Alighieri, who, oddly, became most famous for his depiction of Hell in his Divine Comedy. It’s why they still call the Gulf of La Spezia “The Gulf of Poets.”

More inspiring than walking in Byron’s footsteps were the views. From the gate, I look down at San Pietro looking even more dramatic with the backdrop of the sea and nearby island of Palmaria behind it. Inside the grotto, most of which is destroyed, is a hallway with three arched windows through which we get beautiful views of the sea.

Through the gate, a walkway with a guardrail leads us along a rocky path above the crashing waves below. Not a soul, not a boat, is on the water. It’s just black, rocky cliffs and the blue sea – and dozens of tourists stopping for photos, some of whom not even looking at the scenery.

The history

Look at Porto Venere on a map of Southern Europe and you can see its prominent coastal position made it an important stronghold throughout history. It was a naval base for the Byzantine fleet after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the Lombards destroyed it in 643.

Then came the Saracens’ turn who raided it numerous times and was at the center of the War of Aragon-Genoa war in the 15th century. Later, it was annexed to France during its domination of Italy in the late 18th century.

Representing a good chunk of that history is Castello Doria. Hovering over the town above Byron’s Grotto, the castle was built by the Republic of Genoa in 1160 when it was a  major commercial and maritime power in the late Middle Ages.

Napoleon Bonaparte used it as a political prison. 

After climbing a series of steep stone staircases, we enter the castle nearly empty. Two huge watch towers flank a bulky stone structure made of Cyclopean walls, massive limestone boulders roughly tied together.

It wasn’t just for defense. Climbing the short path to the top we find a small amphitheater with six rows of seats. The top has the best view in Porto Venere: The nearby Chiesa di San Lorenzo below, San Pietro far below to the right, the raging sea beyond and the emerald green island of Palmaria as a backdrop.

I wonder if Shorty’s political enemies had this view.

We descend and take Bourdain’s advice again. Walking down the crowded Giovanni Capellini again, we duck into a small, narrow little wine bar called La Darsena. It has a beautiful view of the harbor below. The port is lined with pastel buildings of orange, red, white, gold and yellow. It looks like Vernazza without the mob.

We take a seat on the little balcony. A grizzled regular sits behind us with a beer. I sip on my chilly, crisp Vermentino and Marina and I toast, again, to 10 years together, in Italy, la belpaese, which has inspired poets for two millennia.

Lord Byron, your muse of a town is no longer lonely. But it’s still a pleasure.

If you’re thinking of going …

How to get there: Fly into Milan or, even closer, Genoa. Milan is 220 kilometers (130 miles) from La Spezia. The 2-hour, 50-minute train ride starts at €21. Genoa is 105 kilometers (60 miles) away and the 1-hour, 45-minute ride is about one hour and starts at €9.70. From La Spezia, local buses leave frequently for Porto Venere. The 20-minute ride is €1-€3. From Rome I paid €160 for two round-trip tickets.

Where to stay: Appartamento Mariella, Via Prima Traversa Olivo, 20, 39-380-450-9997. Lovely, spacious apartment 10 minutes from the center with full kitchen facilities and balcony looking out to the sea. I paid €375 for three nights.

Where to eat: La Chiglia, Via dell’Olivo 317, 39-0187-792-179, lachigliasrl@gmail.com, noon-2:30 p.m., 7-10 p.m. Excellent fish restaurant. Don’t miss the fish salad appetizer. I paid €60 for a split appetizer, two main dishes and wine.

When to go: June or September. Temperatures range from low 60s to high 70s. In mid-May we had temps in the 60s with a little rain. As the rest of Italy, avoid July and August. Porto Venere already seemed crowded in May.

For more information: Pro Loco Porto Venere, Via G. Bastreri Square, https://www.portovenere.com/, 3-7 p.m. spring-summer, 3-6 p.m. fall-winter, Thursday-Tuesday.