A Walk from Santa Margherita Ligure to Portofino

On our last Saturday in Sestri Levante, the day after our classes ended, our language school offered an excursion to walk along the Ligurian coast from Santa Margherita Ligure to the famous resort town of Portofino. It promised to be a long day (and it was), so Cheryl decided to sit this one out. I joined a few of our classmates and Eliana, one of the school’s teachers, for the short train ride from Sestri Levante to Santa Margherita.

Santa Margherita is as close as the Italian railway gets to Portofino; the narrow peninsula and steep terrain would make it nearly impossible to lay tracks all the way there. Fortunately, there is a beautiful pedestrian path between the two towns, safely separated from traffic on the curvy roads for almost the entire 3.7-mile (6-kilometer) distance.

Our walk from the train station in Santa Margherita took us along the perimeter of the town’s marina. Before it became one of the most popular resort towns on the Italian Riviera, Santa Margherita was a fishing village, and today it continues to be an important port for dozens of both recreational and fishing boats.

Just south of the marina, we walked past the Grand Hotel Miramare, a five-star luxury hotel that has been a landmark on the Italian Riviera since 1903. Italian radio-frequency engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi conducted an important series of experiments in long-distance radiotelephony from the hotel in 1933, and had his offices there until he died a few years later. Many other distinguished and interesting guests have stayed at the Miramare, including Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh for their honeymoon in 1947.

Continuing southward, we next passed by Il Covo di Nord-Est, the first discotheque in Liguria. Built in 1934 as a private residence on a rock outcropping jutting into the sea, it later became a public club. By the 1960s and 1970s, it was the most popular, chic, “see-and-be-seen” hang-out in Italy. Its natural little harbor saw glamorous yachts belonging to international tycoons and celebrities like Aristotle Onassis, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Platters, and Gloria Gaynor, as well as many Italian talents. It is still in operation today, with many regular VIP clients like Italian stylists Dolce and Gabbana.

The pedestrian path to Portofino continued to hug the shoreline, giving us great views back toward Santa Margherita Ligure across the deep blue water.

On the other side of Paraggi Bay, the path left the shoreline and climbed up the hill on the Passeggiata dei Baci (the Walk of Kisses), which I’m sorry to say failed to live up to its name. After climbing a series of staircases, we paused at the top to catch our breath and admire the view of the bay before continuing through a shady forest.

As we neared the end of the Passeggiata dei Baci, we finally caught our first glimpse of Portofino.

A short walk from the staircase at the end of the Passeggiata dei Baci brought us to the piazza and harbor that are the heart of the town. Only about 400 people actually live in Portofino: fishing families, shop owners, people with hotels or restaurants, and a few who commute to Genoa for work. But many hundreds of tourists and visitors crowd the waterfront area restaurants and shops—including outposts of virtually every Italian designer label you can name—every day, while colorful boats moored in the harbor complement the blue of the water and the sunny yellows, oranges and reds of the surrounding buildings.

Eliana turned our group loose for a while to get some lunch and explore the area on our own. Then we met back up for a hike up to the Church of San Giorgio, which sits on a hill above the south side of the harbor. It is this church and the British—not the Italians—that are responsible for Portofino’s development as a tourist destination: in the 1850s, British aristocrats began making the city popular because they believed that relics of St. George, England’s patron saint, rested in the church.

From the small piazza in front of the church, we decided to trek another half-mile or so up to the Faro di Portofino, the Portofino Lighthouse.

Built in 1917, the 12-foot (3.7 meter) tall lighthouse and two-story keeper’s quarters cling to the very tip of the peninsula that forms Portofino harbor. The light itself is 130 feet (40 meters) above sea level and is visible at night from 18 miles (30 km) away—in fact, Eliana said it can be seen from the beach at Sestri Levante. Today, the lighthouse still serves as a critical aid to navigation; it is completely automated and solar-powered.

Once we reached the lighthouse, we stopped briefly for a coffee—which in Italy means an espresso—at the little outdoor bar adjacent to the lighthouse. You can see it in the photo above, just slightly below the level of the lighthouse. It would be tough to find a bar with better views!

Soon it was time to make our way back to the Portofino harbor, where a passenger ferry would return us to Santa Margherita Ligure for the train ride home. On the walk back, we admired the many beautiful (and undoubtedly very expensive) villas near the lighthouse that dot the hills above the harbor.

As the ferry departed Portofino, we were able to see the town’s colorful waterfront from a fresh perspective.

The brief journey on the ferry from Portofino back to Santa Margherita Ligure was a welcome respite for our tired feet, and it gave us time to appreciate the beauty of the coastline from the water. Come along on the ride for some of the highlights in this one-minute video:

Within about 15 minutes, the scenic marina of Santa Margherita Ligure came into view.

After disembarking from the ferry, we walked back to the train station and then rode to Sestri Levante. There, I parted ways with our friends, and walked back to our apartment. By the time I walked with Cheryl to a restaurant for dinner and back again, I had logged 21,007 steps for the day, for a total distance of 8.91 miles (14.3 km). Packing for our departure the next day would have to wait until the morning!