Monterosso to Portovenere by boat: a day in the Gulf of Poets

Portovenere sits just past the edge of the Cinque Terre proper, at the mouth of the Gulf of Poets, and reaching it by boat from Monterosso is the only way to take in both the five villages and this older, stranger corner of the coast in a single outing.

Byron's Grotto

The name of the gulf comes from the writers who kept it company through the nineteenth century — Byron chief among them, said to have set off from a cave near Portovenere on his swim across the water to Lerici, a stunt of several miles that has stuck to the place ever since. That cave, known now as Byron's Grotto, sits at the base of the headland below the church, and it's one of the swim and snorkel stops on the route out — a chance to be in the same water on the same stretch of coast as the legend, rather than just hear about it from a viewpoint.

San Pietro and the Old Town

Above the grotto stands the church of San Pietro, black and white striped, built on a headland that once held a temple to Venus — the port's name, Portus Veneris, comes from that earlier structure. Behind it, Portovenere's harbourfront runs up toward the Doria castle, and the town itself, with its tower-houses standing shoulder to shoulder above the water, has carried UNESCO World Heritage status since 1997, grouped together with the Cinque Terre and the islands just offshore.

Palmaria and the Blue Grotto

Those islands are the other half of the day. Palmaria sits directly across the strait from Portovenere, and along its cliffs is the Blue Grotto, a sea cave where the light off the water turns the interior a deep, saturated blue — reachable only from the water, and a stop most visitors to this coast never reach at all.

The full route — Monterosso out past Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore, then on to San Pietro, Byron's Grotto, Palmaria, and time ashore in Portovenere itself — is roughly five hours, and it's the one Ghibli tour built around a full day rather than a few hours. It leaves Molo dei Pescatori at 09:30, before the crowds reach either end of the route.