Yacht Charter Portofino

Yacht Charter in Portofino

Portofino is perhaps the most famous small harbour in the Mediterranean — a tiny, jewel-like fishing village of coloured facades, geranium-filled window boxes, and an impossibly picturesque piazza above a harbour that fills each summer with some of the world's most impressive yachts. The village, with a permanent population of barely 400 people, has attracted the wealthy and famous since the 1950s, when Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Truman Capote, and other luminaries of the post-war art world discovered its quiet charms. Today the shops sell Hermès scarves and Gucci loafers where fishing nets once hung to dry, but the essential beauty of the setting — the green promontory, the coloured houses, the water reflecting the lights at dusk — remains unchanged and unchanged.

The Portofino Promontory

The Portofino Promontory is a protected natural park of extraordinary beauty — an irregular rocky headland covered in Mediterranean maquis, olive groves, and maritime pines, its southern face dropping sheer into the sea. The walking trail from Santa Margherita Ligure or Camogli through the park to Portofino offers some of the finest coastal scenery in Liguria, passing through chestnut forests and across limestone ridges with views of the Ligurian Riviera on both sides. The underwater marine reserve around the promontory, established in 1999, is one of the most productive in the Mediterranean, with remarkable visibility and an abundance of sea life including grouper, moray eels, sea bream, and octopus.

The Cinque Terre

South of Portofino along the Ligurian coast, the Cinque Terre — five villages of brightly painted houses built into the cliffs above the sea — is one of the most visited and most photographed UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Italy. Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore are connected by a network of cliff-hanging trails and accessible from the sea by dinghy or water taxi. Arriving by yacht and anchoring off the villages, then going ashore by tender to eat fresh anchovies, pesto pasta, and focaccia in the village restaurants, is the ideal way to experience the Cinque Terre without the crowds of the walking trail above.

Genoa and Ligurian Culture

Genoa, 35 kilometres west of Portofino, is one of Italy's great maritime cities — home of Christopher Columbus, birthplace of pesto and focaccia, and possessor of a magnificent historic centre that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. The Caruggi, the medieval alleyways of the old city, house one of the densest concentrations of baroque palaces in Italy. The Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Rosso contain outstanding collections of Flemish and Italian Old Masters. The daily fish market at the old port is a spectacular display of the riches of the Ligurian Sea. Genoa is an outstanding day trip from a Portofino charter base and one of the most underrated cities in Italy.