The best beach towns in the province of Savona
The province of Savona has the sand. That is the plain fact that separates this stretch of Ligurian coast from much of the rest of the region, where the shore is shingle and the swimming is a matter of careful footing. Here the beaches run wide and pale below hills of olive terraces and Aleppo pine, backed by towns of tall, narrow houses in ochre and rose plaster, with painted trompe l'oeil shutters and slate doorframes. Summer brings the beach clubs and their rows of umbrellas, but late May and September are better: warm water, fewer families, and the trofie al pesto, farinata baked in copper pans and fried anchovies still coming out of the kitchens along the caruggi.
Most people who come to the Ligurian coast are going to the Cinque Terre, and in July the trains between Levanto and La Spezia carry more people than the villages can hold. The paths are ticketed, the harbours are photographed to death, and swimming is an afterthought squeezed between arrivals. Portofino absorbs another share of the crowd, along with the money. Both sit east of Genoa, which means the western Riviera gets skipped by anyone travelling on a tight itinerary.
The coast does not stop at Genoa. It carries on west for the whole length of the province of Savona, through headlands of white limestone, Roman bridges, medieval fishing towns with their nets still in use, and the long sandy bays that gave the Riviera delle Palme its name. Every town in this list holds the national award for clean bathing water and well-run beaches, which is a practical thing rather than a decorative one: lifeguards, tested water, working showers. Fewer visitors come this way, and the ones who do tend to be Piedmontese, down from Turin for the weekend.
Of the 15 communes we have mapped in the province of Savona, 9 qualify as beach towns: each holds the national award for clean bathing water and well-run beaches. The smallest, Laigueglia, has 1,705 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The best hidden towns that eat well in the province of Savona and The 6 best towns with a food festival in the province of Savona.
Laigueglia
Why visit Laigueglia
Laigueglia sits at six meters on the Riviera di Ponente, sheltered between the two headlands that frame the bay. The name comes from Aquilia, a reference to the Roman eagle standards, and the village grew from a settlement of fishermen who came over from neighboring Andora.
Genoa bought the borough in 1609. Through the seventeenth century the economy ran on shipbuilding and the coral trade, which drew Catalan fishermen to settle in numbers and left behind the Baroque churches that anchor the centro storico today: the parish church with its curved front, and the confraternity oratory with its carved choir and Piola altarpiece.
Behind the beach, the fishermen's grid still reads as caruggi, small squares opening to the sea, houses in pale violet and ochre, the seafront watchtowers standing at the edge where the town once kept watch for raiders by sea. What the coral money built, the town has simply gone on living inside.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Laigueglia
- Chiesa di San Matteo. The curved façade fronts a Baroque interior where the three altarpieces hang alongside furnishings paid for in the coral years, when the parish stood as the visible return on the fishery's money.
- Oratorio di Santa Maria Maddalena. 1616 oratory of the Confraternita dei Disciplinanti, with a carved wooden choir and an altarpiece by Domenico Piola.
- Centro storico. Fishermen's grid of caruggi behind the beachfront, with houses painted in the pale lilac and ochre traditional to the Ponente coast.
How to get to Laigueglia
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 85 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through June and September through October are the calmer summer-edge months on this coast. The Bandiera Blu beach is open, the sea is warm enough from June onward, and the centro storico is not yet packed. July and August bring crowds, especially from Piedmont and Lombardy, and the litoraneo fills shoulder-to-shoulder. Il Salto Dell'Acciuga falls in October.
Borgio Verezzi
Why visit Borgio Verezzi
Borgio Verezzi is two settlements stitched together in 1933 under a single comune in the province of Savona. Borgio sits on the coast at the mouth of the Bottassano stream.
Verezzi rises 200 meters up the Orera hill above it, four old boroughs of stone houses in the warm-pink local rock: Piazza, Roccaro, Crosa, and Poggio, each a cluster rather than a single center. The beach below has held the Bandiera Blu without interruption since 1989.
The two halves of the town read as coast and height rather than old and new: the lower village handles the shoreline and the flag it has kept for decades, the upper village keeps its stone streets and its square turned toward the sea view. What the pairing adds up to is a comune built from two working parts, a beach town below and a hill village above, joined by administration in 1933 but still legible as separate places.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Borgio Verezzi
- Grotte di Valdemino. Dated to 1933, the caves run through chambers where small underground lakes sit beneath the karst rock, the route winding through passages carved out over time.
- Piazza Sant'Agostino. Main square of Verezzi, framed by pink-stone houses with a view down to the sea. The village skyline serves as backdrop for the festival's summer stage.
- Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo. Neoclassical parish church built in 1789 on the foundations of the medieval Burgum Albinganeum castle, with a white façade and two bell towers.
How to get to Borgio Verezzi
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 69 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dry months on this stretch of the Riviera di Ponente. The beach at Borgio holds Bandiera Blu and the water warms into May. July and August are full: the coast road slows, the spiaggia fills with weekenders from Genova and Torino, and the theater festival runs in Piazza Sant'Agostino from early July to mid-August. Sagra della Lumaca falls in August.
Noli
Why visit Noli
Noli sits at four meters on the Riviera di Ponente, fifty kilometers southwest of Genoa. From 1192 to 1797 it was an independent maritime republic, the fifth alongside Genova, Pisa, Venezia and Amalfi, holding the Capo Noli headland and a stretch of coast under its own flag and protected by alliance with Genoa.
The medieval walls still ring the centro storico, and the survivors of an original eight defensive towers still rise above the rooftops, including the Torre dei Quattro Canti and the Torre Papone. Outside the walls stands the Basilica di San Paragorio, an eleventh-century Romanesque church and one of the most important early medieval buildings in Liguria, with a wooden crucifix from the twelfth century and a bishop's throne carved into a single block of stone.
The Capo Noli cliffs end the bay to the south, with footpaths leading to grottos and a hermitage in the rock. The litoraneo carries the Bandiera Blu.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Noli
- Basilica di San Paragorio. Eleventh-century Romanesque church outside the walls, with a twelfth-century wooden crucifix and a bishop's throne carved from a single block.
- Torre dei Quattro Canti. Surviving medieval defensive tower inside the walled centro storico, one of eight that originally ringed the maritime republic.
- Torre Papone. Second medieval tower of the original defensive ring, still standing above the rooftops of the centro storico.
How to get to Noli
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 58 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through June and September through October are the right months for Noli. The sea is warm enough from late May, the walls of the centro storico keep the streets shaded, and the coastal path to Capo Noli is walkable without midday heat. July and August fill the beach and the limited parking on the coastal road; the rest of the village stays calmer than the Bandiera Blu litoraneo. La Repubblica del Gusto falls in June.
Celle Ligure
Why visit Celle Ligure
Celle Ligure sits at sea level on the Riviera di Ponente, ten kilometers west of Savona. The Aleramici marquises gave the lands to a Piedmontese monastery in 1014; the Genovese families took them over within a generation.
Pope Sixtus IV's family came from here. The lower town runs along the lungomare, with Piazza dei Mille at its center, while the centro storico sits behind it as a borgo of narrow caruggi, one of the Borghi più belli d'Italia.
A handful of artisan kilns still work these streets, ceramic shop signs marking the buildings where the trade continues. The parish church stands within this old town, its façade carrying the ceramic Assumption by Lucio Fontana, San Michele defeating the dragon rendered in the same medium the town has fired since the seventeenth century.
The pieces read as one place rather than several: a fishing and beach economy along the shore, a ceramic trade worked into the old quarter behind it, and a native artist's public commission set into the church that anchors both.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Celle Ligure
- Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo. Inside, a Via Crucis by Caminati hangs alongside ceramic stations by Emanuele Luzzati, a pairing of local ceramic craft with the Fontana work on the façade outside.
- Centro storico. Borgo of narrow caruggi behind the lungomare, with active artisan ceramic workshops and ceramic shop signs on the buildings themselves.
- Spiaggia di Celle Ligure. Sand and gravel beach that forms the basis of the town's summer economy, backed by the lungomare and the old town behind it.
How to get to Celle Ligure
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Genova is roughly 40 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dry months on this stretch of the Ponente. The sea warms enough for swimming by late May. July and August are full: the lungomare slows, the beach establishments fill with weekenders from Torino, and the Aurelia stays clogged from Albisola to Varazze on Friday afternoons.
Pietra Ligure
Why visit Pietra Ligure
Pietra Ligure sits between Loano and Borgio Verezzi on the Riviera di Ponente, twenty kilometers southwest of Savona. Neolithic finds on Monte Trabocchetto and Roman artifacts in the centro storico place settlement here back across millennia, long before the town took its present name and shape.
That name comes from the Castrum et Oppidum Petrae, the fortress on the rock above the modern center, which became a summer residence from 1100 and was held until 1385, when it passed to the Republic of Genova. The old town has grown up around two poles: the rock with its castle at one end, and the Baroque basilica at the other, with the palazzi of the civic and religious elite filling the ground between.
The promenade now traces that same line at sea level, joining the historic center to a sandy beach that runs south toward Loano. Every three years the space between these poles, the central squares of the old town, fills with the floral carpets of the Infiorata, while a smaller annual version continues in the frazione of Ranzi.
What the town shows a visitor, in effect, is a small stretch of coast where a medieval fortress, a plague-vow church and a modern floral tradition all sit within walking distance of one another.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety. It is also rated for accessibility, which most of this coast is not.
What to see in Pietra Ligure
- Basilica di San Nicolò. Mid-eighteenth-century Baroque parish basilica standing at one end of the historic center, its facade the anchor of the town's central squares during the flower festival.
- Castello di Pietra Ligure. Defensive castle on the rock behind the centro storico, long held by the Bishops of Albenga, its walls visible above the rooftops of the old town.
- Palazzo Golli. Historic palace on Piazza Martiri della Libertà, now the municipal building, the civic anchor of the centro storico.
How to get to Pietra Ligure
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 67 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the strongest months on this stretch of Riviera. The Infiorata del Corpus Domini falls every three years in late May or early June, drawing 44 delegations of flower artists into the centro storico for a Saturday-into-Sunday display. July and August fill the lungomare and the centro storico empties in the early afternoon.
Loano
Why visit Loano
Loano lies sixty kilometers southwest of Genova, at the foot of the arc of mountains that shelters it from inland weather. The town was an imperial fief of the Doria family from the thirteenth century, and the family financed the major public buildings still in use today: the palace at the centro's heart, the loggia beside it where civic business was once conducted, and, indirectly, the church that stands nearer the harbor, built for the town's seafarers and still holding their votive offerings of brigantines and barques.
The old centro, with its palace, loggia and church, sits inland of the modern marina and the two kilometers of beach that run east from it. The mountain at Loano's back and the harbor at its front mark the two poles the town has always worked between: the Doria who governed from the hill and the sailors who prayed by the water.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety. It is also rated for accessibility, which most of this coast is not.
What to see in Loano
- Palazzo Doria. Considered one of the most representative civil Renaissance palaces in Liguria, its rooms now house the town's administrative offices, and the mosaic floor remains open to view on the main level.
- Chiesa di Sant'Agostino. Founded 1582 by Zenobia Del Carretto, rebuilt 1588-98; called the Madonnetta, the seafarers' church, with votive ship models inside.
- Marina di Loano. The Yachting Pages ranking sits alongside a working harbor east of the centro, with the beach running two kilometers of sand and gravel toward it.
How to get to Loano
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 76 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the strongest months on the Loano front, with the marina full of boats and the beach manageable. July and August are warm, often 28 to 31 degrees, and the population doubles with families on long stays from Milano and Torino. November through March is the calmest stretch but the town stays open because 10,700 residents keep daily services running; the Madonnetta opens for the seafarers' mass on 8 December. Sagra di San Pio X e IX Run San Pio falls in August.
Finale Ligure
Why visit Finale Ligure
Finale Ligure spans three boroughs and the slope above them: Finalmarina and Finalpia on the coast, the walled inland borough set back at the junction of the Aquila and Pora streams. The two coastal quarters face the water and carry the beachfront trade; the inland borough, built as the seat of the marquisate under the Del Carretto from the late twelfth century onward, kept the family's fortifications and its street plan intact behind the walls rather than along the shore.
The stronghold above the borgo passed through building, wartime destruction, and rebuilding before the Genoese conquest left it largely dismantled in 1715, and the Spanish fort on the ridge above continued to ring the town after that conquest was complete. The coastal stretch below carries the Bandiera Blu and now serves as the starting point for the karst climbing and mountain-biking circuit that has drawn outdoor sport to Finale since the 1990s.
The arrangement is a working division rather than a coincidence: the fortified marquisate seat set inland and upslope, the modern leisure economy running along the water below it.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety. It is also rated for accessibility, which most of this coast is not.
What to see in Finale Ligure
- Castel Gavone. Del Carretto stronghold built by Enrico II in 1181, destroyed in the wars with Genoa, rebuilt in 1451-52 and dismantled by the Genoese in 1715, leaving the diamond-faceted Torre dei Diamanti standing.
- Castel San Giovanni. Seventeenth-century Spanish fort on a higher ridge above Finalborgo, still ringing the walled town.
- Finalborgo. Walled medieval borough at the junction of the Aquila and Pora streams, listed among the Borghi più belli d'Italia.
How to get to Finale Ligure
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 71 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through June and September through October are the easy months: warm sea, dry rock for climbing on the karst above the town, mild evenings in Finalborgo. July and August bring summer beach traffic; the coastal road clogs and Finalmarina fills, while Finalborgo two kilometers inland stays calmer. Winter is mild on this exposure and the climbing and mountain-biking seasons continue through it; many international visitors come specifically between November and March for the limestone routes. Ecosagra Delle Melanzane Ripiene falls in August.
Varazze
Why visit Varazze
Varazze sits between Mount Beigua and the sea, 30 kilometers west of Genova in the Riviera di Ponente. The town grew around the Roman station of Ad Navalia and became the main port of the marquisate of Bosco, disputed for centuries between Savona and Genova because of its shipyards.
Jacopo da Varagine was born here around 1228 in the Casanova district. As a Dominican friar and later archbishop of Genova, he compiled the Legenda Aurea, a Latin collection of saint biographies that survived in roughly 1,400 manuscript codices through the Middle Ages, second only to the Bible in circulation.
The parish Collegiate Church of Sant'Ambrogio holds a panel by Luca Cambiaso, one of the greatest Ligurian painters of the sixteenth century. Mount Beigua rises to 1,287 meters at the town's back.
The economy still works shipyards, yachting and tourism in roughly that order.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Varazze
- Chiesa Collegiata di Sant'Ambrogio. Parish collegiate church with Romanesque-Gothic three-mullioned bell tower, Baroque façade, polyptych by Giovanni Barbagelata and a panel by Luca Cambiaso.
- Parco Naturale del Beigua. UNESCO Geopark covering Mount Beigua at 1,287 meters, the highest peak in the range, with trails connecting the coast to the entroterra.
- Centro storico. Medieval grid behind the shipyards with surviving sections of the old town walls and the Casanova district where Jacopo da Varagine was born.
How to get to Varazze
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 45 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months on the Varazze coast. Mount Beigua shelters the town from north winds, so the climate stays mild well into autumn. July and August are warm and crowded, with the beaches filling and the Beigua trails busy.
Savona
Why visit Savona
Savona is the seat of its province, 40 kilometers west of Genova, the largest port on the Riviera di Ponente. Ligurian tribes held the site before Rome took it around 180 BC after the Punic Wars, during which Savona had sided with Carthage.
The Lombards sacked it in 641. The Della Rovere family produced two popes from Savona: Sixtus IV, who ordered the Roman Sistine Chapel, and his nephew Julius II.
Sixtus IV also commissioned the smaller Sistine Chapel here in 1481 as a funeral chapel for his parents at the Franciscan convent. In 1542 the Republic of Genoa built the Priamar fortress on the medieval town center, destroying the old cathedral, bishop's palace and Dominican convent to clear ground for the bastions.
Pope Pius VII, kidnapped by Napoleon, was held in the fortress from 1809 to 1812. Giuseppe Mazzini was imprisoned there in 1830-31 while drafting the manifesto of Giovine Italia.
The Museo della Ceramica preserves six centuries of Savona and Albisola pottery.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety. It is also rated for accessibility, which most of this coast is not.
What to see in Savona
- Fortezza del Priamar. Sixteenth-century fortress built by the Republic of Genoa in 1542 on the medieval city core, prison of Pius VII and Mazzini in the nineteenth century.
- Cappella Sistina. Funeral chapel commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 for his parents, predating the Roman Sistine Chapel he ordered three years later.
- Cattedrale di Nostra Signora Assunta. Sixteenth-century cathedral with the Della Rovere polyptych remnants, beside the Cappella Sistina and the Bishop's Palace.
How to get to Savona
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 59 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months in Savona. The Priamar's outdoor spaces fill with concerts and the Cappella Sistina stays cool. July and August are warm and crowded, with cruise traffic peaking and the centro storico emptying in the early afternoon.
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