Instead of Portofino
Instead of Portofino: coastal towns within 2 hours
Portofino has three hundred and fifty residents and a mooring fee that makes the news. It is a photograph you visit rather than a town you stay in.
The rest of the Ligurian Riviera di Levante is the same rock and the same coloured houses, at a scale where a family still lives behind the shutters.
Coastal towns in our catalogue within 2 hours of Portofino by road, ranked by outside recognition. Portofino itself and the other famous places are left out. 39 towns match; the 12 best-recognised are below.
Instead of Portofino
Portofino · 355 residents · Liguria
- LericiLa Spezia
Coastal town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Portofino
- 1h 20m by car
- Residents
- 9,425
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- Monterosso al MareLa Spezia
Coastal town · UNESCO
- From Portofino
- 1h 9m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 1,350
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- Finale LigureSavona
Coastal town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Portofino
- 1h 37m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 11,146
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- Borgio VerezziSavona
Coastal town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Portofino
- 1h 34m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 2,048
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- ArenzanoGenova
Coastal town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Portofino
- 1h 15m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 11,074
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 39 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Portofino. More of them follow below.
- ✷ We've been
Lerici
Province: La Spezia · 10 m
A fishing harbour under a Pisan-Genoese castle, with the frazione of Tellaro hanging over the rocks at the commune's southern edge.
- ✷ We've been
Monterosso al Mare
Province: La Spezia · 12 m
The westernmost and largest of the five villages, where Eugenio Montale spent the childhood summers that became Ossi di seppia in 1925.
Finale Ligure
Province: Savona · 12 m
Three boroughs on the Gulf of Genoa, a walled inland seat set back from two coastal quarters below a karst limestone circuit.
Borgio Verezzi
Province: Savona · 30 m
Two villages joined under one comune in 1933: Borgio on the coast below, Verezzi on the pink-stone hill above.
Arenzano
Province: Genova · 12 m
A coastal town twenty kilometers west of Genova where two-thirds of the territory climbs into the Parco del Beigua and peaks above a thousand meters.
Framura
Province: La Spezia · 76 m
Five hamlets between sea level and 300 meters on the Riviera di Levante, with Byzantine watchtowers built against Saracen incursions.
Diano
Province: Imperia · 70 m
A twin destination on the Riviera dei Fiori: a medieval hilltop borgo above and a beach resort below, sharing one bay and one olive valley.
Noli
Province: Savona · 4 m
The fifth Italian maritime republic from 1192 to 1797, a walled coastal town with the Romanesque basilica of San Paragorio outside its gates.
Laigueglia
Province: Savona · 6 m
A former coral-fishing village on the Riviera di Ponente, with a curved Baroque parish church and a fishermen's grid of caruggi behind the beach.
Moneglia
Province: Genova · 4 m
A bay on the Riviera di Levante, closed by two wooded headlands.
Celle Ligure
Province: Savona · 5 m
A Riviera di Ponente beach town with kilns firing since the 1600s and a ceramic on its parish church façade.
- ✷ We've been
Ameglia
Province: La Spezia · 89 m
A hilltop borgo at 89 meters above the mouth of the Magra, the Lunigiana edge of Liguria where the river meets the Gulf of Poets.
Drive times measured by road from Portofino. A town with no time shown is one the router could not reach, usually because it is served by ferry. How this data is built.