Skip Portofino: Five Ligurian Coves the Locals Would Rather Keep Quiet

Let's get one thing out of the way: Portofino is lovely. It's also, in peak season, a wall-to-wall scrum of day-trippers, €18 spritzes, and yacht decks competing for elbow room. You came for a fishing village; you got a theme park with better architecture.

The good news is that Liguria's coastline is essentially a 200-mile argument between mountains and sea, and the mountains usually win — which means the coast is chopped into dozens of small, stubborn bays that big tour buses physically cannot reach. Here are five of our favorites, ordered roughly from easiest to most effort-required. Bring water shoes for at least two of them.

1. San Fruttuoso: The Abbey at the Bottom of the Stairs

There is no road to San Fruttuoso. That sentence should tell you most of what you need to know. An eighth-century abbey sits in a deep green cove under the Monte Portofino headland, reachable only by boat from Camogli or a hot, switchbacked hiking trail through the regional park.

The water here is absurdly clear — clear enough that Christ of the Abyss, the underwater bronze statue planted in the bay in 1954, is a genuine snorkeling destination. Swim out past the moored boats and you'll see it looming below you, arms raised toward the surface.

Getting there: Ferry from Camogli (about 20 minutes, runs April through October) or hike in from Camogli via San Rocco, roughly two hours. When to go: June or September, on the first ferry of the day. By 11 a.m. the tour boats arrive and the spell breaks a little.

2. Varigotti: The One With the Actual Beach

Most of the Riviera di Levante is rocky and pebbled, which is great for water clarity and less great if you're the kind of person who wants to lie down. Varigotti, a short drive west of Finale Ligure, is the exception: a proper wide sandy beach backed by a row of whitewashed, red-roofed houses that look transplanted from a postcard of the south.

It's popular with Ligurian families in August, but walk ten minutes east along the sand and you hit Cala dei Saraceni, a smaller cove beneath an old Saracen watchtower where it thins out fast. Climb up to the tower at golden hour and you'll understand why somebody built it there.

Getting there: Train to Varigotti station from Genoa or Savona; the beach is a five-minute walk. When to go: Late May or late September — warm water, half the people.

3. Tellaro: The Village That Out-Postcards Them All

East of La Spezia, past the well-trodden Cinque Terre crowds, the road narrows to a single lane and drops into Tellaro — a knot of pastel houses stacked on a rock spur above a tiny harbor, with a church standing right at the waterline like it's guarding the entrance.

Local legend has it an octopus once rang the church bells to warn the village of an incoming pirate raid. We can't verify this. We also don't want to.

There's no real beach here, and that's the point. Tellaro is for the passeggiata, a plate of muscoli at a harbor-side table, and watching fishing boats come in while you pretend you live here. The swimming is off the rocks below the village — bring shoes, pick your ledge, and you'll have some of the clearest water on this stretch of coast.

Getting there: Bus or taxi from La Spezia (the road is genuinely narrow — don't attempt it with a rental SUV and confidence). When to go: Any evening in June; sunset turns the harbor into hammered gold.

4. Cala dell'Oro and the Monte Argentario of the East — Sestri Levante's Quiet Twin

Sestri Levante is hardly a secret — its Baia del Silenzio is famous — but everyone stops at the famous bay and turns around. Keep going. The peninsula behind the old town has a network of footpaths leading to small rocky coves on the open-sea side, where on a weekday you can have a swimming ledge entirely to yourself.

The pick of them is the cove below the Punta Manara headland, a forty-minute walk from town through terraced olive groves and Mediterranean scrub. No facilities, no lido, no bar. Just you, a folded towel, and water the color of bottle glass.

Getting there: Train to Sestri Levante, then the marked trail from the old town. When to go: Weekday mornings in September. Bring: Water, shoes, and everything else — there's no shop once you're on the trail.

5. Marina di Andora's Western Rocks — or Better, the Borgio Verezzi Caves Coast

Our wildcard. Borgio Verezzi, between Finale Ligure and Albenga, is known mostly for its show caves, which means the coastal crowds skip it entirely. The village itself is a honey-colored stone maze of medieval arches, and a fifteen-minute walk toward the sea brings you to small, unfashionable bathing spots where Genoese retirees swim laps and nobody photographs anything.

It's the least glamorous entry on this list and possibly the most honest. There's a tiny piazza where the bar has been pouring the same aperitivo since roughly the invention of the aperitivo, and on summer evenings they screen films outdoors against the old stone walls.

Getting there: Train to Borgio Verezzi-Finalborgo station. When to go: July for the outdoor cinema; June for the swimming.

A Few Ground Rules

A quick word on etiquette, because these places stay lovely because people behave like guests:

• Pack out what you pack in. Several of these coves have no services at all.
• Learn three words of Italian — buongiorno, per favore, grazie — and use them. It changes every interaction.
• Eat where the menus aren't translated. If there's a photo of the pasta on the sign, keep walking.
• Take the early boat. On the coast, the difference between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. is the difference between a cove and a crowd.

The Riviera's best-kept secret isn't a place, really. It's the ten minutes of extra effort — a trail, a ferry, a winding bus ride — that puts a cove between you and the tour group. Bring good sandals. Bring an appetite. And maybe don't tell too many people.