Monte di Portofino.
The area boasts an exceptional natural heritage
that includes traces of rural and nautical civilizations,
splendid religious architecture, and clusters of
rural houses surrounded by tiny orchards and sections
of land planted with grape vines and olive trees.
The Portofino promontory, which overhangs the limpid
waters of the marine protected area between the
Gulfs of Tigullio and Paradiso, is blanketed with
a dense network of trails.
Among forests of chestnuts, evergreen oaks, hazel
trees, and dense maquis, every so often views open
onto blue sea, solitary churches, and oil-mills.
But the mountain keeps some of its gems at the
water's edge, set between the rocks: the bay of
San Fruttuoso with the splendid Benedictine abbey
from the 10th century, Portofino with its villas
and fishing houses clustered around its natural
port and the bay of Paraggi. These little pieces
of paradise are known and visited every year by
the international tourist elite on board sailboats,
yachts, and luxury ships.
