Positioned on the Mediterranean coast of Italy, just before the coastline sweeps round through Genoa to meet France, La Spezia is a curious town. Unsung and largely unloved, this is very much a working town rather than a chic resort. It has a huge merchant port, courtesy of its strategic point on northern Italy’s Ligurian coast, and it has the largest naval base in the country. It was also heavily bombed during World War II by the Allies (that naval base you see) and as a result is a very modern town. That has led many commentators to dismiss it with a few words. A Wikipedia writer discusses poor La Spezia as having ‘no truly remarkable historic or architectural features … peculiar in Italy by being a modern city (almost all buildings date after 1920), it has few attractions’.
And yet La Spezia sits at the head of one of Italy’s prettiest and most romantic bays – the Golfo di La Spezia was rechristened the Golfo dei Poeti in 1919 by the Italian playwright Sam Benelli. He was referring to the number of writers bowled over by the location’s crystal blue waters enclosed by rugged headlands and distant islands. Their number included no lesser figures than Petrarch, Shelley (he lived and died here), Byron and DH Lawrence. So what did the poets see that modern writers miss? Well there’s that coastline of course. Just around the headland lie the impossibly romantic Cinque Terre, five former fishing villages shoehorned into the rugged and precipitous cliffs between Levanto and Portovenere. The Poet’s Gulf itself has fine little towns such as Lerici, and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. Boat trips ply their way throughout the day to these stop-offs, and fares are remarkably low. Excursions around the Golfo dei Poeti are the perfect antidote to city stress, it is impossible to do anything but to surrender to the peace, the pace and the beauty of the place. There are good places to eat and drink and, all in all, life is rather idyllic.
We should take issue with that jibe about ‘no remarkable historic features too’. The Allied air forces may have endeavoured to wipe La Spezia off the map but it has an historic relevance going back centuries, as evidenced by the number of Genoese castles in the hills around the town. In the Middle Ages, Genoa was a major imperial power, and the home of Christopher Columbus lies just up the coast. Remarkably though, it wasn’t until Napoleon that anyone clocked the strategic importance of the marvellous natural harbour formed by the Gulf of La Spezia. Bonaparte transformed the town into a naval and military stronghold. There is a lot more to the town than the Arsenale though. Check out the Amadea Lia Museum a fine collection of Renaissance and medieval art, the modern Cathedral of Cristo Re alla Spezia (1960) and the Futurist mosaics by Prampolini in the town’s post office. Appropriately, La Spezia has a naval museum, the Museo Tecnico Navale, with battle relics and models. There are some delightful public gardens and the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta.
But mainly you will use La Spezia as a base for exploring some of Italy’s most beautiful coastline and, indeed the beautiful hinterland of Liguria. Head just a few miles inland from the coast here and you are in Tuscany, but the long, narrow littoral of Liguria has much to recommend it. As well as the Cinque Terre there is Portofino (for long the playground of the international glitterati), and Levanto offers pleasant, reasonably priced seaside fun. Head inland meanwhile and you are quickly up in the mountains. Here you’ll find little villages nestling among the vineyards and olive groves, gazing down on the blue waters of the Mediterranean far below.
