![]() ![]() The kitchen is stocked with a few essentials – pasta, tins of tomato and a pot of Genoa’s gift to the world: pesto (originally invented to stop sailors’ getting scurvy, now friend to comfort-eaters everywhere. I can’t imagine Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton running into wild boars when they holidayed on the Italian Riviera Modest in size, the Casa de Mar makes for a cool, peaceful perch from which to look out onto the octagonal bell tower and beyond to the aptly named Golfo Paradiso. On the walls are framed maps of the coastline and 19th-century prints of coffee grinders and different species of fish. A door opens out onto the terrace, with a table and four cane chairs for eating alfresco, and small strip of garden with a barbecue. The tidy fisherman’s cottage has a compact kitchen, bathroom and double bedroom downstairs and another double and small sitting room upstairs – with a thoughtfully put together bookcase (including biographies of the Romantic poets – Shelley drowned up the coast from here). Sitting just where the pale stone of the village gives way to olive, figs and pines, Casa de Mar is the latest property to be acquired by the Landmark Trust, its seventh in Italy. There’s a strip of pebbly beach bookended by trattorias – La Giovanni one side and Giorgio the other – a few fishing boats and a population of 25 people (only four year round).Ĭasa de Mar’s terrace, an ideal vantage point. ![]() This picturebook-romantic Romanesque monastery with a handful of houses attached is tucked between the faded pinks and yellows of laid-back seaside resort Camogli and chi chi Portofino, with its superyachts and Dior boutiques selling €1,000 sandals. I can’t imagine Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton running into wild boars when they holidayed on the Italian Riviera – but then again, maybe they never visited San Fruttuoso. Ahead, a stripy piglet trots faster, swerves and gallops up the bank towards its mother’s summoning grunts. We’re following a shadowy path around the monastery: up steps, down steps, up some more steps (Liguria has more steps than an Escher drawing), when there’s a comically loud snort and the rustling of something large in the undergrowth. The bay is empty and silent and the bell tower is black against the navy sky. ![]()
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