Porto Venere (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpɔrto ˈvɛːnere]; until 1991 Portovenere; Ligurian: Pòrtivene) is a town and municipality located on the Ligurian coast of Italy in the Province of La Spezia. It has a population of 3,208.
It comprises the three villages of Fezzano, Le Grazie and Porto Venere, and the three islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. In 1997 Porto Venere and the villages of Cinque Terre were designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The Italian Riviera or Ligurian Riviera (Italian: Riviera ligure [riˈvjɛːra ˈliːɡure]; Ligurian: Rivêa lìgure [ɾiˈveːa ˈliɡyɾe]) is the narrow coastal strip in Italy which lies between the Ligurian Sea and the mountain chain formed by the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Longitudinally it extends from the border with France and the French Riviera (or Côte d'Azur) near Ventimiglia (a former customs post) eastwards to Capo Corvo (also known as Punta Bianca) which marks the eastern end of the Gulf of La Spezia and is close to the regional border between Liguria and Tuscany. The Italian Riviera thus includes nearly all of the coastline of Liguria. Historically the "Riviera" extended further to the west, through what is now French territory as far as Marseille.
The Italian Riviera crosses all four Ligurian provinces and their capitals Genoa, Savona, Imperia and La Spezia, with a total length of about 350 km (218 miles). It is customarily divided into a western section, the Ponente Riviera, and an eastern section, the Levante Riviera, the point of division being the apex of the Ligurian arc at Voltri. It has about 1.6 million inhabitants, and most of the population is concentrated within the coastal area. Its mild climate draws an active tourist trade in the numerous coastal resorts, which include Alassio, Bonassola, Bordighera, Camogli, Cinque Terre, Lerici, Levanto, Noli, Portofino, Porto Venere, Santa Margherita Ligure, Sanremo, San Fruttuoso, and Sestri Levante. It is also known for its historical association with international celebrity and artistic visitors; writers and poets like Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway were inspired by the beauty and spirit of Liguria.
The Gulf of La Spezia (Italian: Golfo della Spezia; Ligurian: Gorfo da Spezza), nicknamed the Gulf of Poets (Italian: Golfo dei Poeti; Ligurian: Gorfo di Poêti), is a body of water on the north-western coast of Italy and part of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, specifically of Ligurian Sea. It measures some 4.5 (length) by 3-3.5 (width) kilometers.
The gulf is named for the Italian city of La Spezia, located at its middle point, which is also the main military and cargo port in the gulf, including several arsenals of the Italian Marina Militare. At the gulf extremities are the two tourist resorts of Lerici (eastern) and Porto Venere (western).
Lerici (Ligurian: Lerxi, locally Lerze) is a comune in the province of La Spezia, in the Italian region of Liguria, part of the Italian Riviera. It is situated on the coast of the Gulf of La Spezia, 8 kilometres (5 mi) southeast of La Spezia. It is known as the place where the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned. The town is connected by ferry to the Cinque Terre and Porto Venere.
One of the main sights of Lerici is its castle which since its first founding in 1152 was used to help control the entrance of the Gulf of La Spezia. For a long time, the castle contained a museum of palaeontology inspired by a local lad (Walter) finding dinosaur bones in the region.