Italian Riviera Itinerary: Cinque Terre and Portofino in 7 Nights

The charter begins in Genoa, the old maritime-republic capital whose harbor still handles the largest commercial port in Italy. Crew meet the group on the quay at Marina Genoa Aeroporto — fifteen minutes by car from GOA — or at Porto Antico in the city itself, depending on the yacht. Provisions are squared away, the chef walks the group through the week's food brief, and the chart for the first run gets covered before lines come off.

The opening leg east is short by design — sixteen nautical miles around the Portofino promontory and into the harbor on the far side. The coast in between is the Genoese suburbs and a steep wooded ridge; the payoff comes when the yacht clears the headland and Portofino's basin opens up. The harbor itself is tight — about a dozen stern-to slots inside the breakwater — so larger motor yachts and yachts arriving later in the afternoon anchor in Paraggi Bay, the emerald cove a short tender ride west.

Aperitivo ashore is the canonical first-night move. La Gritta American Bar on the harbor terrace runs the most photographed aperitivo on the coast; the Piazzetta restaurants — Puny and Da U Batti the two long-standing names — book a day ahead in season. The Belmond Splendido sits on the cliff above, visible from any seat in the harbor; dinner aboard or in the village both work, and the captain handles the reservation either way.

Morning at anchor or on the Portofino quay, breakfast on the aft deck, the chef working on lunch while the crew prepares the tender for the day. Lines off mid-morning for the short hop north around the headland to San Fruttuoso, the abbey cove on the Portofino peninsula's seaward side. The coast in between — Punta Chiappa, Cala dell'Oro — is some of the cleanest swim water on this stretch of Liguria.

Anchor offshore from San Fruttuoso. The abbey itself was built in the tenth century by Benedictine monks; the present structure dates mostly from the thirteenth, with the Doria family's seventeenth-century renovations on top of that. There is no road in — the only access is by boat or by a two-hour hike from Portofino — so the cove holds a few dozen yachts on a hot Saturday and almost nothing else. Tender ashore for the abbey walk, swim along the rocky shore, and an offshore look at the Christ of the Abyss statue, the bronze figure submerged seventeen meters below the surface since 1954 as a memorial to lost divers.

Lunch on board at anchor or tender ashore to Da Giovanni, the small trattoria at the foot of the abbey's wall. Afternoon move three nautical miles south into Santa Margherita Ligure. The harbor is the larger of the two on the Gulf of Tigullio, with the same Ligurian-Belle-Époque facades as Portofino but a working-town rhythm underneath — fishing fleet at the pier, focaccerie on the back streets, the Imperiale Palace on the eastern side of the bay. Dinner ashore at Trattoria dei Pescatori on the harbor or Skipper Bar a block back; the captain handles either.

The longest leg of the week, and the one that fully turns the route from Ligurian-Belle-Époque harbors into the Cinque Terre register. Morning swim in Paraggi or one of the smaller Tigullio coves — Bagni Fiore is the older terrace above the bay, Langosteria Paraggi the newer beach-club lunch — then lines off mid-morning for the southward push. The coast in between stays Ligurian rather than cliff-village: Rapallo and its waterside Castello sul Mare, Chiavari, and Sestri Levante's Baia del Silenzio (Bay of Silence), the protected eastern cove that is one of the cleanest swim stops on the route if conditions allow.

By mid-afternoon the cliffs steepen and the architecture changes. The five Cinque Terre villages — Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore — sit on a roughly twelve-kilometer stretch of coastline, all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and UNESCO since 1997. The villages are wired into each other by the Sentiero Azzurro hiking trail and the regional train line that runs in tunnels behind them. From the water, what reads first is how steep the terraced vineyards are and how completely the buildings stack onto the rock face.

Monterosso al Mare is the practical first overnight. It is the only one of the five with a proper beach, split between Fegina (the modern side, where the train station and the beach concession sit) and Vecchio (the medieval quarter on the eastern headland). The yacht anchors offshore — there is no harbor large enough for charter yachts — and the tender runs in to the breakwater. Dinner ashore at Miky on the Fegina seafront for the seafood the village is known for, or at L'Ancora della Tortuga on the rocks above the beach for the more theatrical evening; the captain books either.

The day is built around timing. Early tender ashore at Vernazza — before the 9am regional trains start landing day-trippers — for an espresso at one of the harbor cafes and a walk up the steps to the Belforte tower for the village's marquee photograph. The Santa Margherita d'Antiochia church on the harbor dates to 1318; the Belforte itself was built in the eleventh century as a Saracen-pirate lookout and is now the village's defining restaurant terrace. By 10am the platforms have filled and the harbor street belongs to day-traffic; the yacht is back at anchor and slipping south.

The run south covers the remaining villages over about six nautical miles. Corniglia is the only one not on the water — it sits 100 meters up on a clifftop, reached from the train station by the Lardarina, a switchback of 33 flights of stairs — so the yacht passes it and most groups skip the village itself. Manarola is the photogenic stern-to next stop, smaller than Vernazza and almost entirely visible from a single tender approach; Riomaggiore is the southernmost village, with the Via dell'Amore footpath to Manarola (partially reopened in 2024 after a long landslide closure). Lunch on board between shore visits — anchorage off Manarola, the chef serving on the aft deck, the village reading like a painting from the water.

Late afternoon back into Vernazza or Manarola for an early-evening shore visit once the trains have thinned out — the villages reset by 6pm. Dinner ashore at Belforte if the booking landed, or aboard at anchor if the captain prefers to stay off the quay for the night. Sciacchetrà — the Cinque Terre's sweet wine, made from grapes dried on cane racks for three months after harvest from terraces above the sea — closes most evenings on this stretch; production is small enough that bottles are usually only available in the villages themselves.

Short hop down from the Cinque Terre — six nautical miles around the headland and into the Gulf of La Spezia. Portovenere closes the eastern end of the Ligurian run, and the change of register is immediate: instead of the Cinque Terre's compressed cliff-village scale, the harbor here opens into a wider bay with a real sea-wall, a quay long enough for stern-to mooring, and one of the cleanest harbor approaches on the coast.

The architecture earns the long stay. The Church of San Pietro sits on the rocky point at the harbor mouth, built in 1198 over a fifth-century basilica that itself replaced a Roman temple to Venus — the village's name, 'Portus Veneris,' goes back that far. The Doria Castle rises above the town in tight switchback streets; the climb takes twenty minutes and the view at the top runs from the Cinque Terre cliffs back behind the yacht to the full Gulf of La Spezia opening south. Byron is the local literary anchor — he swam from here across the gulf to Lerici in 1822, and the cave below San Pietro is called Byron's Grotto because of it. Shelley drowned in the bay the same year; the gulf's nickname dates to that summer.

The yacht stern-to on the Portovenere quay puts the village walking distance from the gangplank. Dinner ashore on the Calata Doria promenade — Antica Osteria del Carugio for the local Ligurian dishes, Iseo on the harbor for the fish boats' day-of-catch, or Locanda Lorena across on Palmaria if the group prefers tender-in dining over a quayside walk. The Locanda's dock is the calmer evening option; the tender ride from the Palmaria anchorage takes five minutes.

The penultimate day slows the route down on purpose. Morning lift off the Portovenere quay across the narrow channel — Bocche channel, less than a kilometer wide — and into a swim anchorage along Palmaria's eastern coast. The island is the largest of the three at the gulf's mouth, part of the Portovenere Regional Park, and is wired into the same UNESCO inscription that covers the Cinque Terre. The eastern coves hold the cleanest swim water in the bay; the western cliffs still carry the concrete remains of Italian Navy gun batteries from the Second World War, when La Spezia was the country's largest naval base.

Lunch at anchor — paddleboards down, the chef working on Ligurian seafood and a glass of Vermentino from the hills above the gulf — and a slow afternoon before the short crossing to Lerici on the gulf's eastern side. Lerici's harbor is smaller and less famous than Portovenere's but reads as the local-Italian counterweight to it: the Castello di San Giorgio sits above the village on a twelfth-century base, the beach in front of the painted facades is one of the few proper sand beaches on this stretch of coast, and the headland walk to San Terenzo around the bay takes thirty minutes.

Casa Magni — Percy and Mary Shelley's last residence, where they were living when Percy drowned crossing the gulf back from Livorno in July 1822 — sits at San Terenzo's western end, marked but unspectacular. The literary weight is mostly atmospheric; the real value of the Lerici evening is the harbor itself. Dinner ashore at Doi Camin under the castle, Pescarino on the harbor for the fish boats' catch, or Conchiglia at San Terenzo if the captain prefers the quieter side of the bay. Sciacchetrà closes the evening one last time.

The final full day carries real water under it rather than collapsing into disembark-only logistics. Twenty-five nautical miles back west into the Tigullio — a longer run than the rest of the week, but the only meaningful return mileage on the round-trip itinerary — with a swim stop along the way if the weather cooperates. Sestri Levante's Baia del Silenzio is the standard choice if conditions allow; Punta Manara, the rocky promontory between Sestri and Riva Trigoso, is the alternative.

By late afternoon the yacht is back in the Gulf of Tigullio. Santa Margherita gives the group the calmer overnight; Portofino works if the harbor has slots and the group wants a second pass at the basin. Larger motor yachts unable to fit inside Portofino's breakwater anchor in Paraggi for the final evening. The captain shapes which end of the gulf the night runs out of, based on the morning's departure logistics.

Final-night dinner ashore is the canonical close — Puny in the Portofino piazzetta if the harbor landed it, Trattoria dei Pescatori at Santa Margherita if the night moved west, or one of the Paraggi terraces if the yacht stayed at anchor. One more aperitivo on the aft deck before dinner, one more harbor lit up after sundown, and a last night that still feels like part of the charter rather than its administrative tail.

Breakfast aboard, luggage off, and a straightforward transfer to GOA, PSA, or onward rail connections depending on the route and the group's wider Italy plans. From Marina Genoa Aeroporto the airport is fifteen minutes by car. From Santa Margherita or Portofino, the direct train from Santa Margherita-Portofino station reaches Milan in two hours and Rome in five; private transfer to MXP is about three hours by road.

The Italian Riviera week ends the way it usually reads best — compact, polished, and quieter than the larger-name coasts most guests compared it against before booking. Most groups that run this route come back for the Tuscan-archipelago extension on a second trip; the captain and the broker walk through the second-charter options before the group disperses.