The Italian Riviera by Maureen Barry

Lovers start leaping in Liguria. In the spectacular emerald seclusion of the Golfo di Tigullio Richard Burton proposed to Elizabeth Taylor and Bogart wooed Bacall. Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, Madonna, Catherine Deneuve, Liza Minelli and a star-studded cast of thousands all succumbed to the stunningly photogenic charms of Portofino, tucked away in the north-west corner of Italy on a riviera that has fought hard to preserve its wildly romantic beauty.

From the first signatures in the visitors’ book — The Duke of Windsor and his wife Wallis — the Hotel Splendido, part of the legendary Orient Express Group, perched high above the harbour and set in four acres of grounds, has managed to live up to its name as a repository of the old style of glamour. In the fifties and sixties, Rex Harrison, who had a villa on the slopes above the Splendido, transferred La Dolce Vita from Rome’s Cinecitta to Portofino, where it played itself out on the Hotel’s celebrated terrace, at his villa and in the bars and restaurants of the little port.

Unlike many of its starry visitors, Portofino has managed to hang on to her looks. On one side of the harbour, craggy burnt umber rocks dense with olive and cypress cascade down to the waterline, on the other the faded pastel-wash of mellow shops and restaurants, the flags and masts of sailing boats and yachts cast myriad scintillating reflections in the water — a picture postcard dream. Gone are the days when Greta Garbo used to arrive by yacht and sit alone, in dark glasses, sipping cocktails at the Café Excelsior; Sinatra and Grace of Monaco, Bardot and Mastroianni all came, driving sleek convertibles along the corniche road. But Portofino still has style and a reputation for unpretentious hospitality, and nowhere more that at the Splendido, where the kitchen is famed for its Ligurian specialities.

Poor in resources it may be, but the riviera, which in Italian simply means shore, in Liguria becomes The Riviera, a rocky, hauntingly lovely strip of coastline connecting France to Tuscany. It is blessed with beautiful beaches, not the buxom, full-blown kind but slender silver strips of sand in magical settings, tucked away among palms and luscious vegetation, or backed with the colourful cascading houses of old fishing villages; to the mist-shrouded gaze of the northerner the Riviera’ s luminous light and clarity of colours, rich reds, blues, yellows and greens are simply dazzling. If you’re approaching Italy from the elegantly manicured and often overdeveloped French Riviera, then Liguria comes as a delightful surprise. Strict conservation laws have banned any new building or changes to existing ones — the resultant atmosphere is relaxed, unpretentious and well-lived in. Nobody minds if you bring the bambini along or your shoes are scruffy - there may be grand hotels but there are plenty of inexpensive pensioni as well.

August is still the peak season on the Riviera, but visitors first came to this fabled shore for its sunny and mild winter climate. Sheltered by the Maritime Alps from northern blasts, Liguria enjoys a sensuously lush growth of oranges and flowers — one of the region’s principal exports - while connoisseurs of olive oil rate Liguria’s tops in Italy. Scratch a Ligurian within a whiff of the sea and you’ll find a descendant of Christopher Columbus — they’re a tough breed, frugal, feisty, shrewd and adventurous — with a strong sense of their regional identity.

Genoa, with its salty tang and the dangerous thrill of a real port city, sits between the luxuriant Riviera di Ponente to the west and the rugged and romantic Riviera de Levante to the east. As early as February, I was surrounded by patchwork fields of brilliant colours that give the area from Ventimiglia to San Remo the name the Riviera of Flowers. Many resorts have more glamour than San Remo, but few have more character. Slightly faded like an ageing star, the old girl may be well-corseted but she’s still full of get-up-and-go. San Remo stands on a huge sheltered bay and in its golden days of fashion was the favourite watering-hole of a variety of drifting aristocrats. The flamboyant Municipal Casino is still the hub of San Remo’s social life, with its strict dress code in the gaming rooms, roof garden cabaret and celebrated restaurant with live orchestra. The labyrinthine old town, La Pigna, has been called the casbah: a tangled, sinuous web of alleyways weaving under archways and narrow tunnels.

Dramatically, the coast east of Genoa, tame up to that point, metamorphoses into a creature of dramatic, vibrant beauty. The climate may not be so mild, but from the Monte di Portofino to the once inaccessible fishing villages of the Cinque Terre, the mountains tumble down to the sea in a voluptuous chaos of olive and ochre, above deep coves rise the weathered pastels of ancient villages, gazing out over bobbing fleets of fishing craft and sleek white yachts.

Of all the nooks and niches on the Italian coastline, one of the best-beloved must be the mini-paradise of the Monte di Portofino. On the second Sunday in May in Camogli, out comes the largest frying pan in Italy (4m across) and against the backdrop of the wonderful old harbour, piled high with tall, green-shuttered houses, thousands of sardines are sizzled to succulence and given away free, part of the celebrations of the famous Sagra del Pesce.

Fish is very much in evidence at lively Santa Margherita Ligure, the bustling morning market is just a few paces from its beautiful harbour, folded in the green hills — not as spectacular as Portofino but friendly and mellow. Santa, to her friends, has always been a popular winter hideaway for the British and has accommodation priced for all budgets.

Go on to entrancing Rapallo and be inspired to creative expression, like Yeats and his wife, or Max Beerbohm, who attracted a notable literary circle to the resort, with its year-round mild climate and exhilarating natural surroundings. I’ve always admired those little balloon-backed wood and straw chairs the Victorians called ballroom chairs. Well I tracked down their source to the workshops of Chiavari, a little farther down the coast, where the quaint main street, called in dialect, the Carruggio Dritu, is lined with a couple of kilometres of medieval arcades.

Just before levelling down to the comparatively dull coast of Tuscany, the Riviera signs off with a flourish, around the imposing cliffs of the Cinque Terre and La Spezias’s gorgeous Bay of Poets. Monterosso al Mare is the first of the five towns of the Cinque Terre (The Five Lands), as they’ve been known since the Middle Ages. Laboriously carved out of the earth and rock, crazily perched wherever building space would allow, corrugated by hundreds of terraces, the Cinque Terre towns are visually stunning. Aficionados go there to sample the local wine. The near-vertical terraces produce the region’s finest, most fragrant and (I can personally vouch for it) most potent nectar.

You couldn’t boast nowadays that the towns are undiscovered, but they’re still accessible mainly by sea or a spectacular series of cliff-skirting footpaths. Take the Via d’Amore, carved in the cliff face over the sea, for the 20-minute walk from Manorola to Riomaggiore, sip a glass of sciacchetra in the lively, local café, revel in the heady atmosphere and pinch yourself to make sure you’re not taking part in an Italian promotion dream.

Myths abound in this Arcadia; in Portofino, when Rex Harrison was having a drink with the Duke of Windsor, he excused himself to go out for a packet of cigarettes. He never returned, it’s said, because he met the ravishing actress Kay Kendall, and they eloped. True or false, it’s very much in keeping with the romantic spirit of Liguria.