Sunset in Porto Venere

In April, I spent two nights in Porto Venere, Italy. Porto Venere is near the famed Cinque Terre, but it is just a bit further south and not on the train line, so it’s a little harder to reach. The best way to get there from one of the five towns is via ferry, which is how I arrived. We had been staying in Vernazza, further up the coast. As the ferry turns into the harbor, you get a great view of the Chiesa di San Pietro, a Catholic church built into the rocks. This church dates to the 13th century, although there were even earlier religious structures standing here.

Porto Venere itself is small and was less busy and more relaxed than the other towns in the Cinque Terre. We stayed on one of the main streets, Via Giovanni Capellini, in a small apartment which had a nice terrace overlooking the bay.

I wanted to get a good photograph of the church at sunset, so I followed some paths up along the coastal cliffs, which gave a nice view of the church. The available viewpoints didn’t really line up with the setting sun, but on the second night some of the good sunset light filtered behind the church.