Portfofino
Another resort with that unique Riviera style, Portofino has long been fashionable with what we once called 'the jet set'. Originally a billet for Genoa's merchant seamen, by the turn of the twentieth century it was a quiet, though very beautiful, fishing village. To add to its mystique, Portofino has a history buried in myth. Pliny the Elder claimed the Romans founded the town, naming it Portus Delphini, or Port of Dolphins, because of the large number that frolicked in the Tigullian Gulf. Slightly more prosaically, Portofino has been recreated as the Portofino Bay Resort at the Universal Studios in Florida.
Discovered by German and British holidaymakers in the 1920s, by the 1950s tourism had supplanted the fishing boats. Portofino thus became a favourite with, among others, Princess Grace and Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. Set within an area of stunning natural beauty, the protected Parco Naturale Regionale di Portofino, the town today is a chic berth for the yachts of the rich and famous.