In the video for Ultraviolence a bride carrying a bunch of lilies walks up a path hemmed in by greenery and stops in front of a small locked church: that church is the chapel of San Sebastiano, above Portofino. The building dates from the 17th century, stands outside the built-up area and is in no way monumental; its whole strength lies in where it was put.
What to see
It is a small chapel of the kind raised well away from the houses, dedicated to Saint Sebastian, one of the saints invoked against the plague. In the list of Portofino's religious buildings it sits beside the parish church of Divo Martino, the church of San Giorgio and the oratory of Nostra Signora dell'Assunta, but it is the only one you have to go looking for: the others are down in the village or just above it, this one lies past the last house, inside the boundary of the Portofino regional nature park, which covers the entire municipal territory.
Its recent fame came from music. In 2014 Lana Del Rey shot the video for Ultraviolence here, the single from the album of the same name, directed by Francesco Carrozzini, then her partner: the sequence follows the singer in a wedding dress along the path up to the chapel. The chapel has turned up on fan maps ever since, an odd way for a seventeenth-century building to become known.
Visiting
You walk up from the village, leaving the built-up area behind: the route is one of the park's footpaths, so proper shoes rather than the sandals of the piazzetta. No opening times and no guided tours are listed: what you see is the outside and, around it, the vegetation the video made recognisable. It is a short stop, one to fold into a longer walk rather than a destination in itself.
Our editors' tip
We line it up with Portofino's other climbs: the church of San Giorgio, in its commanding position outside the village, and Castello Brown, the fifteenth-century fortress above the harbour. And one unorthodox suggestion: watch the video again before setting off. Finding the shot in real life, with no bride and no lilies, is worth the walk up.