A stone tablet set into the wall inside dates the building of the church to 1154, in Romanesque forms. Excavations carried out during the post-war rebuilding, however, brought to light an older square-plan chapel beneath the floor: the headland was already a place of worship before that date. Inside are kept the relics of Saint George, patron of Portofino, which tradition says the village sailors carried home from the Crusades.
What to see
What stands here today is a reconstruction, and it helps to know that before going in. In 1691 the church was reworked and salita San Giorgio, the lane climbing from the piazzetta, was widened at the same time; a second restoration with enlargement followed in 1760, and that is the form that counts, because that is the one chosen for the rebuild. During the Second World War a bomb dropped by a diving fighter-bomber levelled it.
The rebuilding was decided and paid for by the people of Portofino, who in 1950 put the church back up on its eighteenth-century plan, with new altars and furnishings. It is small and light, with no fresco cycles and no major artworks: what you look at are the proportions of the nave, the woodwork and the relation between stone and water, since the building sits on a spur above the sea and the forecourt looks down on the harbour.
Visiting
You climb from the piazzetta by salita San Giorgio, the same stairway widened in 1691: five minutes of steps between garden walls. The church lies on the route to Castello Brown and the lighthouse, so you pass it almost by default. Opening times follow the services of the parish of Santi Martino e Giorgio; when the door is shut, the forecourt stays open anyway.
Our editors' tip
We stop on the forecourt rather than inside: it is one of the few places in Portofino where you can sit down without buying anything, the harbour on one side and open sea on the other. We would come early in the morning, before the path to the castle and the lighthouse fills up.