One white flash every five seconds, visible 16 nautical miles away: that is all the Portofino lighthouse has to do, and it has been doing it since 1870 from the western tip of the headland, where the land runs out and the Gulf of Tigullio opens up. The tower is 12 metres high, pyramidal in shape, attached to a two-storey building that once housed the keeper. Nobody lives there now: the light is automated, solar powered, and run by the Italian Navy under the code 1675 E.F.
What to see
The lantern sits 40 metres above sea level, high enough to be picked out from half the gulf and, on clear days, from beyond the far point. Below the tower the water belongs to the Portofino marine protected area, among the most dived seabeds in Italy; above it there is only the scrub of the regional park, strawberry trees, holm oaks and pines that reach the very edge of the cliff.
The architecture makes no speeches: white, sharp corners, no ornament, the keeper's house leaning against the tower like any service building. After the painted façades of the village square it is the contrast that strikes you: here the building exists only to hold a lamp up high, and it shows.
Visiting
You can only get there on foot. From the square take the climb towards San Giorgio, pass the church and Castello Brown, then carry on along Via alla Penisola: some twenty minutes of steps, stone walls and garden gates, with the sea always on one side or the other. The lighthouse itself cannot be visited, access is reserved for staff, but the path runs right up to the tower and the final stretch, sheer above the water, is the reason for the walk.
Our editors' tip
We go in the last hour of daylight, when the sun drops behind the headland and the lamp comes on while you are still up there: it lasts a moment and it is the best part. Allow for the return, which is uphill all the way, and put a torch in your bag: on the shaded steps, with the evening damp, the stone gets slippery.