Sestri Levante - Part 2
May 13th 2008 05:49
Portobello
There’s a tendency to become smug and patronising when you think you’ve found a pocket of undiscovered beauty amongst the urban sameness. Unable to identify any other tourists, I guffawed knowingly into my mystery aperitivo, condescension personified until I was told by the rugby-pianist barman that there’s nothing undiscovered about Sestri Levante in when it warms up. Like the other villages up and down the Ligurian Riviera, the inhabitants of the inland cities turn Sestri into one giant carpark in the spring and summer. Only once the stylish fur coats and leather gloves come out and the days begin to shorten does Sestri Levante become a find. When the Italians have trudged back to the cities to work and strike and gesticulate, the Med resort is packed away with the Speedos and sun umbrellas and the sleepy fishing village emerges.
With the departure of the summer hordes, Sestri is left untainted by the corruption of the tourist dollar, the unpretentious village claimed back by the locals. So while that nice couple you met in Florence crawl through traffic into the hills of Tuscany or Umbria to join the crowds, bask in cliché, and pay those maliciously hiked prices, you may wander at leisure through the cobble-stoned streets surrounded only by locals in their sunglasses and fur and bubbling away in that language you don’t speak; courteous, obliging, but with no intention to accommodate your foreign ways or regale you with self-promotion. Just how it should be.
I wasn’t even given the slightest hint of the beautiful Portobello by the locals. In the scant morsels of literature I found before I arrived, there were few connections made between the picturesque bay and Sestri Levante itself. And this is one reason that Sestri remains an undiscovered nugget of authentic Italy. Because as sweepingly impressive as the Baia delle Favolle is, heading out to mingle with the Mediterranean and with views up to the Portofino peninsula, it is Portobello on the south eastern side of the isthmus, cradled by the mountains dropping dramatically into the clear blue water on one side and the three and four storied earthern coloured houses on the other, that is the jewel of Sestri Levante. It’s Portobello that makes brochures and Portobello that Lord Byron had in mind when he wrote his verse. But it’s Portobello that’s surprisingly hard to find.
On that chilly January day as the clouds were breaking I stumbled upon Portbello’s beach after catching a glimpse of brilliant blue from Piazza Matteoti at the foot of the peninsula. I was intending to explore the peninsula that eccentric industrialist Riccardo Gualino had bought in the 1920s, turning the Siren’s former island, crowned by the ruins of the fortresses and city walls, into three neo-classical palaces. Through an alley, the hidden Portobello beach shimmered with come hither glances, captivating like the songs of the Sirens. On the beach, a handful of informal caffe patios looked out onto the sand beside grounded fishing boats in their stripy cloth covers. Picnics were set out on rugs: children played games up and down the beach and splashed around in the shallows, occasionally breaking playtime to visit their parents’ hampers of breads and cheeses and wines. Above the patios in the ochre and rich yellow houses, residents leant on their laundry draped Juliette balconies chatting to neighbours, bantering with the picnickers below, admiring the view, and waving to the idiotic foreigner wading knee deep in the bay plotting how to pilfer the cheese from the picnic. The water was mild. Even on the cold mid winter’s day, Portobello was cosy in its compact tranquillity.
The old town on the isthmus winds narrow streets and alleys behind Portobello’s beach. It is fitting that the old town is between the Capuccinni monastery of the mainland and the Dominican convent on the peninsula. As austere and as self-depriving as the religious orders were, the caffe, trattoria, and restaurants of the isthmus are diametrically opposite – indulgent and ostentatious in the gusto with which they celebrate the local wine and cuisine. Behind the houses fronting Portobello, Via XXV Aprile runs up the spine of the isthmus and narrower tributaries branch off. The numerous eateries in golden stone buildings glowing under the soft light of the wrought iron street lamps cater to all occasions from Campari and soda and a snack, to extravagant the seafood platters.
I had grand intentions to sample the array of fresh seafood that lay lined up outside the trattoria and restaurants in beds of ice, the menus offering half a dozen courses and wines from the hills up and down the coast. But I never made it past the sumptuous platters of antipasto that turned up at our table complimentary after every aperitivo at the caffe/bar. The locals are particularly proud of their pesto, the mashing of Parmesan, basil, and olive oil being the most famous Ligurian contribution to Italian cuisine. Combine it with foccacia baked in the brick over out back while quaffing wines grown on the hills up and down the coast and the simplicity is seductive.
As the evening wore on and the brazier became ineffective against the cold wind, I moved inside to sample the Sciacchetra (a sweet white wine from Cinqueterre), Limoncino (a lemon liqueur), and Cigliegiolo (a cherry liqueur), while trying to decipher through blurry eyes whether the wall length mural was a painting or a photograph.
The understated romanticism of the old town’s paved streets combined with a handful of impressive hotels makes Sestri Levante a haven in winter to recover from the madness of the Italian cities or a base from which to launch expeditions down around the Cinqueterre and up to the Portofino peninsula. Shielded by the new town on one side, the bays, the mountains, and the peninsula on the others, the old town is so quiet, so compact and so devoid of chaos, it’s almost un-Italian. Yet the peaceful dolce vita encapsulates the local food and wine that eschews decadence for simplicity and freshness. Set against the backdrop of its dramatic mountains meeting yacht dotted bays combined with the rollercoaster of a language bubbling away in the background like flamboyant muzak, Sestri is undeniably Mediterranean.
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