When it's possible it's always a good idea to take an excursion to a relatively touristic place early in the morning. People on holiday tend to sleep late and to enjoy their morning a bit lazily, then they gather all to the same places later and they crowd them.
But if you don't mind getting up early, besides the wonderful and bracing morning air, you can also have the impression that the place you are visiting belong only to you.
So we decided to go to Portovenere relatively early, before 8:30 am, and it was a good idea.
We took a small local bus from La Spezia, which in about 30 minutes led us to the splendid little village at one end of the so-called Poets' Gulf. The bus was slightly worn out and crowded with local people and the road was full of bends, but the short trip was amusing.
In the meanwhile we tried to get an idea of the cultural origin of Portovenere and we could read:


" Portovenere is an important cultural centre.
Among the remains to be found there are those of a large patrician Roman villa on the coast at Varignano and a Benedictine monastic establishment with a fine proto- Romanesque church dedicated to St Peter, on the Arpaia rocky promontory, which was later surrounded by a Gothic construction.
In the town, below the Castle there is a second church, with both Romanesque and Gothic elements, dedicated to St Lawrence.
The town is a Roman foundation, Portus Veneris. It was occupied by the Genoese in 1113. It is compact in form, giving the appearance of a fortified town, culminating in the Doria castle (early 12th-16th centuries), which dominates the settlement and is an historical palimpsest, with many traces of its medieval predecessor…."