The beautiful coast in this part of the world has attracted writers and artists over the years including Dante, but perhaps more notably for Anglophiles, three of the English romantic poets, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. In their honour the bay between Lerici and Portovenere is known as the Gulf of Poets.
Shelley spent the last few months of his life with his wife, Mary, living in an isolated boat house in San Torenzo, near Lerici. Lord Byron, a close friend, had a house in Portovenere and used to swim across the bay to visit Shelley.
Shelley drowned in 1822, aged 29, during a storm in the Bay of Spezia (otherwise known as the Gulf of Poets) while sailing from Livorno to Lerici.
Lord Byron died a year later, aged 36, while in Greece fighting alongside the revolutionaries in the Greek War of Independence.
John Keats, associate of Shelley and Byron, died a year before Shelley at the age of 25, of consumption while living in Rome. Both Keats and Shelley are buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
I wonder does an early death make a poet more romantic? Sadly, Shelley was not to know fame in his lifetime.
Co-incidentally, Shelley was born in the next village to us in West Sussex, and used to come to Warnham, where we lived, to have lessons with his tutor.
Today we hopped on the bus and visited Lerici. Delightfully quiet (I think all the tourists were in the Cinque Terre) we found it enchanting.
The narrow public beaches, though, were full of Italians (the schools broke up here last week).
Tortoise Travel 
Wow! Did a huge catch-up read this afternoon. I feel quite exhausted just contemplating the numbers of steps you do daily, compared with my paltry 5,000! Not sure I could have continued to do the path which appeared to have a sheer drop from stone steps. You are so wise to do this now when you are still in your sixtieth decade, rather than seventieth!
Isn’t Italy the most amazing country in terms of natural beauty, art and history? Climate’s not bad either!
Personally, I think you need to be born there to live there. It has such complicated politics and social issues – like us really!
What are your feelings?
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I agree about not wanting to live here full-time, as much as I love the country. A second home would be ideal if it were affordable.
Yes, some of the walks here are not for the faint-hearted – there is often a steep drop on one side. Mark says that if I fell, I wouldn’t fall far and he’s probably right. I am glad of my walking poles as they are like an extra pair of legs.
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