Burano (Venice)

Here are seven wonderful, colorful seaside villages that stand out for their beauty in Italy – a country that in and of itself is a unique palette, with white mountain peaks and blue gulfs, green hills and rich brown plains and vineyards, not to mention flowers, woods, waterfalls, rivers… this is the nature that has always inspired Italian art, from Magna Graecia to present day.

All of Italy’s hues are brilliantly summed up in the façades of seaside villages’ houses, where different colors allowed sailors to recognize their own home from a distance.

Let’s embark on this short journey between the colors of Italian islands and coasts.

We start in Veneto, from Burano (photo above; we wrote an article about the island). Eleven kilometers south-east of Murano and Venice, it is the world capital of lacemaking. The bright houses flanking its narrow “calli” make it the Lagoon’s most vivid pearl.

Island of Burano (Venice)
www.isoladiburano.it

Next stop: Varigotti, Liguria – a hamlet in Finale Ligure, Savona. Here the old town center is a cluster of pastel-color houses, inspired by a distant, Mediterranean tradition. “Saracen houses”, poet Camillo Sbarbaro noted, “that call for the sand and palm trees; you get a foretaste of Africa in this shimmer of lime and frailty of the air.”

Varigotti (Finale Ligure, Savona)
turismo.comunefinaleligure.it/it/varigotti

Staying in Liguria, we reach Portofino (part of Genoa Metropolitan City) on the west side of the Gulf of Tigullio. Guy de Maupassant once wrote of this little village, Portofino, that envelopes like the arc of the moon around this calm basin.

Portofino (Genoa Metropolitan City)
Tel. and fax: 0185.269024
turismo@marinadiportofino.com
www.comune.portofino.genova.it

Still in Liguria, we travel south along the coast and visit Manarola, La Spezia: a wonderful, ancient village in the Riviera di Levante. Manarola – which we showcased in a previous article – is one of the legendary Cinque Terre that inspired Montale to compose his “Riviere”, where a few blades of sword grass appear, clinging to a cliff / above the frenzied sea…

Manarola (hamlet of Riomaggiore, province of La Spezia)
Tel.: +39 0187 762600
Fax: +39 0187 760040
info@parconazionale5terre.it
www.parconazionale5terre.it

It’s time to travel over 500 kilometers down the Tyrrhenian coast: we are heading to Lazio, and more precisely towards Ponza, where Circe lived according to Homer. Part of the Pontine Islands archipelago (which also includes Palmarola, featured in a previous article), Ponza is some 70 kilometers from the coast and boasts a unique collection of colorful houses, facing the harbor that the royal house of Bourbon built in the 18th century.

Ponza (Latina)
Tel.: +39 0771 80031
info@prolocodiponza.it
www.prolocodiponza.it

From Lazio we reach Campania, and visit another island: Procida, just 3.5 kilometers off the coast of Naples (we dedicated a unique photo album to it some time ago). A number of colorful houses can be seen in its nine ancient “contrade”, but we most highly recommend the beautiful polychromatic amphitheater of buildings in Marina Corricella.

Procida (Naples)
www.comune.procida.na.it

We finally reach the last colorful town on our itinerary: Bosa, on the north-western coast of Sardinia, in the province of Oristano. “Sa Costa”, the village’s historical city center, is a wonderful weave of colorful alleys.

Bosa (Oristano)
Tel.: +39 0785 368000
info@comune.bosa.or.it
www.comune.bosa.or.it