Italian Riviera

From Portofino down through the five villages of Cinque Terre and on to the Gulf of Poets, the Ligurian coast has resisted the kind of development that flattened other parts of the Mediterranean. Hotels are small, often thirty rooms or fewer, and the good ones fill early for the summer. We can tell you which rooms face the water, book the restaurants worth booking, and arrange the boat to Portovenere. September is the month we recommend most often: the sea is still warm and the day trippers have gone.