What to see in Santa Margherita Ligure, itinerary including the main places of interest, including Villa Durazzo, defense tower, municipal park, Paraggi and San Lorenzo della Costa.
Tourist information
Immersed in greenery and placed in a suggestive cove in the stretch of Ligurian coast between Rapallo and Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure is a tourist resort well known internationally.
Of Roman origins, Santa Margherita in medieval times was first a fief of the Fieschi family, later, in the two hundred, it was acquired by the Republic of Genoa.
During the Napoleonic period it became independent, changing its name to Porto Napoleone.
In 1815 it was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia.
What see
Villa Durazzo, also known as Villa Centurione, was built in the sixteenth century on a project by Gaetano Alessi.
The building includes a beautiful terrace with balustrade, decorated with seventeenth and eighteenth century statues, and a remarkable Italian garden that opens onto the gulf.
Below the villa there is a grandiose municipal park.
Starting from via Marconi, facing the sea, it is possible to go up to a sixteenth-century defense tower, now used as a memorial for the fallen, continuing to walk you reach the port on which the typical fishermen's houses overlook.
Nearby is Paraggi, a well-equipped seaside resort in the same municipality, located on the state road that leads to Portofino and in the past a fishing village.
San Lorenzo della Costa is a small hamlet known above all for the Romanesque Church of San Lorenzo, inside which the Sant'Andrea triptych is preserved, a work made in Bruges in 1499 by a pupil of Memling, commissioned by Andrea della Costa .
