LA SPEZIA, La Spezia

Hi, my name’s Rick, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the Wonders of the World: La Spezia.

La Spezia is located at the head of a narrow gulf similar to a fjord, the only one of its kind in the Mediterranean, and boasts magnificent towns and villages such as Lerici, San Terenzo and Portovenere, as well as fabulous bays and beaches. The Gulf of La Spezia is also known as Golfo dei Poeti, the Gulf of Poets, because it was home to two famous Romantic poets, Lord Byron and Percy B. Shelley.

Inhabited as far back as prehistoric times, La Spezia was first colonized by the Romans, and then became a flourishing Medieval town. Under the dominion of Genoa for centuries, it was later part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, until Italian Unification.

The city owes its current growth to the construction of the Military Arsenal in the early 20th century, which attracted numerous immigrants, and to the port, the third-largest in the Mediterranean in terms of cargo traffic.

Today, La Spezia is a modern city, popular with tourists who come to visit the gulf and the city’s numerous other attractions, and also set out from here for trips to the villages that make up the famous Cinque Terre.

There is a great deal to enjoy in the city, such as the splendid Morin walk, looking onto the sea, and the magnificent churches such as the age-old Santa Maria dell’Assunta, with its fine ceramics, as well as Art Nouveau buildings, noble palaces dating back centuries, and numerous museums....