Santa Margherita Ligure Old Town
Just 5 km up the coast from Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure is the working Ligurian town that makes the whole peninsula tick — a place with a proper fish market, a Baroque basilica dripping in gold, a palm-lined promenade and trattorias where the pesto costs half the Portofino price and tastes just as good.
The Mercato del Pesce and the Caruggi
The covered fish market on Via Pescino opens from around 7 am Tuesday to Sunday and is one of the liveliest on the Riviera. Fishermen sell directly from crates of ice: whole branzino, bags of mussels, enormous gamberi rossi (red prawns) and the tiny, sweet acciughe that define Ligurian cooking. Even if you're not cooking, it is a vivid, fragrant spectacle worth seeing.
From the market, plunge into the caruggi — the tight medieval lanes of the old town — where you'll find focaccerie selling the local focaccia col formaggio (a thin, crispy flatbread stuffed with stracchino cheese) for €2–3, a snack that is arguably the best thing you will eat on the entire trip.
The Basilica and the Promenade
The Basilica di Santa Margherita d'Antiochia on the main piazza is a 17th-century Baroque extravaganza: its interior is smothered in votive ex-votos, silver lamps and gilded stucco, a startling contrast to the restrained Ligurian exterior. It is free to enter and almost always quiet — a genuine hidden pocket of calm in a busy resort town.
The waterfront promenade, lined with palms and painted Liberty-style villas, is the place for the evening passeggiata. Gelato from Gelateria Centrale on Piazza Vittorio Veneto, which has been open since 1946, is the mandatory conclusion to any afternoon here.
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