Photo: Mathieu Chollet - MChollet (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Portovenere, beginning on the harbour front where the boats land, facing the island of Palmaria, quarried for Portoro marble until the early 1980s, and the monastic islands of Tino and Tinetto. It enters the walled village by the Porta del Borgo beside the Torre Capitolare of 1161, under the inscription "Colonia Januensis 1113" that records the year Genoa took Portovenere, and follows Via Capellini, the narrow carruggio between tower-houses, to the Church of San Pietro on its rocky spur, where an earlier Christian church lies beneath the floor of an unfinished Genoese Gothic one. Below it is Byron's Grotto, named for the tradition that Lord Byron swam across the gulf to visit the Shelleys. The walk turns to the Calata Doria and its wall of tower-houses, climbs to San Lorenzo, begun in 1116 and home to the venerated Madonna Bianca, and reaches the Castello Doria, rebuilt after 1453 and later a political prison under Napoleon. It ends with the town walls of 1161, which held in 1242 and in 1494, when the sources credit the defence above all to the women of Portovenere.
9 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 16 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 5 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto, Porta del Borgo and the Torre Capitolare.
Via Giovanni Capellini, Church of San Pietro, Byron's Grotto, Calata Doria and the Tower-Houses.
Church of San Lorenzo, Castello Doria, The Town Walls.
The main gate of the walled village and its tower of 1161, with Genoese capacity measures carved by the entrance and the inscription "Colonia Januensis 1113".
The narrow carruggio between tightly packed tower-houses that runs from the gate to San Pietro, built so the houses themselves formed a wall.
An unfinished Genoese Gothic church on a rocky spur, with the earlier Christian church visible beneath its floor.
The cave and cove under San Pietro, named for the tradition that Lord Byron swam across the gulf to visit Percy and Mary Shelley.
The church begun in 1116 and consecrated in 1130, now the sanctuary of the Madonna Bianca, with a lunette of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence above the portal.
The Genoese fortress on the promontory, rebuilt after 1453, with its hypostyle hall of eight columns and views past San Pietro to Palmaria.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 9 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 9 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Portovenere — the Genoese Fortress Town, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
9 narration points, including Porta del Borgo and the Torre Capitolare, Via Giovanni Capellini, Calata Doria and the Tower-Houses, Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto and Church of San Pietro. That is about 14 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 9 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.