Grotta Azzurra

This guide to the Grotta Azzurra near Portovenere starts with the only way in: a ferry to the island of Palmaria, then handing yourself over to a local boatman who rows you under a low rock lip into total darkness. Inside, a cave running back nearly sixty meters into the cliff bends underwater sunlight into a glow climbing the walls, the same trick that made Capri's Blue Grotto famous but without the crowds. On a good day you might share the water with two or three other boats, or have the whole glowing cave to yourself.