Porto Venere

This guide to the cave beneath the church of San Pietro in Porto Venere, Cinque Terre, opens with Lord Byron's supposed 1822 solo swim across the gulf to visit his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley in San Terenzo, a stretch of water now crossed every year in the escorted Byron Cup race. It contrasts Byron, a seasoned long-distance swimmer who had already crossed the Hellespont in 1810, with Shelley, who by most accounts barely swam at all. Look down toward the collapsed grotto beneath the plaque that still credits Byron's nerve.