style="font-size: larger;"|Portofino

Region	Liguria
Province	Genoa (GE)
Altitude	3 m
Area  - City Proper	2 km²
Population  - City (2004)  - Density (city proper)	529 265/km²
Time zone	CET, UTC+1
Coordinates
Patron:  - Saint   -Day	Saint George of Lydda April 23
Site	comune.portofino.genova.it

Portofino is a small Italian fishing village and tourist resort located in the province of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town crowded round its small harbour is considered to be among the most beautiful Mediterranean ports. Portofino has even been recreated in detail at the Portofino Bay Resort at Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida.

According to Pliny the Elder, Portofino was founded by the Romans and named Portus Delphini, or Port of the Dolphin, because of the large number of dolphins that inhabited the Tigullian Gulf. The towns's natural harbour supported a fleet of fishing boats, somewhat too cramped to provided more than a temporary safe haven for the growing merchant marine of Republic of Genoa during the Middle Ages. In the early 20th century, first British, then German tourist began to visit Portofino, which they reached by horse and cart from Santa Margherita Ligure. Aubrey Herbert (1880–1923) was one of the more famous Englishmen to maintain a villa at Portofino. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor honeymooned at the Hotel Splendido, and years later Richard Burton proposed to Elizabeth Taylor. Rex Harrison had a villa high on the terraced slopes. Eventually more expatriates built expensive vacation houses, and by 1950 tourism had supplanted fishing as the town's chief industry, and the waterfront was a continuous ring of waterside restaurants and cafés.

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New market sighting: Petunia (Best In Show, 500 points) for 50Tx from Portofino #packrat
packrattracker (PackratMarketTracker) Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:25:21 -0000
New market sighting: Petunia (Best In Show, 500 points) for 50Tx from Portofino #packrat
Come to "Acoustic tunes with Dan Graziano at Caffe' Portofino" Saturday, January 9 from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Dan... http://bit.ly/8H2oWt
caffeportofino (caffe portofino) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:51:14 -0000
Come to "Acoustic tunes with Dan Graziano at Caffe' Portofino" Saturday, January 9 from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Dan... http://bit.ly/8H2oWt
Come to "Eric Ames at Caffe' Portofino" Friday, January 8 from 8:00 pm to 11:00 Subscribe to Portofino RSS feed