Castello di San Terenzo

Neighboring Lerici Castle, San Terenzo Castle closes the western end of the Gulf of Poets, and defends the small maritime village of San Terenzo with its quadrangular fortress. It cannot boast an ancient history; it seems it was built in the 1400s, by countrymen 'with no artillery, stairs, munitions, or guards' against the raids by the Saracen pirates, the same Turks that gave the name to the grotto that opens up into the rocky promontory where the castle stands.

In the legendary Gulf of Poets, in the town of San Terenzo, I savored atmospheres and strong emotions: here it all began and "...the place was too beautiful and did not seem of this earth..." wrote Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, (the famous writer of "Frankenstein") wife of the romantic poet Percy B. Shelley, in 1822 when she arrived in this location with a group of young Englishmen led by the poet mentioned above. Mary Shelley also wrote "...the scene was indeed of unimaginable beauty. The blue expanse of water, the bay almost entirely surrounded by the coast, with the nearby castle of Lerici to the east and Portovenere to the west in the distance." But The castle of S. Terenzo itself, built by the people of San Terenzi around the watchtower in 1588, is a fortification with different architectural styles to defend the northern sector of the bay, in aid of the neighbor of Lerici and of very pleasant construction. The castle of S.Terenzo contributes to making the Gulf of Lerici unique in its kind in a magnificent bay enclosed by two manors which are joined by a wonderful promenade of approximately 2 km. A wonder for the eyes and an extraordinarily poetic place.