Find out with a guided tour this small village overlooking the sea where the typical atmosphere of the Ligurian seaside village can be felt. Here everything tastes of the sea: the intense light that strikes the colorful houses close to the beach, the boathouses, the nets patiently fixed by fishermen, the faces of the elderly marked by the wind and the sea. A ’postcard image that of Laigueglia today hides its true soul from the hurried tourist. That of the coral fishermen, of the shipwrights, of the shipyards that abutted the docks, that of the merchants and the privateers. A world that is no longer there today, but which our tour guide will help you read through the town's streets and monuments, now hidden by the vibrancy of rows of umbrellas and a beautiful waterfront promenade that runs the length of the coast to Alassio.
We invite you to discover the parish of St. Matthew whose façade is enclosed between two bell towers, topped by colorful majolica domes. The church preserves a painting by Bernardo Strozzi, one of the most important and prolific exponents of Italian Baroque painting, but what attracts our attention is the valuable cartelame, the most important of all the Western Riviera. The cartelame is an impressive scenic apparatus aimed at arousing the wonder of the faithful. It became widespread during the Baroque era and was displayed for the Adoration of the Quarantore and for the so-called Sepulchres of Holy Week.
The neighbor oratory of St. Mary Magdalene (1616-34) tells of the strong connection Ligurians have always had with the sea. In fact, the oratory was built thanks to the offerings of coral fishermen, who owned a fleet of about one hundred coral boats. The theme of coral fishing, the main economic activity in the seventeenth century in Laigueglia, is recalled in the Oratory by two 18th-century canvases, “The Departure and The Arrival of the Flotilla of Coral Boats.” The oratory testifies not only to the importance of the confraternities in Liguria, but also to an important historical moment in the community.
La guided tour of Laigueglia Can be combined with:
- guided tour of Deer and visit guided of Alassio
- guided tour of Albenga and other locations on the Western Riviera
- Natural history trekking in Colla Micheri
