Calata Cuneo, the port of Oneglia

What do Matt Damon and billionaires' megayachts have to do with a fishing port? In Oneglia, at Calata Cuneo, more than you'd think.

To understand it, we need to jump back in time, precisely to the winter between 2000 and 2001. That's when, for anyone who was young in Oneglia, one of those unforgettable things happened: one night the sea in front of Calata Cuneo lit up as if it were day. It wasn't a storm, even if out on the water it looked like one — it was the movie lights. They were shooting The Bourne Identity, and the opening scene — a fishing boat hauling a wounded, memoryless man, Matt Damon, out of the water — was born right here, in front of our port. In the film they say it's the Mediterranean toward Marseille, and Bourne comes ashore on a quay they pass off as French. But that quay, with its lighthouse, we recognise at a glance: it's Oneglia. We know it, and it gives us a certain thrill.

I remember that time well, because in the evenings we'd sit on the rocks of the Rabina chatting late into the night — yes, with the odd beer — and that sea lit up like daylight in the dead of night is one of those images that stay with you. We had the set of an American film before our eyes, and to us it was simply home.

Calata Cuneo is the port of Oneglia, and for anyone who grew up here it is far more than a quay. It is where the town ends and the sea begins, where you go in the evening, where in summer you don't head home early.

As a teenager it was headquarters. With friends, above all in summer but also over the Christmas holidays, we lost ourselves in aperitivi that began at five in the afternoon and ended at closing time. The details, better left untold.

The meeting point, at the far end of the quay, is the Caffè del Porto. Today it is one of the places in Oneglia where you eat the best focaccia, vegetable pie and pizza al sugo, all made in house and of the highest quality. And you drink very, very well.

Calata Cuneo by day, the restaurants under the arcades.

It would be unfair, though, to reduce Calata Cuneo to the Caffè del Porto. In the evening the places are packed, and there's plenty of choice. For pizza, last week my closest friend Alessandro took me to La Piazzetta: excellent, and coming from someone who makes pizza at home and is picky, that's a real compliment. For a more refined aperitivo, with unusual drinks, there's the Surf, where the drinking is serious.

And then the fish, which here comes straight from the boats you see moored a few steps away. To eat it properly, the Hostaria Besugo is the beacon of seafood on the port: buridda, zimino, raw plates. Damare Terra e Mare and the Blue Marine are good too.

The port of Oneglia, the fishing boats at their moorings.

There's one last thing that makes Calata Cuneo a place of its own. It's famous for the magnates' yachts that tie up here: some evenings it feels like strolling the port of Monte Carlo. And it's no figure of speech — cover-star megayachts have moored here, from Bernard Arnault's Symphony, the Louis Vuitton tycoon, to the Mariu designed by Giorgio Armani. Seeing one tied up under the arcades, a few steps from the fishing boats, is one of those contrasts that tell you more about Oneglia than a thousand words. The quirky part is that the moorings don't belong to a private marina but to the town, run by a municipal company: a dozen berths for hulls that reach over eighty metres, at a few euros per square metre. For anyone who owns such yachts, almost a token sum.

Megayachts moored at Calata Cuneo, beneath the Oneglia tower. And then there's something that once happened at Calata Cuneo, and that says a lot about what kind of port this is: a bride, instead of arriving by car, arrived by boat, mooring at the quay in her white dress to reach the nearby church in Piazza San Giovanni.

One thing is certain: if you're at Stella sul Mare, in the evening you come down here. It's Oneglia's living room on the sea. And in late June it's from this very quay that you watch the San Giovanni fireworks.