The Lovers' Walk

There's a point, below Porto Maurizio, where the town ends and for a moment you don't even realize you're still in a town. The road narrows, the houses stop, and ahead of you there's nothing but the rocks, the open sea, and a thin path running mid-air above the water. They call it the Passeggiata degli Innamorati, the Lovers' Walk, and for a spot a stone's throw from the centre it's one of the loveliest things Imperia keeps to one side.

Let me be straight right away, because here I play the honest host. The walk is not in Oneglia. It's on the far side of the Impero torrent, on the Porto Maurizio side, and from our place it's about ten minutes by car. So, not exactly under the balcony. But it's one of those spots that, if you're in the area, is worth the detour: for a lot of people who come here on holiday it's the surprise they weren't expecting.

The path links Borgo Marina, the old Porto Maurizio marina, to Borgo Foce, the fishing village that grew up where the Caramagna stream runs into the sea. In between, barely ten minutes of walking, all of it sheer above the water. It's short, I'll tell you straight, don't expect some big trek. But it's one of those walks where the length means nothing: what counts is what you've got around you.

And around you there are the rocks dropping straight into the sea, the waves breaking below you, and that low, fragrant green that grows everywhere by the sea around here. Mediterranean scrub: myrtle, lavender, rosemary. You walk along and here and there you smell it before you see the plant. They've put benches in the right spots, facing out over the drop, and those aren't there as filler: they're there because someone understood that in certain places the only smart thing to do is sit down and shut up.

The headland of Porto Maurizio rising from the open sea: the walk runs along its flank, sheer above the water

The walk's real name

Everyone calls it the "Lovers' Walk," and fair enough: it's romantic, some compare it to the Via dell'Amore in the Cinque Terre, couples go there on purpose. But the name written on the signs is another one, and this is where, to my mind, the walk becomes a serious matter.

It's called Via Domenico Moriani. Moriani was a boy from Borgo Foce, born right down there, a partisan. The Nazis killed him in October 1944. He was nineteen.

I think about it every time I walk it. Dedicating the most romantic path in town, the one where people go to kiss and look at the sea, to a boy who died at twenty is no accident and no contradiction. It's the way Imperia found to say that this stretch of coast, free and open, somebody gambled his life so it would stay everyone's. You think it's normal to take a stroll at sunset with the right person. It's normal because someone paid the bill. Go, enjoy it, but now you know.

What you come across along the way

Walking it, all sorts of things turn up in just a few metres. The path starts from an open clearing and ends at a cluster of rocks the locals call the Tre Scogli, the Three Rocks. Below, in places, little pebble beaches open up wedged into the rock, one in particular sheltered by a big boulder that even has a name, the Dragonara. There's a cave that runs in under the water, and the old folk around here call it in their own dialect. And there's the Casa del Pittore, the Painter's House, because an artist had his studio here, Francesco Bruno, who clearly understood too where you get the best view of the sea.

At Borgo Foce, at the far end, you find yourself in the real village: a handful of fishermen's houses, a couple of places to sit, little restaurants looking out over the water. It's the prettiest part of the whole walk, and you reach it calmly, without rushing, the way a seaside village ought to be reached.

Borgo Foce: the rocks and the waves breaking below the fishermen's houses, at the far end of the walk

When to go (and the honest bit about timing)

Now the local tip, and a small piece of honesty about the way it faces. This coast looks east and out to the open sea, so the golden moment is early in the morning: the sun coming up out of the water, the low light on the rocks, and usually you've got it almost to yourself because at that hour there's nobody around. A walk at dawn here is worth the alarm clock.

The evening is another story, and the more famous one: you won't get the sun dropping straight into the sea like on the other coast, but when the light fades and then the moon comes up, with the reflection on the water and the lamps lit along the path, you'll work out for yourself why they call it what they call it. They've fixed it up lately, redone the lighting and the benches, and it's gone back to being a proper evening spot.

Two warnings, because I'm not selling postcards here. First: comfortable shoes. It's a path, not a smooth seafront, and in a few stretches the surface is what it is. Second: you're sheer above the sea, with no big railings in some spots, so if you go with children keep them by the hand and don't let them run ahead. A few of the side terraces, then, have been left to go over the years and can't be used anymore: the main walk, though, is right there, whole, and it's perfectly easy to do.

And now a distinctly unromantic confession, which is nonetheless among the funniest memories of my youth — funny for me, mind you, not for my victims. As kids, with my brother, with Ale and a handful of other little hooligans, we'd fill water balloons down on the beach and then, perched on the Aurelia road that runs higher up, lob them at the poor souls strolling romantically down here. I know: right on the Lovers' Walk, practically a sacrilege. In my defence I have only the age I was back then — and the hope that, by now, it's all safely past the statute of limitations.

The good thing is it's so close to everything. You do it in the morning before the beach, or in the late afternoon, and then you come back over here, to Oneglia, and close the day with an aperitivo on the port at Calata Cuneo. A stroll sheer above the sea and then a glass with the harbour in front of you: in Imperia, on certain evenings, the only thing you have to choose is the order in which to do the lovely things.