“That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée.”
Internet searches for the Italian town of Portofino soared by 271% within days of the release of the Taylor Swift album The Life of a Showgirl.
In the song “Elizabeth Taylor,” Swift opens with the lyric, “That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée.”
Booking.com noted the increase in searches on their site for travel from U.S. locations to Portofino spiking between October 3 and October 6 compared to the same dates in 2024, coinciding with the release of the album. Portofino is a small fishing village on the Ligurian coast in northern Italy, near Genoa, that was a resort for the jet-set in the 1960s after entering Hollywood consciousness in the 1954 romantic drama The Barefoot Contessa, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner.
The mention of Portofino in a song entitled “Elizabeth Taylor” is more than just hyperbole—Portofino was where Richard Burton reportedly proposed to Elizabeth Taylor in 1964. He had just finished filming Night of the Iguana in Puerto Vallarta, where Taylor had accompanied him to ensure his fidelity (although they were both still married to other people at the time). The couple later lived in the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, and the hotel remained a favorite of Taylor’s for the rest of her life.
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The hotel’s Instagram account quickly posted an Instagram reel in homage to the lyric.
Belmond Splendido Mare, a boutique luxury hotel located right in the diminutive piazza of the town, was a bit more circumspect, with no mention of the lyric on their Instagram feed, although the hotel does offer one of the most direct views of Portofino, along with it’s hillside sister property Belmond Hotel Splendido.
Luxury hotels notwithstanding, Portofino has grappled with overtourism in recent years, with boats carrying cruise ship shore excursionists and other day trippers into the small piazza to burn a few leisure hours in the middle of the day.
Although perhaps not quite as picturesque, travelers wanting to peep into Portofino to soak in the aura of Swift’s lyric can take a few side quests, to nearby Santa Margherita to hunt out the best café for gelato (they’re innumerable in the town center), or check out the sleepy waterfront focaccerias in the fishing village of Camogli, just on the other side of the peninsula from Portofino.
The Ligurian coast is noted for its cuisine, in particular, focaccia, an olive oil-infused flatbread, pesto, and farinata, cake made from chickpea flour and olive oil. Cooking in the region is typified by fresh herbs from the surrounding mountains, and a mix of fresh seafood, game, and, of course, freshly made trofie or trenette pasta.
Another popular tourist spot in Liguria is Cinque Terre National Park and Marine Protected Area, where local officials are putting restrictions in place to help ease overtourism, including a ticketed entry and monitoring of visitors for adequate footwear for hiking on the region’s narrow, steep trails.