Portofino is small. The harbour, the church of San Giorgio, Brown Castle and a few paths leading into the nature park - that is all of it. And precisely because of that, it has one very clear divide: from ten in the morning the harbour below is a crowd of tourists, while up on the hill, round a bend, sits a hotel to which the same people have been returning several times in a lifetime for decades.

This summer Nicole Kidman and the Beckhams passed through the Splendido. Kidman was photographed by the pool, and one evening joined the band that was playing and took up a tambourine. She arrived in Italy after Ibiza and London, in the company of the American businessman Michael Rheinstein. That is the kind of item that circulates for a day and is forgotten. The other one is more interesting.

David and Victoria Beckham were there in mid-August with their children Cruz and Harper. They chose that particular hotel because it was where, in 1997, they spent one of their first holidays together - the relationship was not yet public then. Victoria brought the memory back on social media with a photograph and a line: "Back in Portofino, where it all started, in 1997. I love you, David." That same secret holiday later gave rise to the perfume Portofino '97, one of the best known in her cosmetics line. So: almost three decades on, a person returns to the same place and pays for the same view.

That is more interesting than the label "celebrity hotel". The guest list is long - Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Madonna. In 1964 Richard Burton proposed to Elizabeth Taylor in this very hotel. But what they share is not the fame, it is the returning. Some come back for the place, others because they have already been there.

The building has an older biography than its guests. Before it became a hotel, in the 16th century it was a Benedictine monastery and later a private residence. It opened as accommodation in 1902, when Portofino was only beginning to appear on foreign travellers' itineraries. So for a place to look as though it has "always been like this", something has to work for a hundred years without a break.

In 2025 the hotel reopened after a major renovation by designer Martin Brudnizki - more colour, botanical murals, Ligurian-inspired furniture and a saltwater pool facing the bay. A Dior Spa was added, the brand's first permanent spa in Italy. For the reopening, Belmond gathered guests including the actor Jeff Goldblum, who performed with his jazz band, and the former Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanović; the hotel has a tennis court overlooking the Ligurian coast, one of its trademarks.

Guests need not leave the grounds all day: La Terrazza is the main restaurant serving local cuisine on a terrace above the bay, Splendido Grill is the relaxed version, and Baratta Sedici handles the cocktails. If you do want to go out - a private boat trip along the coast, a sunset kayak with an aperitif, a visit to the lighthouse or to the La Portofinese organic farm in the nature park. There are also pesto-making, pizza and tennis lessons.

But the real difference between visiting Portofino and staying the night in it is banal and true: when the harbour fills up in the late morning, all it takes is walking up the slope for the noise to stay below. That is what you are actually paying for in Liguria - not the view, but the quiet above that same view.