Portofino & Portovenere: monasteries converted into posh hotels

In Liguria, where mountains and steep cliffs drop straight into the Mediterranean, creating a unique landscape that each year attracts millions of tourists, many old monasteries have been converted into posh hotels.
The most famous is Hotel Splendido in Portofino.
It was a medieval monastery which was turned into a hotel in the early 20th century.

Many celebrities of the past spent their holidays there from Grace Kelly to the Duke of Windsor, and from Orson Wells to Humphrey Bogart; just to mention a few! It’s a beautiful, magical place, elegantly decorated with enchanting bedrooms that nostalgically look back to the Belle Epoque; to that golden age when the world seemed to twirl around in a perpetually dance.

Another amazing hotel is the Grand Hotel Portovenere located in Portovenere, a small harbour which actually is just a delightful cove between The Cinque Terre and the Gulf of the Poets where the great English poet Shelley died when his boat was turned over by a storm.
The hotel used to be an old convent built in 1200 which in 1994 was converted into a hotel; a luxurious place from which one can see the exotic, breath-taking beauty of the Palmaria Island.