Lerici as Seen by Shelley and D. H. Lawrence

Lerici, near La Spezia, sits on a bay that is one of the most fabled in the Mediterranean. Writers have been drawn here for centuries, and their words about the place tend to be florid, impassioned, and sometimes laced with the question of “What does it all mean?” that is born of their response to the jaw-dropping beauty of this area. The bays of Lerici and La Spezia are known together as the Gulf of Poets, attracting them, seducing them, confounding them. Indeed, this is the place where Shelley drowned.