With the arrival of the first train in Spotorno (1872) the first tourist activities began to develop, which in a few years would upset the life of this quiet little community of about 1500 inhabitants, mostly farmers and sailors, who marked their working hours with the sound of bells. In that period nobles and aristocrats from all over Europe began to spend the winter in western Liguria, for this reason the first hotels and trattorias arose in Spotorno: the first were the Albergo Roma, and the Trattoria della Pace already active at the end of the 19th century (~ 1980) followed by the Albergo Ligure and in 1910 the Hotel Miramare, followed by the construction of the Grande Hotel Palace (1909-1913) and the dancing Bagni Sirio (1914),
These are joined by the first bathing establishments: Cerutti and Colombo, Miramare: on their roundabouts the most cheerful life bustles and you can enjoy freshness and oxygenated air... in a dream landscape on which the island of Bergeggi stands out, the marine cave, the gentle green hills, whose images are immortalized by the discovery of the illustrated postcard, which will be sent all over the world.
Spotorno became a full-fledged destination for elite tourism typical of those years, like important towns such as Alassio, Bordighera, Sanremo.
An important role in promoting tourism was played by guides and yearbooks, including the one published by Karl Beedeker and aimed primarily at foreigners, which described Spotorno as one of the most beautiful places in the world “...in no other part of the Mediterranean does nature display its beauty with such sumptuousness...”;
In this context, in 1925 the illustrious English writer David Herbert Lawrence chose Spotorno as a stop on his eternal wandering. On November 15, Lawrence and his wife Frieda arrived at Villa Maria – Hotel Miramare, a hotel managed by Mr. Capellero, father of Rina, married to her English literary agent Curtis Brown, to whom Lawrence tells: “It is a lovely sunny day, there is a blue sea, and I sit writing outside, on the balcony, just above the beach”.
Seven days later she moves to rent Villa Bernarda, a pleasant old building of dark red color, overlooking the village, near the ruins of the castle, with a large vineyard, owned by the wife of a lieutenant of the bersaglieri stationed in Savona, Angelo Ravagli.
To Lawrence and Frieda, Ravagli immediately seemed nice and witty and the villa was booked until March for 25 pounds. The meeting between Frieda and Angelo, will blaze into a fiery love affair that will inspire, the "scandalous" love of Connie (Costance Chatterly) for the gamekeeper Oliver Mellors. The protagonists of the famous novel "Lady Chatterly's Lover" written by Lawrence. Angelo after Lawrence's death in 1930, will follow Frieda to New Mexico, and will become, in 1950, her third husband.
Lawrence spends happy hours in Spotorno, letting himself be inebriated by the scents and beauty of the vegetation and the landscape, but he does not stop imagining escapes: now Russia, now a cruise to the east, now Spain or the Balearics..., Lawrence's letters to friends, among the dense news of manuscripts, drafts, articles, welcome the recurring projects of great escapes, symptom of a restlessness that calms only at times.
The writer hides his restlessness and appears happy: "the sun shines, the eternal Mediterranean is blue and young, the last leaves are falling from the vines in the garden. The farmers are kind."
November 25 is the feast of Saint Catherine, to whom the little church not far from Villa Bernarda is dedicated: "... it's a celebration, and the men are all downstairs, around the little tables, drinking wine or vermouth! And what about the rancho, the little rancho, in New Mexico?...”
Lawrence mingles with the people who, cordially, invite him to drink.....and in the “wine of Santa Caterina” he sees the horses again, the great pine tree that stands in front of the house, the fence, the snow, the jays, the Rocky Mountains....The dream then merges with reality, the stars of the American sky with the clear horizons of the Ligurian coast.
The Spotorno parenthesis will end on April 20, when Lawrence and Frieda leave Villa Bernanda for Florence. Resolute and firm in the idea of ​​publishing the original, complete version of his novel. Thus, towards the end of that June of 1928, at the Tipografia Giuntina in Florence, one of the most extraordinary novels of the twentieth century could finally see the light.
Taken from: “Fogli D'album” by Domenico Astengo and Giuliano Cerutti - 1994