Once upon a time there was an enchanting place on the Ligurian Sea where the sea was deep blue and the sunshine was even brighter than elsewhere.

Enchanted by the magnificent setting offered by the Isle of Sestri Levante, the mermaids decided to settle there and lay down on the rocks which rose from the seawater like small thrones.

One day Tigullio, the youngest and most handsome of the Tritons, was on the shore and saw SEGESTA, the most beautiful and charming of the Mermaids, with blue eyes and long fair hair, and he desperately fell in love with her.

One night, while the moonlight coloured the rocks with silver and countless stars trembled like his heart, Tigullio tried to kidnap Segesta but Neptune, the God of the Sea, did not want that paradise to be deprived of the most valuable of its gems and so he punished Tigullio by petrifying his arm which was stretched out to grab the mermaid.

This was the birth of the wonderful isthmus which connects the isle with the land… This was the birth of the two faces of the town, of the two sandy beaches and of the two small and romantic bays which worldwide famous poets called “Bay of Silence” and “Bay of Fairy Tales”…

Looking at the promontory today, at those rocks and at that sea, it is possible to think that mermaids are still living and swimming over there. This is the charm that the ancient legend of “Segesta Tigullorum” is still transmitting to the world.