Spotorno-Noli: the Best Beach Weekend from Turin
In this post you’ll find a complete guide & helpful locals tips to enjoy a perfect weekend in Spotorno-Noli, the charming & nearest beach villages from Turin (~1:30 hour drive away).
Quick Summary
- Why Spotorno-Noli?
- How to get to Spotorno?
- Best Private and Public beaches
- Quick Lunch Stop along the way
- Stop for shopping on the way back
- Lunch options: Pizza, Salad or Pasta?
- Don’t miss Aperitivo at Sirio
- The best place for dinner
- The best affordable dinner
- Noli: the charming village nearby
1. Why Spotorno-Noli?
Spotorno is a charming beach village located in Liguria (province of Savona). I recommend going here for a day-trip or a weekend while visiting Turin for the three below reasons:
- It’s the closest beach to Turin (1h 30 drive )
- It’s a charming small village, not a city
- The water is clean, clear and blue – in 2022 it won once again the “Bandiera Blu award”
The Bandiera Blu status is awarded to Italian beaches with excellent water quality and high environmental standards. Read below the list of beaches that won this recognition in 2022.
http://www.bandierablu.org/common/blueflag.asp?anno=2022&tipo=bb
2. How to get there?
You can reach Spotorno in three ways, below is the estimated cost & time for a one-way trip from Turin:
By car (25-30€/ 1h30): it is the fastest & easiest. Just follow the Torino-Savona (A10) highwayfrom Turin. You will spend 14€ for the toll plus more or less a similar amount for petrol
By train (12.5€ pp/ 2h30-3h): you can easily take a train from Torino Porta Nuova. Depending on your departure time you may have a direct train or you will have to make one change in Savona station
By Bus (12.5€ pp/ 2:30h): you can take the direct bus from Torino Porta Nuova to Spotorno. For Bus tickets you can check Virail.it or Flixbus,
3. Quick lunch stop along the way
If you’re travelling by car, there is a nice little restaurant I recommend stop by for along the way.
The place is called “il Ristorantino” and it is located in Mondovi, a little town on the way to Spotorno, easily accessible from the Torino-Savona highway.
From the outside it doesn’t look great but “never judge a book by its cover”. Pasta is of premium quality. The menu choice is limited as all ingredients are fresh. The price is affordable. Trip advisor rates it 4.5.
For two people we paid 30 euro in total: we had two dishes of pasta, a bottle of water and two Espressos.
With the coffee they gave us two free delicious “meliga biscuits”. That was a smart move as we were really impressed by the quality of the biscuits that we decided to buy some extra for our trip.
One of the pasta dishes we had is called “trofie”, it is a type of pasta typical of the “Liguria” region. You don’t find this type of pasta very often outside of the region and it is rarely present outside of Italy.
We strongly recommend to try Trofie. As per traditional recipe, they are typically served with pesto sauce.
They also have a nice variety of local products for sell. We bought Meliga biscuits and their premium Pasta, really tasty but expensive: 400g of biscuits costed 9 Euro while 500g of pasta was 3.70 Euro.
4. Stop for shopping on the way back
Modovi is also famous for the Mondovicino Outlet Village. This place has many stores with many famous brands: Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Christian Dior, Converse, Fratelli Rossetti and many more.
As it is an outlet you can end up finding some pretty good deals. As “il ristorantino” restaurant mentioned in the paragraph above is nearby you could easily go for lunch and then do some shopping.
As we really wanted to go the beach we decided not to waste time further time. We rather stopped for shopping on the way back.
5. Best Private & Public beaches
Depending on what you are looking there is both a variety of private and public beaches.
Private Beaches:
The cheapest ones in Spotorno are 1) Bagni Premuda and 2) Bagni Le Ville both of which offer food, drinks & café as services.
In May 2022, we’ve been to Bagni Premuda and paid 23€ per day to be on the first row (1 umbrella + 2 sun beds). May was not yet high-season, so if you are going in June-August expect to pay +20-30% more.
Premuda is also home to a reputable beach-front 3 Stars Hotel.
Bagni Le Ville is slightly cheaper its beach is narrower but it has a great salads bar and an extremely competitive cocktail bar.
If you don’t care about saving money, then the best private beach is probably “Villaggio del Sole” or “Bagni Samoa” which might cost up to +30% more.
Public Beaches:
In Spotorno there are two main areas that are for public use and as such free of charge: 1) the one next to “Bagni Santa Margherita” or 2) the one next to the “Pluto Beach”.
The first is much better but to say the truth, neither of the two are exceptional. If you want a public beach and have a car I recommend driving 2.5kms extra to Noli where the public beach is wider & much nicer.
6. Lunch options: Pizza, Salad or Pasta?
There are options for having a great lunch, here are my top 3 recommendations.
6.1 Take-away Pizza slices from “local Bakery”
If you are visiting for a day-trip and want to maximize your time on the sunbed the best option is to get “take-away pizza slices” from a local bakery in the morning and take them with you on the beach.
The most famous one in town, is “Panificio Rotondo” (picture above). Make sure you try one slice of their amazing “Focaccia di Recco” which is a focaccia filled with warm & tasty local cheese. Totally worth it!
6.2 Fresh & Healthy salad
If you want to keep it light & healthy nothing beats a fresh salad! I recommend going to “Bagni le Ville” which have affordable & freshly made salads . Normal salad costs 6€ while the maxi one is 8-10€.
We paid 20€ for two salads (one maxi), two bottles of water and two espresso coffees (see pictures ).
6.3 Home-made Seafood Pasta!
If you feel hungry and want to taste some local seafood while sitting-down comfortably, there is no better place value-for-money than U Pasta.
You’ll spend 10€ per person for a dish of fresh pasta & local seafood. All their pasta is home-made. Their menu is relatively short which is a good sign for fresh ingredients. No-frills yet a very good lunch.
We paid 26€ for two dishes of pasta, a big bottle of water and two espresso coffees (see pictures above).
7. Don’t miss the aperitivo at Sirio
Sirio is one of the nicest & priciest restaurants around. Location is gorgeous, overlooking the sea.
My tip is to go there before dinner (before 8:30pm) for an Aperitivo. You will pay only 8€ per cocktail and they will offer you some nice snacks along with it (olives, cheese, salami and fried fish meatballs).
Make sure you sit outside on the dock to enjoy the panorama!
One more thing, Sirio is great even for late night cocktails, they put music and dance on the beach!
8. The best dinner: at Samoa
My favourite place for dinner is “Samoa”, hands-down.
The quality of their fresh ingredients, the high standards of the kitchen and the service is simply best in town in my view. They speak great English & German and the service is extremely professional.
The location is right on the beach, you can hear the waves right from the table!
My wife and I took two dishes each and a small bottle of wine and we paid 88€. It is a bit pricier than other restaurants but we feel every extra dollar is well spent.
9. The best affordable dinner
If you want to save money, avoid the crowds without compromising on fresh seafood I recommend going to the local fishery “Pescheria Brunetto”.
As it is a local fishery, all their seafood is freshly caught!
I suggest taking their “take-away fritto” which consists of a platter of freshly caught fried seafood (calamari, cuttle fish, sardines and shrimps). We took it without shrimps & paid 28€ for two abundant portions (as shown in the picture above).
10. Noli: the charming village nearby
If you make this trip a weekend getaway rather than a day-trip, I recommend visiting also Noli.
Noli is a lovely beach town less than 3 km away from Spotorno. The two villages are well connected by local bus and even a lovely walk by the sea.
I recommend visiting Noli for a relaxing late afternoon sunset walk. It has both a nice seaside promenade and also a stunning historical center offering a variety of shops, cafés and restaurants.
It would be perfect to stay in Noli for dinner and walk back to Spotorno afterwards. Myself, I often go running to Noli and come back. Here is
