Routing from the UK to the Ligurian coast
Every Portofino shipment begins with a collection from a mainland UK address you nominate — most commonly a private garage, a family residence or a specialist storage facility. The transporter arrives within a pre-agreed window, and before the car is loaded for the run south to the Ligurian coast the driver completes a pre-shipment inspection: every panel photographed, the fuel level and mileage recorded, and the documentation walked through with you.
From there, the car crosses into Europe in a single-vehicle enclosed transporter with air-ride suspension: the standard routing runs Eurotunnel from Folkestone, then south through France via Reims and Lyon — or through Switzerland and the Gotthard, depending on the season — joining the A12 Autostrada Azzurra east of Genoa towards Rapallo, Santa Margherita Ligure and the Portofino peninsula. Calais to the Ligurian coast is around 16 to 18 hours on the road and most Portofino shipments complete inside four to five working days. Where the schedule allows, a sea routing from Southampton or Felixstowe to Genoa covers the trunk leg in around five days and suits multi-vehicle consignments.
The Genoa quay, the customs clearance and the trunk transit stay our responsibility; the car arrives on the Ligurian coast cleared and ready for the staged village hand-over.
The staged village hand-over — Hotel Splendido, Santa Margherita Ligure
Portofino itself is the planning problem. The village proper is a small harbour at the end of a narrow road, with almost no public parking, a residents’ access regime through the summer months and a single-lane approach that does not accommodate a full-size enclosed transporter. A nine-metre covered trailer is not going round the Castello Brown overlook. Hand-over is therefore staged.
The standard format is offload at the Hotel Splendido upper drive, where the access is wide enough for a transporter and the hotel concierge takes the car the final kilometre into the village or up to a hillside villa. Where the destination is outside the Splendido catchment we offload at Santa Margherita Ligure (six kilometres around the peninsula) or at a permitted facility in Rapallo, and one of our drivers covers the final leg into Portofino under their own steam. Private villas with their own driveable approach are delivered direct where access allows. The route is planned with the client and the property manager before the transporter leaves the UK.
Italian customs, temporary admission and the summer migration
Our Italian broker lodges the import declaration with the Italian customs authority on the vehicle’s arrival and handles UK-origin imports weekly, so the T1 and the quay-side wait sit on our desk, not yours. A summer in Portofino or an autumn week on the Riviera needs no Italian VAT or duty under temporary admission, provided the car leaves by its agreed exit date; a permanent move to Italian plates is a different process. See our European customs guide for how that split, and Transfer of Residence relief, work across the EU.
Portofino runs alongside the wider Mediterranean summer migration north from Saint-Tropez and the Côte d’Azur, with the August peak shared with Forte dei Marmi and the Tuscan coast. We sequence the season’s movements where clients run more than one car on the Italian coast, with the outbound from the UK in May and the return in September on a single point of contact. At hand-over, whether that’s the Hotel Splendido upper drive, the Santa Margherita offload point, or the final kilometre into the village itself, you receive the cleared customs release, the bill of lading and the pre-shipment inspection record, checked against a final inspection before the car reaches you. The whole pack is also emailed.
