A Nostalgic Journey Across the Peninsula Through the Eyes of an Italian Photographer

For years, those who call the Palos Verdes Peninsula home have quietly compared its dramatic cliffs, coastal roads, terracotta rooftops, and sweeping ocean views to the landscapes of Italy. There is something undeniably Mediterranean about the Peninsula. The winding roads above the sea, the hidden coves, the villas tucked into hillsides, and the scent of salt air mixed with eucalyptus and wild fennel often feel worlds away from Los Angeles.

So when Italian photographer and storyteller Tom Wayne Bertolotti approached PV Magazine with a deeply personal reflection on discovering Palos Verdes for the very first time, we knew his perspective was something special.

Originally published in the May 2021 issue of PV Magazine, this nostalgic photographic and written journey deserves a permanent place on Explore South Bay LA as a tribute to the extraordinary beauty of the Peninsula. Through Tom’s eyes, Palos Verdes becomes more than a Southern California coastline. It becomes a bridge between continents, memories, and emotions.

His words capture something many locals have long felt but perhaps never fully articulated: the Palos Verdes Peninsula possesses a rare and timeless beauty that feels unmistakably European while remaining entirely its own.

In this thoughtful essay, Tom takes us through Malaga Cove, Lunada Bay, Portuguese Bend, and the Peninsula’s rolling hills with the heart of an Italian traveler rediscovering pieces of home thousands of miles away.

“Palos Verdes Looks Like Italy”

Written and Photographed by Tom Wayne Bertolotti

Discovering Palos Verdes for the First Time

I was standing on the cliffs in Lunada Bay, looking at the ocean when a white sedan pulled in next to me. A man in his early sixties got out of the car wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, on a video call.

He walked to the cliff, flipped the camera away from himself toward the coastline, and said in a delightful accent:

“Guarda! La California sembra la Sicilia!”

I could not agree more. California looks like Sicily indeed. Well, maybe not all of California.

“Palos Verdes does look like Italy. To an Italian, Palos Verdes comes across as the dream of some extraordinary people who looked at a stunning peninsula and sought to make it even more wonderful. Not only was it bellissimo, I was back in la mia Italia.”

As a kid, I had traveled the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Monterey, and it had never struck me as particularly Mediterranean.

Southern California is different.

I first visited Los Angeles seven years ago, and my initial association was Greece. Big LA — sunny, hot, dusty, chaotic — spreading from the mountains to the sea with gridlocked boulevards connecting her multifaceted neighborhoods, immediately reminded me of Athens.

This impression grew even stronger when, during that first trip to Southern California, I hiked the trails overlooking the ocean in Crystal Cove State Park.

The barren hills sloping down to the narrow beach, the dry brush, the air filled with the smell of wild fennel — I could hardly believe my senses. I had entered a twilight zone, and Pacific Coast Highway had suddenly ferried me to one of my beloved Greek islands.

I treasured these sensations in my heart as oddities of a restless wanderer, but they all came back to me ten times stronger when I moved to the South Bay at the end of 2018.

Malaga Cove Felt Like Northern Italy

Funny enough, I know the exact date when I discovered Palos Verdes.

I had walked the beach from Redondo to RAT Beach several times before. For some reason, though, I had never paid attention to that little trail winding up the canyon at the end of the beach.

I hiked up the hill with a growing sense of wonder as I saw for the first time the delightful villas of Malaga Cove.

The sights and smells once again gave me that feeling of being teleported back to Europe.

Little did I know, my greatest surprise was still to come.

When I reached Malaga Cove Plaza, I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

Not only was it bellissimo, not only did it remind me of the country I had left less than a month before, but while the previous few hundred yards had offered glimpses of Southern coastal Italy, at the Plaza I was suddenly back in Northern Italy.

“Mamma mia, I had to pinch myself.”

If you have traveled through Northern Italy, you know it.

Countless villages have a square just like this — a main road suddenly opening into a wide piazza complete with a classical marble fountain and covered porches surrounding the square to shelter people from the summer sun and winter rain.

I could have been fifty miles from my hometown of Pavia, in the Bassa del Po, the agricultural plains stretching between Turin and Venice.

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Why Palos Verdes Reminds Italians of Home

To me, Palos Verdes became like an island.

Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti titled one of his most famous poems L’isola. Years later, during an interview, Ungaretti explained that what he described in that poem were actually the gardens of Tivoli in Rome, which are definitely not an island.

“L’isola,” he said, “è il luogo in cui mi isolo.”

The island is the place where I isolate myself.

And so is Palos Verdes to me.

It is an island where I isolate myself from the here and now, allowing me to travel through Italy in both space and time.

“Palos Verdes became like an island.”

The Mediterranean Beauty of Portuguese Bend

The coasts of Palos Verdes bring me back to Cinque Terre, to Liguria, to Sicily, to the chiseled beauty of Capri and Tropea, to the smells of fennel, sea air, and lemon trees.

But the hills of Palos Verdes take me back to Italy, too. To the hills of Bergamo, Bologna, Tuscany, and Umbria. To their ornate villas and sturdy cascine.

The cascina — pronounced kah-shee-nah — is the quintessential Italian farmhouse where homes, stables, and granaries are arranged around a central courtyard.

You can find beautiful examples of these architectural influences around Portuguese Bend.

“Does Italy Really Look Like This?”

The most difficult question I get from my friends in Palos Verdes is this:

“Does Italy really look like this?”

In jest, I like to answer that Palos Verdes looks like Italy on Tinder.

And maybe it is my love for my new home that makes me add that Palos Verdes is even more beautiful than Italy.

But that would be unfair to Italy.

The true answer is simple:

“Yes. Palos Verdes does look like Italy.”

---

A Love Letter to Palos Verdes

To an Italian, Palos Verdes comes across as the dream of extraordinary people who looked at an extraordinary landscape and sought to make it even more wonderful.

It is humbling because everywhere I go, I see a love poem to the place I come from, written in my own language.

Palos Verdes looks like Italy.

Obviously, not all of Italy looks like Palos Verdes, but that is perfectly fine with me.

Whenever I feel nostalgic, whenever I want to see and photograph Italy and her grande bellezza, all I have to do is walk there or drive there.

And that makes me smile a lot.