Ligurian Coast Pictures

June 2-4, 2001

February 13-14, 2002

Update-

Patti and the boys returned to Portofino with Ellie and Katie. This was a stop over on the way to see Portovenere, which is where Ellie's side of the family comes from. Click here to see the story on Portovenere. Otherwise, click here to see how this second visit to Portofino went.

The Ligurian Coast is probably best known for Portofino and the Cinque Terre, which just so happens to be where we spent our time ! Both places are on the Italian Riviera, just East of Genova (Genoa to Americans), about 3 hours drive from where we live, if everything goes well. In fact, everything did go pretty well on the drive there, except that we got a little bit off the beaten track in Genova, but still ended up going along the coast to Portofino just fine. Along the way, from Nice, we must have driven through over 50 tunnels. I lost track after about 30 or so. Some were as along as a mile and a half. Overall, we found the Italian Riviera to be a very beautiful place, much more so than the French Riviera, where we live. In Italy, the colors are much more vivid, with all of the buildings painted in bright colors, some of them striped. Many buildings also had ornate architectural works over all the windows and up the corners of the house. Or at least they did until you got close enough to notice that it was really very elaborate paint jobs ! But beautiful none the less. However, the French beaches are nicer as all of them in Italy were stone beaches. There are good sandy beaches in the French Riviera.

On to the details ! We got on the small road to Portofino just fine when all of a sudden traffic came to s standstill. And just as you would expect, there was a cop up the front directing traffic. But no one was getting through. Buses and some cars were able to drive to the front, but the cop rarely let any other cars through. A second cop finally came walking by but since we don't know Italian and he didn't know French or English, we didn't get very far with him. Finally, after about 30 minutes of this, Patti gets out and walks up to the cop at the front and shows her our hotel confirmation form. She just nods yes, this is the way to the hotel. But that's about it. About 10 minutes later Connor wants out and so Patti takes him for a walk up the road. Right about then, the cop at the front sees Patti and asks where her car is. Patti points and me and the cop waves us up and through !!!! I picked up Patti and Connor and we were finally on our way to the hotel.

We immediately checked in. The hotel, the Hotel Piccolo, is just outside of the Portofino town center, but within an easy walking distance. It's also right on the coast, tucked inside a little cove just around the corner from the town center. Since none of us had lunch, due to a serious lack of Lire, we headed right out for the town center. It turns out Portofino is very small, and the whole town can be easily walked in half a day, including visits to the old chapel and castle. But by the time we got there lunch time had passed and we found it hard to get something to eat. Being Italy I really, really wanted good pasta, since that is also hard to find in Mandelieu ! But no luck. Had to settle for prosciutto and cheese. After lunch we walked up to the old chapel, and then on to the restored castle. Enough blabbing. Here are some pictures of Portofino, or click here for pictures and story on the Cinque Terre.

Here are some pictures of Portofino from different places around the town. The first, with Patti and the boys, is from the walk on the way up to the chapel. The background is where most of the shops, cafe's, and boat rental places are. The second, with the whole family, is from the same place. The third is a close up of the harbor with all of the rich people's mega yachts. Some of these things were huge ! The fourth picture is taken from the castle and pretty much shows the entire village of Portofino !

Here is a picture of the hotel. It is the little yellow building back in the cove, just under that monster hotel half way up the hill.

Here are some other miscellaneous pictures. The first is of the boys running around one of the streets in Portofino. The second is of Patti and Connor getting lunch that first day right in the town square overlooking the harbor. The third picture is Steve and Connor having fun after lunch. In the background of the third picture, the yellow building on the left with the steeple, is the old chapel.

Ellie ad Katie came out to visit us in February, 2002. Since Ellie's side of the family comes from Portovenere everyone decided to head over and see Portovenere since it was only a little over 3 hours drive to get there. Well, everyone but Steve went. That poor sucker had to work. But driving there and back in the same day is a lot of driving, so everyone stayed the night in Santa Margherita, near Portofino. It turns out that February is an interesting time to visit Portofino. There are absolutely no crowds. But that also meant that there are no shops or cafe's open, either ! Such is the tourist town. Here are some pictures showing what happened on the trip.

It was a bit rainy, but that didn't stop anyone. Here is the gang in their slickers on the hill overlooking the harbor at Portofino.

The gang had lunch in Santa Margherita. Here's the proof. Plus, you can even see our wonderful silver Volvo in the background. Yes, we drive a station wagon. What has become of us. 

This is a nice picture. Notice Jeff and Connor in their rain slickers looking into the  fisherman's buckets to see what he had caught for his evening cioppino (fish and crabs). Ellie spent some time speaking Italian with the fisherman.

Here are the dynamic duo on the hill overlooking Portofino.

Last updated Sunday February 17, 2002 18:14 CET