Day Tripping in Italy

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Today was a late start! Didn't leave for Santa Margherita until 1pm - guess we're getting into the Ligurian lifestyl!

Santa Margherita is, of course, beautiful. It's much bigger than the towns we've been in the past few days but no less charming. We really don't think Italy can do any wrong! Now back to the notion of S. Margherita being larger. When I say larger keep in mind it only took us a couple of hours to explore it and then we decided to take the boat to Portofino, another small but beautiful Italian town. The difference with Portofino though is the $$$ it attracts. The boats are like Jimmy's (Pattison) +++ and the quaint little stores of the other towns in Liguria are replaced by Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Cartier. It's laid back wealth here. Absolute paradise. Again.

Dinner in Portofino was good but it paled in comparison to the boats that pulled in around dusk. There were the typical multi-million dollar yachts but there was one called the "Andale" that put even the biggest yacht to shame. Not sure who the owner is but it was obscene. What do you have to do to have that amount of wealth? There are "comfortable" people and there are "rich" people but there is an obscenely wealthy group of people that hold a candle to no one. It's surreal. What have they done to afford what they have? Talk about another world!! Whatever, my ring was glittering in the Portofino light and mine and John's life is complete.

The train ride back "home" from Portofino to Vernazza was a bit of an adventure. We got on the Monterosso bound train (the "hub" town where you get a connector train for the 3 minute trip to Vernazza) and about halfway ito the 50 minute journey our train stopped, the engine died and the lights went out. We were the only 2 people on the whole train. Similiar to when we got stuck in the elevator back in Avignon, I started to overreact and hyperventilate while John used his rational thinking skills to get us out. He discovered our train was "parked" for the night at the end of a track and the doors wouldn't open. Soooo, again we're the only people stuck on this dark, desolate train at the end of a track. We ain't going nowhere! Eventually John found the conductor who let us out at Sestri L. station. Where is Sestri and what does the "L" stand for? Who knows! All we knew was we had to get to Monterosso to catch our train to Vernazza before they all stopped running for the night. It was now 11:30pm. Trains stop just after midnight. It was a bit of a concern but all worked out ok and we had, overall, another great day in Italy.

Miss you all!

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