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We have three options for travelling from Rapallo to Portofino, car, bus and ferry boat.
The BBA V1 in 2009 while passing through the area decided to try and drive to Portofino on a sunny Sunday early afternoon and got turned around by a severe looking policewoman a couple of kilometres from the small village. She had told us that ‘Portofino was full’ which we really didn’t appreciate at the time as we had no idea how big the place was and how much parking was available.
After that attempt the car has been ruled out.
When we arrived in Rapallo yesterday the guy who let us in to the apartment told us about a ferry service option that we hadn’t realised was available and this sounded like a much more pleasurable option over a bus albeit it would work out more expensive. The ferry would also get us to San Fruttuoso which is inaccessible other than by walking for 1.5hrs from Portofino and the same time back again or taking the ferry.
Although we had had a little rain during the night the morning has dawned clear and now the sun is shining brightly. A more
perfect day we don’t think we could ask for to visit Portofino.
We walked down to the waterfront about 1.5km away and following Google maps discovered that the ferry to Portofino didn’t leave from where it said it did. Luckily everything is on a small scale in Rapallo and it was just a short walk around the bay to the right jetty.
Gretchen had read that the ferry was relatively small but that information must have been out of date as the one we climbed aboard could take up to 350 passengers and there was heaps of room to sit on the open upper deck to enjoy the views of the coast go by for the half hour trip to Portofino.
The ferry did pull into Santa Margherita first and our ticket would have enabled us to get off to explore the town and then catch the next ferry in an hour.
However we wanted to get to Portofino while the sun was at its fullest and anyway it wouldn’t be long and it would be lunchtime.
Portofino is hidden from the rest of the world in that the small ex fishing village is tucked
around a corner in its own bay and so you feel rather exclusive when you round the point and the rest of the Bay of Tigullio disappears from view and all you have before you is this charming little village with its houses and apartments clinging to the steep hillside and the small plaza area that ended at the water’s edge ringed with restaurants and cafes all keen to serve the tourists that are fortunate enough to have discovered Portofino’s charm.
Even the super yacht tied up didn’t feel out of place although it was just as well all of the other large vessels were at anchor in the bay as there wouldn’t have been room for too many anyway close to shore.
There was a cruise ship at anchor further out and its passengers visiting Portofino were being ferried ashore by ships tender.
Although the village is small and compact and there were plenty of visitors today in the warm sunshine it didn’t seemed crowded for some reason and with virtually no traffic there is little or no road noise.
We took a wander and Gretchen bought herself a pink cap to remind her of
our visit and also to keep the sun out of her eyes.
After a visit to Chisea di San Martino church the path took us back to the little bay fringed by the cafes and restaurants and as it was now lunchtime we needed to choose one that would provide a light meal.
We finally chose a restaurant that looked a little more our style and went to sit down at a table on the edge of the piazza so we could do our usual thing of people watching while we waited for our meal to arrive.
However we were told that the setting was a table for 4 people so they would find somewhere else for us and it seemed we were destined for the back row or heaven forbid, inside!
How could we people watch from back there?
Then the waiter had a change of mind and he split another 4 person setting up by moving the tables apart and hey presto we were back on the front of the ‘grid’ again.
We sat looking over the menu and chose a pizza that had artichokes as a topping. Gretchen has
been wanting to try them although whether she will get the real flavour when they are included on a pizza topping is doubtful.
We placed our order together with a ½ carafe of Blanc vino only to be gently but definitely told that we needed to order two items off the menu. So sharing a pizza was one thing but they also wanted to screw more money out of their patrons by getting them to order something else we didn’t particularly want or need. We succumbed and added a plate of fries and everyone was happy.
We had thought we were going to be entertained by our usual people watching but what was about to happen at the table next to us put the people watching on the back burner while we listened to a conversation by our closest fellow diners.
Our wine arrived about the same time Richard and Terri, two Americans, in their 50’s were shown to the table next to us, the one that had been split apart when we arrived.
So the table was very close and we thought that once they had ordered we might strike up a conversation with them
to pass the time and we were ready for a bit of interaction with fellow travellers as it has been just the two of us for the last few days.
They were cruise passengers from the Seven Seas Navigator that was out in the gulf. Richard was wearing a tacky BarcelonaFC jacket he had probably bought when the ship stopped in Barcelona. It was the sort you buy at a local market and not from the official club shop. It was too tight for him but what made things worse were the shorts he was wearing were football shorts that were too big for him giving him an uncoordinated look. Terri meanwhile was dressed rather nondescript but at least her sizing’s and colour scheme looked matched.
They too ordered pizza and chose a second item off the menu, a salad, as if they knew that it had to be 2 items for each table or you were in trouble.
Richard had a Smartphone in his hand when he sat down and for the first 5 minutes while his partner (not sure if they were husband and wife) ordered everything he just keep tapping away at it and
reading messages oblivious to her. He did stop briefly when he gave his drinks order of a ‘diet coke’ and ‘no he didn’t want ice’ and ‘yes the coke with stevia was OK’ and ‘no he didn’t want a slice of lemon in it’.
Terri was making that type of small talk you do while you are waiting for your meal and was recollecting that she thought they had been to Santa Marguerita before with the kids to which she got absolutely no response from Richard still hard out on his Smartphone ignoring everything she was saying.
At this stage Gretchen and I were giving each other a kick under the table to be sure we were both hearing and seeing (without a direct stare) at what was going on between our nearest fellow diners.
This was turning out to be better than people watching today!
Our pizza arrived but no extra plate to be able to share it on while when Richard and Terri’s pizza came it was cut roughly in half and on two plates!
Teri went on to say that she had the biggest part and that that should be his but
he replied ‘he was from Ohio and didn’t need a bigger piece’. What that had to do with anything we would have loved to ask, but didn’t.
Even though they were one table in and we probably blocked part of their view, Terri reverted to some people watching when Richard clearly wasn’t interested in making any conversation.
She spotted a woman wearing a bracelet that she thought she had seen before and questioned Richard whether he would buy one they appeared to have seen together which wasn’t expensive but looked it. ‘Everyone would think it came from Tiffany’s was her reasoning for it to be purchased.
Richard wasn’t having a bar of this. He had bought her a gold bracelet and she lost it, he had bought her a diamond ring and she lost it!
We had arrived and ordered before they had even arrived but they were finished and ready to be off before we finished our wine. Terri disappeared for a few minutes and during this time Richard kept waving his piece of Visa plastic in the air to try and attract the waiter back to their table to enable him to pay for
their meal and eventually he was acknowledged.
We saw them walk off over the piazza towards the water, Richard 2 ½ steps in front of Terri. They were clearly now going to do what he wanted to do for the rest of the afternoon.
We never set out to listen to their conversation and never made eye contact right through the half hour or so they sat so close to us but we both reckoned that for pure entertainment on a lovely sunny afternoon in such a relaxed little piece of this planet it had been more fun than our usual pastime of people watching where you usually have no idea of what the conversation is between those you are watching.
With that little bit of entertainment over we then noticed first one guy taking what appeared to be a ‘selfie ‘video of himself standing in the plaza and slowly rotating 360 degrees, arm outstretched and making that vacant look people have when taking a ‘selfie’.
It was amazing to see that he was able to command about 15 square metres of space all to himself while he went through the 360 degree turn. There were
lots of other people in the plaza but they all skirted around him giving him a wide berth. We would have loved someone to ‘photo bomb’ his ‘selfie’!
Then as he was coming to the end of his act of ‘selfieism’another guy we spotted about 3 metres away started doing the same act. This was almost too much for us. But it had been one of the most entertaining lunches of the BBA V3 to date.
We had a half hour to wait for the ferry to take us around to San Frutosso where there is an ancient church and tower to see and as we had paid for the full trip we thought we might as well take it before heading back to Rapallo.
To fill in the time we walked up the small hill on the other side of the village to another church,the Church of San Giorgio which wasn’t quite as decorative as the one we had seen in the morning. The views from the piazza outside the church out to sea was lovely as was the scene back towards the bay where we had had lunch.
From this advantage point we could
see what was happening on the top deck of the super yacht where 3 or 4 young women were sunbathing. They were of course out of view of everyone down at the village.
We found out later that the vessel ‘Balista’was a charter boat which was yours for €158,000 per week including expenses!
There were only a few people taking the option to go around to San Frutosso.We needed to go out into more open sea to reach the tiny bay about 20 minutes away.
As it turned out the boat we went on remained tied up while we spent a half hour looking in on the church and walking up to the tower to read its history
The small beach was stony but that didn’t seem to be stopping a group of young people who looked like University students spending their time there including swimming in the crystal clear water.
The cruise back went via Portofino again to pick up passengers heading back to Rapallo and as we were tied up taking on passengers we had time to watch a couple of men and their female escorts come off’ Balista’ and be ferried by
a very swish looking inflatable type launch to Rapallo. We were just too far away to get a clear look to see if they were anyone rich and famous but an American woman in a group behind us using a camera with a very large lens took photos but couldn’t identify anyone she knew as rich and famous.
Before we knew it we were back in Rapallo and walking back to our apartment with memories of a wonderful day at a place that has been on our bucket list for many years.
Tomorrow we are off to Tuscany to put our feet up for five nights.
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