We arrived in Portofino, or, as G called it, Port of Ino, at 7am, but, still moving slowly after our big day yesterday (and needing to recharge my iPad so I could publish the post) we lingered over breakfast and caught a tender to shore by mid morning. It was a cloudy and very chilly day, but the buildings surrounding the tiny harbor are painted brightly enough that they still popped. With no specific plans for the day, we first walked around the harbor (which took about 30 minutes) and up to the Church of San Georgio (Divo Martino), which is hundreds of years old.
Portofino harbor
Bell tower of the Church of San Georgio (Divo Martino)
Portofino 'street'
Most of the churches we saw yesterday in the villages of the Cinque Terre had horizontally striped exteriors of slate and marble in the Baroque style and the Church of San Georgio in Portofino is no different. There were two beautiful stained glass windows on one side of the church; the other side was tucked next to a steep hillside and lacked windows. The altar and statuary were spectacular, as was the intricately painted ceiling and there was a large pipe organ in the back of the church.
Church of San Georgio (Divo Martino)
We left the church and continued upward along the walking paths that cling to the hillsides. We first saw these walking trails yesterday, connecting the villages of the Cinque Terre, and the trails today were much the same, sometimes separated by homes and B&Bs and sometimes on a bridge hanging over the edge. It was a steep walk, up and down but mostly paved with stones laid hundreds of years ago. Every so often we'd get a phenomenal view of the sea crashing on the rock wall cliffs. We walked as far as the next village of Paraggi and decided to keep going until we reached Santa Margherita Ligure. It started to rain lightly along this part of our walk and the stone path got a bit slick but not too badly and there was an ancient handrail on the steepest parts.
Every so often we'd get a fabulous view of the coast (with the Pacific Princess at anchor)...
...but most of the time this was our view
It was about 2pm when we arrived in Santa Margherita and we were ready for some lunch. It was too chilly to eat outside, even on a covered patio, so we found a tiny cafe on the main street and ordered a glass of the local wine for me and a Coke for G and we split a ham and cheese focaccia. We have learned that focaccia and bruschetta are our go-to items fior quick and inexpensive lunches in Italy, much like empanadas and quesadillas are in Mexico. We struck up a conversation with a young couple from Germany seated at the next table who were camping in a minivan all along the Italian coast. It is only an 8 hour drive from where they live near Frankfurt. These close distances still amaze me.
A rainy afternoon in Santa Margherita
Cristopher Columbus statue in Santa Margherita
Our lunch stop
It was raining a bit more ambitiously when we left the cafe and we walked further into Santa Margarhita to the bus stop. For 2€ per person, we were able to catch a #82 bus (I think that was the number) back to Portofino along the coastal road. The road is so narrow in parts that at one point our bus had to wait until the oncoming bus passed by, because there would not be enough room for them to pass. And our driver honked the horn driving around every turn, to alert oncoming traffic. It got really dicey as we entered Portofino and passed a small truck with about 1" separating their side view mirrors.
The bus let us off near the Church of San Georgio and we walked back down to the waterfront. G remembered that I had wanted to try a local beverage called grappa and we sat at a covered sidewalk cafe and ordered one. It was...horrendous, like white lightning. G did not want me to have to endure it by myself so he sipped it, too, and its only redeeming quality was that it warmed us from the inside out. I took advantage of the few minutes we were sitting there to write out two postcards (They can be stamped and mailed from the ship. We'll see if they actually get delivered!) before we walked over to the tender pier. We reboarded the ship about 4:30pm, after walking over 23000 steps and climbing the equivalent of 43 flights of stairs. As G said yesterday, forget the Mediterranean diet; these people are long lived because they are constantly climbing hillsides.
Serving up some grappa (probably disbelieving we were actually going to drink it!)
We actually made it up to the Elite lounge in the Pacific Lounge for the first time this cruise, and were sitting there when Captain JP made his 'welcome back onboard' announcement. Though the last tender from shore was scheduled to leave at 5:30pm, everyone was back on board early, probably due to the weather. But Captain JP said we'd be staying at anchor just outside the Portofino harbor for a few hours. We have been hearing about some really rough winds in the area causing high seas. In fact, yesterday in Livorno, an Oceania ship was supposed to sail in the evening but was staying in port overnight to avoid the weather, and today we talked with Holland America passengers who were supposed to port in St. Tropez but ended up in Genoa instead. Our distance overnight to Nice, France is only 100 miles or so, and we can easily get there even if we leave around 11pm. This doesn't bode well for good weather tomorrow in Nice, but we can hope.
Dinner was a feast; I had a salad and pasta appetizer with mussels and my all time favorite entree: cioppino. Seafood stew eaten while at anchor in Portofino harbor and accompanied by an Italian wine. Who could ask for anything more? Even dessert was wonderful (though not very Italian)...key lime pie, another favorite.
Mentalist Sean Alexander was performing tonight in the Cabaret Lounge but we were frankly too chilly and too tired to make it to his show. At 9pm we are tucked into a stable bed....at least for a few more hours until we leave this calm anchorage. We have only tentative plans for tomorrow and they are weather dependent, but regardless of what we do, there is a high probability of a lot of walking.
