Half one: a rainy morning in Rapallo
The weather forecast for Friday was light rain until 7:30 am, and then again
from 10-12 am. This forecast was very accurate, and so I woke to the sight
(but not sound) of light rain on our balcony. This rain wore off while we
were having breakfast, and so did not cause us any problems when we set off
for the historical town, which is after all only 100 metres from our hotel.
Walking through this area and stopping at several shops took some time, but
by the time we finished one walk through and ended up again at the Porta
della Saline, rain had started to fall again. The intensity varied from
light to moderately heavy, causing us to both put on our rain gear (we had
come equipped this year) and to seek shelter under trees. In tribute to
last year1;I had to have my picture taken in full regalia. I should
point out that my belly is not so big: my bag was being sheltered inside the
rain coat.
Eventually we got to the hotel, dried off then had morning tea. As the rain had stopped and was not predicted to return, I walked to Carrefour and bought today's lunch.
Half two: a sunny afternoon in Portofino
After lunch, we set out again to the ferry point (which can be seen in the
background of my picture) in order to sail to
Portofino. Despite its fame, I wasn't overly impressed, but that's probably because
we only walked around the harbour area that was at times quite crowded. We
intentionally set sail to Portofino relatively late in the day (we arrived
at 2:30 pm) in order to miss most of the crowds, the day tourists; I had
bumped into a few groups in Rapallo in the morning. Also, the village itself
is higher up than the harbour, and it's a slightly awkward walk to get there
- the pedestrian area is mainly cobbled which is bad enough when walking on
the level, but hard when walking up a slope.
The first thing to do was to eat gelato: there hadn't been an
opportunity yet in Rapallo to eat ice cream so I was determined that we
should have some here. As I wrote many years ago, "A day in Italy without
gelato is a day wasted". I wouldn't say that this was excellent ice
cream (actually mine was a sorbet). There are a few gelateria in
Rapallo that display their goods so that one can choose by sight as opposed
to name; I'm hoping that I will find my favourite mint choc chip flavour,
then ask what it's called so that I might buy it again.
After buying a few trinkets and a dress for our youngest grand-daughter, we walked a bit more around the harbour, then waited for the next ferry back to Rapallo.
Maybe we didn't take advantage of what was on offer in Portofino (I can't see my wife walking up to Castello Brown), but I can't say that I was overly impressed. The ferry journeys were fun, though.
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This day in blog history:
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 196 | More porting issues | Programming, Delphi, ClientDataSet, dbExpress | |
| 626 | Late September/Early October, 1973 - My gap year, part 3 | Israel, Gap year | |
| 1069 | A legacy of spies | John Le Carre | |
| 1419 | Walking apps and smart watches | Mobile phone, CPAP, Walking | |
| 1525 | Hard boiled eggs | Cooking, Kibbutz, 1972 |
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