Beautiful Portofino

We had another hiccup today when we caught the correct number bus, but in the wrong direction. That was soon remedied though, with time for a croissant while we waited for the right bus to Santa Margherita, then Portofino. As we wound our way around the coast, we could see a couple of cruise liners moored in the bay and hoped the town wasn’t going to be rammed.

When we arrived at about 10.30, there were lots of people around, but it wasn’t too busy. I enjoyed taking photos of the pretty harbour and multicoloured buildings around the piazza, before we headed off for a walk on Portofino Peninsula.

We headed down narrow alleys, meandering past the 16th century castle, Castello Brown, to the lighthouse, stopping often to admire the beautiful views of the rocky coast and turquoise blue sparkling sea.

Retracing our steps back to the town, we could see ferries and tenders from more cruise liners arriving. The piazza and harbour now looked much busier as we headed up to San Giorgio church.

From here there were wonderful views of the castle and town. Because Portofino was now so busy, with tour groups blocking the alleyways, we decided to walk to Paraggi for lunch. Apparently this 2 kilometre stroll is called the ‘Walk of Kisses’.

Paraggi is very pretty and has a lovely beach but we discovered that the only options for lunch were expensive hotels. This area is popular with the rich and famous!

We decided to keep walking to Santa Margherita, which is a much bigger town that would have more options for food. We ended up stopping at the first bar we came to because it had a lot of character and was right on the beach. It was rather like a stone grotto inside.

John had a pizza and I chose a pinsa, which is a type of pizza made using a Roman dough recipe. The base was thicker than standard Italian pizzas, but very light and tasty.

After lunch we stopped at a quiet little bay with a pebble beach to swim and soak up the sun. Perfect! It’s been a very relaxing day.