04-21 Day Trip to Santa Margherita and Portofino

We woke up to another sunny day in the French Riviera. Our day trip today will take us by train, bus, and on foot to Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino, two beautiful jewels that are coastal towns who have no idea what the rest of the world charges for things. They are expensive towns.

We got up early and arrived in SML by 8:30am. We walked around town for a bit and then bought bus tickets to Portofino. Honk, honk, go around a corner. Honk, honk, go around another corner. The road was only 2 miles long but there was more honking in those two miles than we heard in all of Nice. Twisty, windy road with tight turns. Hold on!

Portofino has a Disney connection! Walt and his wife, Lillian, visited here in 1957. This town was also the inspiration for the harbor town in Tokyo DisneySea. Who knew? Well, Karen, of course!

There was a 16th century residence on the top of the hill that we visited. It was open for touring and picture taking of the town below. Location, location, location. That's what they tell you about real estate and this place had it in spades.

There was a lighthouse at the end of the trail and when we got there to enjoy the view there was a cafe with tables and chairs so we bought lunch and enjoyed a nice quiet time overlooking the Meditteranean Sea.

When we got back into town the population had picked up and there were tourists everywhere enjoying the many shops and outdoor cafes lining the harbor. After shopping we headed uphill to catch the bus but on the way we were side-tracked by another gelato place. Here's what $24 in gelato looks like. Thank goodness we just didn't care because it was THAT good!

After our bus ride back to SML we shopped a few places on the waterfront. Finding nothing to buy we headed back to Monterosso (about 45 minutes away) on the train. We walked around the "new" part of town for awhile, checked on where we could do our laundry (we can't, they do it for $12 per basket delivered back to our hotel; score!), and then had some spaghetti for dinner at Il Brigantino, a place that we would recommend...if you're ever in town.