Sunday, April 19, 2015

We woke up before the 7:30 AM alarm and were happy to see that our flight was on time and that the fog should clear from the Bay Area in time for Paul to fly us to San Carlos (much better than last year when our flight was three hours late and a storm was threatening the Bay Area).  Paul and his son, Charlie, were at the Columbia Airport at 11:30 AM and all ready to fly us to San Carlos where our Elite Taxi was waiting for us as we got out of the airplane.  We were not able to print our boarding passes at home, but did not have to wait long to check in and make it through the SkyPriority security lane.  We enjoyed a pesto chicken Panini sandwich with wine and beer at our favorite café then made our way to the Air France Lounge which we had access to since we were flying Business Class for the first time.

While we enjoyed fresh made chocolate chip cookies and a Coke we got to watch our big Airbus A380 airplane being prepared for our flight.  We grabbed three bottles of water from the Lounge before heading to the SkyPriority boarding gate to check out our Business Class seats.  There was more space around our seats compared to Premium Economy but the seats themselves were not very comfortable due to the fact that they were made to recline almost flat.  We took off pretty much right on time and were happy to see the drink cart coming down the aisle -- which to us means our vacation had officially started!  Dinner in Business Class was quite an affair, with white table cloths, real dishes, wine glasses and silverware!  Dinner started with an l'amuse-bouche of salmon and granny smith apple on a spoon, then a bresaola with grilled Portobello mushroom, scallop and shrimp appetizer served on a bed of ratatouille, followed by a seasonal salad with pecans.  We had a choice of main courses and I chose salmon with caper sauce, basmati rice and asparagus with herbs and Mike picked pan-seared tournedos of beef with Madeira wine sauce, Bordeaux-style cepe mushrooms with mashed potatoes with basil -- served with a choice between four real wines served from big bottles . . . not the little plastic airplane bottles!  For desert we had a trio of opera cake, Grand Marnier almond cake and a macaron and a glass of 10 year old Tawny port!

After dinner, almost everyone in our section took their little prescription sleeping pill, put on their eye shades and reclined their seats and went to sleep.  Shortly thereafter the loud snoring started coming from all the seats, making it impossible to concentrate on our books so we put on our headsets and watched the movie "Wild"!

Monday, April 20, 2015

The snoring finally quieted down during the night so we were able to read and relax, but were still not able to sleep despite the extra room and reclining seats.

We were treated with a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic before the lights were turned on and the breakfast service started -- again with white tablecloths, real plates, silverware and glasses.  For breakfast we had orange juice, coffee, tea, fresh fruit, yogurt and breakfast pastries along with a choice of entrée.  I chose the blueberry crepes with vanilla sauce and Mike got the scallion omelette, hash-brown potatoes and bacon.

We landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:35 AM and had to wait until 3:45 PM to catch our flight to Genoa so we worked our way through the airport, security and immigration to the bus to Terminal G to wait.  We found the Air France Lounge in Terminal G which was much nicer and quieter than the main terminal and sat in their nice leather chairs reading and drinking their Coke, water and cappuccino while waiting for our flight.  We boarded our HOP commuter flight on time for the nice 1 hour flight to Genoa and our pilot gave us a beautiful scenic view of the coast on landing.

We grabbed a taxi for the short trip into Genoa and checked into our large room at the Hotel Continental.  It was only 5:30 PM and very early to eat dinner by Italian standards, but we were starting to get pretty tired so we found a pizza restaurant down the street that was open and had a pizza before going back to our room for a much needed shower after being awake for over 24 hours!

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

We woke up at 8:30 AM after a normal restless first night and went to a nice Bar around the corner for breakfast of cornetto (Italian croissant), strawberry tart, cappuccino and tea.  We went back to the hotel to leave our bags in the lobby so we could go do some sightseeing.  We took the Metro to the San Giorgio station which was near the port and made our way to the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo.
The cathedral was built on the site of a Roman temple but the present Gothic church dates from the 13th century.

Typical of Liguria is the black-and-white striped façade and the steps are flanked by two of the least scary stone lions I have ever seen!  We walked through the beautiful interior and then continued on down the street to The Palazzo Ducale.

The Palazzo which dominates Piazza Matteotti became the Doge's palace in 1339 and is made up of two palaces.  The Palazzo was heavily bombed during World War II and abandoned, then beautifully refurbished in 1992 and now hosts art exhibitions, a jazz museum and tours of some of the royal apartments and Grimaldi tower prisons.

Piazza de Ferrari was laid out in the 19th century and was pedestrianized in 2001.  The opera house, the Teatro Carlo Felice, just behind the fountain was gutted by bombs in World War II and rebuilt in the late 1980s.  It is one of the most modern theaters in Europe.

We then headed into the Old Town by way of the tiny streets called caruggi that run in all directions.  We found a place to have a focaccia sandwich for lunch before making our way back to the hotel to pick up our suitcases to catch the 1:49 PM train to Rapallo.

We enjoyed seeing the views of the coast from the train for the fast 38 minute trip and found our way to the Astoria Hotel in Rapallo.

 

Our room was on the first floor (which is actually the second floor in America) and had a private terrace with table and chairs, a chaise lounge and a beautiful view of the Gulf of Tigullio.  We walked around the town a little and did some grocery shopping before cleaning up and getting ready for dinner at  our favorite restaurant in Rapallo, Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo.  Our favorite waitress from the last trip was no longer there, but we had a very nice waiter who spoke good English and we split an insalata mista and each had the spaghetti vongole (spaghetti with clams) and a nice bottle of Vermentino wine before walking back to our room to try and get a good nights sleep.

 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

We woke up around 8:00 AM after another restless jet-laggy night and went downstairs for a nice breakfast of pastries, melon and artichoke frittata with cappuccino, tea and orange juice.

While I was standing on our terrace finishing up my coffee I was horrified to see a large tour group marching past -- our beautiful Rapallo had been found by the tour bus crowd!  We then headed out in bright sunshine along the Lungomare which is lined with Art Nouveau cafes with glass verandas recalling the town's elegant past.  We arrived at the Funivia (cable car) which since 1934 has joined Rapallo to the Sactuary of Our Lady of Montallegro, set in the hills 600 meters above the town.

 

 

 A small tour group from Finland got to the Funivia just before us and we had to wait 8 minutes for the next car, but we were then able to stand in front of the window to get some great views of Rapallo on the trip up the mountain.

It was quite a climb up to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Montallegro which has quite a story about why it was built on top of this mountain.  According to tradition, the Madonna appeared on July 2, 1557 on the mountain to Giovanni Chichizola, a peasant, and showed him a picture of her passing from earthly life, saying that it had been transported by angels from Greece and that she would leave it on the mountain as a pledge of her love.  The picture was placed in the principal church of Rapallo for veneration, but two days later it mysteriously disappeared and was again found on a rock at Montallegro.  Thereupon the people of Rapallo decided that the Madonna wished the portrait to remain there and they began to build a shrine which was consecrated in July 1558.  In 1574 some shipwrecked Greek sailors, recognizing the picture as one which was formerly venerated in Ragusa and which had been missing since 1557, claimed it.  After legal proceedings it was surrendered to them, but the following day this miraculous painting reappeared in the Sanctuary of Montallegro -- and has remained there undisturbed since that day.  Since then, the story goes, "innumerable miracles" have occurred in Montallegro.  In 1656 - 1657 Rapallo remained free from the plague which in Genoa (18 miles away) claimed the lives of 18,000 to 20,000 inhabitants.  Likewise, Rapallo escaped the ravages of the cholera epidemic in 1835.

 

We sat down inside the small, but beautiful church to look around and immediately noticed that every spare space was filled with ex voto, silver hearts nestled in velvet lined frames, given in thanks for divine intervention and salvation from sure disaster.  The miraculous picture is framed behind the altar.

 

We walked back to the Funivia and rode it down with the Finish tour group and decided it was time for lunch.  We went to Bella Napoli for an excellent Naples-style pizza.  Bella Napoli was in the direction of the little town of San Michele Di Pagana -- our destination for the afternoon.

 

 

San Michele Di Pagana is a small fishing village situated along the road that connects Rapallo and Santa Margherita Ligure.  We enjoyed our easy 20 minute walk along the water getting to see the old land-locked medieval bridge, Ponte Annibale, reputed to be a crossing site of Hannibal and a beautiful villa with private gardens and rock faced boat garages built into the cliff.

 

 

 

The brightly colored facades of San Michele Di Pagana directly overlook its long sandy beach and everyone was busy setting up the long line of colorful changing rooms to get ready for their summer season.

Like most towns on this part of the coast, there is a castle -- the Castle di Punta Pagana -- built in 1625.  The castle, the villa and the park that surrounds it are now the property of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

We walked back to Rapallo, detouring through the large marina to look at some of the beautiful boats (I guess yachts is a more fitting name for most of them). 

After resting and cleaning up we headed out for dinner at Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo, stopping first for a drink and getting a free feast -- my Campari and soda and Mike's beer along with chips, peanuts, and assorted snacks!!  At the Hostaria Vecchia we had an excellent dinner where we split an appetizer of prosciutto with strawberries and pineapple and each had swordfish with tomatoes, olives and capers along with a nice bottle of Chiaramonte Inzolla wine from Sicily.





Thursday, April 23, 2015

Mike gave up trying to sleep at 6:00 AM and went out for a walk where he enjoyed watching the vendors setting up their awnings for the weekly market.  I gave up trying to sleep at 6:30 so we were both out early walking through the giant weekly junk market that moves up and down the coast, stopping at a different town every day.

Walking along the Lungomare Vittorio Veneto we passed the bandstand, the Chiosco della Banda Cittadina, with its beautifully frescoed ceiling.  It was built in 1929 with money donated by locals who had emigrated to Chile.

The most striking feature on the seafront is Rapallo's miniature castle.  it was built in 1551 to defend the town from pirates.  It was used as a prison until the 20th century and is now an exhibition center.

It was finally 10:00 AM and time to catch the first ferry to Santa Margherita Ligure just 15 minutes up the coast from Rapallo.  As we were sitting on the ferry waiting for it to leave, we watched two large tour groups board and head to the top deck even though it was kind of windy and cool, clomping up the stairs in perfect pairs which is how they march everywhere. 

 

As the ferry pulled out, I was able to get a good picture of beautiful Rapallo from the water with a solid line of flea market vans along the Lungomare!



 

 

After a short but scenic ferry ride up the coast, we pulled into Santa Margherita Ligure.  In 1850 residents set to work creating a Riviera resort.  They imported palm trees from North Africa and paved a fine beach promenade.  Santa Margherita was studded with fancy villas built by the aristocracy of Genoa and the English, Russian and German aristocrats also discovered the town in the 19th century.

 

After a much needed stop for cappuccino, tea and a tart, we went to the Oratory of Sant'Erasmo, a small church named for St. Erasmus (a.k.a. St. Elmo), the protector of sailors.  The first thing we saw was the typical local black-and-white pebble mosaic (riseu) in front of the church with maritime themes.  The church is actually an "oratory", where a brotherhood of faithful men who did anonymous good deeds congregated and worshipped.  It's decorated with ships and paintings of storms that -- thanks to St. Erasmus -- the local seafarers survived.

 

 

 



We then walked up a loooong stairway to reach the Church of San Giacomo.  Even though this is a secondary church, it is impressively lavish with inlaid marble floors and sparkling glass chandeliers.

 

Next door to the Church of San Giacomo is Durazzo Park.  This part was an abandoned shambles until 1973 when the city took it over.  The garden has two distinct parts:  the carefully coiffed Italian garden (designed to complement the villa's architecture) and the calculatedly wild "English garden" below.  The Italian garden in famous for its varied collection of palm trees and an extensive collection of camellias.

It is okay to feed the large turtles in the central pond (they like bits of fish or meat) and we were sad we didn't have anything to give them, but we did enjoy watching them vie for the perfect place in the sun!

The beautiful Villa Durazzo was the home of a local journalist and writer and is a museum of his furniture and keepsakes and has another local black-and-white pebble mosaic out front.

 Down the hill in the center of town is the main church, the Basilica of Santa Margherita, with a textbook Italian Baroque 18th-century façade.

The Via Palestro is a promenade (a.k.a. caruggio -- "the big street" in local dialect) and is the street for window-shopping, people-watching and studying the characteristic Art Nouveau house painting from about 1900.  Before 1900, people distinguished their buildings with pastel paint and distinctive door and window frames.  Then they decided to get fancy and paint entire exteriors with false balconies, weapons, saints and beautiful women.

We found a restaurant at the harbor for a lunch of salad nicoise for Mike and minestrone Genovase for me.  We had planned on taking the ferry to Portofino after lunch, but while we were eating we watched several ferries come by, all loaded with tour groups headed to Portofino.  We had been to Portofino, a beautiful but very small town, on a previous trip and had memories of a peaceful time there and decided to not ruin that memory on this day!

Since the ferries were all so full of tour groups, we walked to the train station and caught the train for the 10 minute ride back to Rapallo.  We went to the grocery store and stopped at a café on the Lungomare for some gelato and wine and beer before heading back to the hotel to relax.

We went back to the Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo where we split an insalata mista and each had the pansotti al sugo di noce (a fresh pasta filled with herbs and greens and topped with walnut cream sauce -- an amazing local specialty and not to be missed) with a very nice white blend wine from Portofino.

 

Friday, April 24, 2015

We both woke up early again after another restless jet-laggy night and headed out to the train station after another nice buffet breakfast at the hotel.  We caught the 9:35 AM train for the short 10 minute trip to Chiavari.

Across the park from the train station is the temple-style cathedral Nostra Signora dell'Orto, built in the 17th century but altered in the 19th and 20th centuries.  The façade was added in 1907.

Piazza Mazzini just to the north is the heart of town and the site of the colorful daily food market with parts of a medieval castle and one crenellated tower as a backdrop.

The main street, the beautifully arcaded Via dei Martiri, was built in the 14th century and was lines with wonderful shops.  The porticoes are made of locally quarried slate.  Via dei Martiri leads to busy Piazza Matteotti with a view of the sea in the distance.

On the northern side of Piazza Matteotti is the Palazzo Rocco and its garden, the Parco Botanico de Villa Rocca.  The Rocca family, Chiavari natives, who found success in Argentina, returned and purchased the palazzo in 1903 and the garden was added a few days later.

We walked back towards Piazza Mazzini, looking for a place to eat a local pasta dish, Trofie al pesto (hand made Trofie pasta, pesto sauce, green beans and sliced potatoes) and found the Tavolo: 15 Rist.  No one spoke much English but we were able to order and even carry on a little conversation with our friendly waiter, who came by our table at the end of the meal to offer us each a glass of Limoncello "on the house".

We then walked back through town toward the water and walked 20 minutes towards the neighboring town of Lavagna.  A bridge links the two towns which today can seem like one, but in the Middle Ages they were quite distinct.  Lavagna was the fief of the Fieschi, a litigious family who began to play a leading role in Genoa in the 12th century.  Their fortunes soared when Simbaldo Fieschi became Pope Innocent IV (1243-54).  Innocent's brother, Opizzo Fieschi, married the Sienese Countess Bianca dei Bianchi in 1230 in Lavagna and made such a splash by ordering a cake large enough to provide a slice for each his subjects that the party is annual re-enacted every August 14th, climaxing in the eating of 1,500 kg Torta dei Fieschi.  At 8:45 PM on the night of August 14th partygoers buy tickets at the entrance to Piazza Vittorio Veneto -- blue tickets for males and pink ones for females -- and the lucky couples who manage to find in the crown the mystery person who holds a matching ticket in the opposite color are entitled to a slice of cake and who knows what else.

Lavagna has one of the longest sandy beaches in the area and also has the biggest tourist harbor in the Tigullio.  We enjoyed walking through several of the marinas which also had large boat repair businesses.  Mike, who is famous for being able to pack an amazing number of airplanes into our hangar, was delighted to see that he has a soul-mate in the boat business in Lavagna!!

It was getting pretty warm and everything was closed for the mid-day siesta, so we walked to the Lavagna train station to catch the next train to Rapallo.  We kind of let our guard down getting on the train and were met by two nice looking high school aged girls asking if this was Chiavari . . . while they were trying to pick Mike's pocket! Luckily he felt the girls hand on his fanny pack and we don't keep our money or credit cards in an outside pocket so they didn't get anything but it reminded us that you can't relax even in beautiful Liguria.

As the train was going around a bend on the way back to Rapallo, Mike who was looking out the window gave a big groan -- he could see the harbor and there were two big cruise ships in Rapallo!  Rapallo has the only large, protected harbor in this part of Liguria, but it does not have a dock so the people would have to be shuttled on and off the cruise ships by smaller boats -- what a hassle so that they can see Portofino.   The cruise ships were not the large seven or eight story ships, but it looked like they still held 2,000 to 3,000 people each!

Back in Rapallo we stopped at Bar Cavo in Piazza Cavour to split a gelato of half hazelnut and half chocolate with prosecco and beer.  We were surprised when we also got peanuts, chips, carrots sticks and dip!  After relaxing on our terrace, we went back to Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo for dinner and split a tuna tartare appetizer and each had the veal Milanese with roasted potatoes and a nice 2011 Villa Martis Langhe Nebbiolo wine.  Since it was Friday and the day before a big holiday, the restaurant was much busier than usual so they brought in a cute young girl to help serve.  She spoke very good English and told us she was originally from Tanzania where they speak English and Swahili.  We were having trouble placing Tanzania (Africa) and kind of got it mixed up in our mind with Tasmania in Australia!

Saturday, April 25, 2015

We woke up to cloudy skies with a chance of rain and a National holiday!  I knew that May 1st was Labor Day all over Europe but when we got to Rapallo I started noticing signs in shop windows saying they were either going to be open or closed on April 25, 2015 which made me think it was also some kind of holiday.  I looked it up on my iPod and found out it was Italian Liberation Day and a pretty big holiday with lots of museums and shops closing for the day.  We asked the nice woman at the front desk at our hotel to check if the Palazzo del Principe in Genoa would be open and were happy to hear that it was open all day.

After breakfast we walked to the train station and caught the train for the short trip to Genoa's Stazione Principe.  We went to the Bar across the street where we had stopped at the start of our trip to have a cappuccino, tea and a cornetto.  We noticed the couple next to us were speaking English and found out they were from Australia on a five week tour of Europe and were heading down towards Rapallo next so they had lots of questions.

We then walked along the side of the Stazione Principe to find the Palazzo del Principe Villa Andrea Doria which is a huge palace that was built for Andrea Doria, the most famous Genoese admiral and virtual dictator of Genoa for a large part of the 16th century.  It was truly a princely residence and is the most important 16th-century monument in Liguria.  It has recently been restored after much damage from bombing during World War II.

 

 

There used to be a beautiful view of the sea from the terraces, but now they look out on a freeway overpass and the cruise ship port -- but the garden is still beautiful with the monumental marble Neptune's Fountain in the middle.  I loved the fact that most of the plants in the garden were edible herbs!

 

It was 1:00 PM and we were getting hungry for lunch.  I decided our best bet would be to walk down the aristocratic Via Balbi which leads to Via Garibaldi and the royal palaces.  This area was so opulent in the 16th century that it was dubbed the "Rue des Rois", the street of kings, and most of the places are now beautiful art museums.  Unfortunately, all of the museums in this area were closed and it was like a ghost town so we decided to just go back to our favorite Bar and had a Panini sandwich with wine and beer while we waited for the next train to Rapallo.

 

We went back to the gelateria in Piazza Cavour to have a half strawberry and half lemon gelato with prosecco and beer while we waited for the stores to open at 4:00 PM.  We were happy to see that our favorite kitchen store was open because we wanted to buy another olive oil sprayer.

 

We went back to the hotel to relax and get ready for our last dinner at Hostaria Vecchia Rapallo.  The restaurant was much more crowded because it was a Saturday and a holiday, but we were treated like regulars (which I guess we were since we had eaten there every night) and enjoyed an excellent dinner of a split order of prosciutto with raspberries and pineapple and a swordfish with tomatoes, olives and capers that was even better than the one we had on Wednesday along with a nice local white blend wine.  The owner and our server, Cristoforo, both came over and gave us a warm goodbye when they heard this was our last night in Rapallo.