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| Rapallo |
In February, I spent a week with my family in the glorious country of Italy, which is a great time to go as it was sunny most of the time and it wasn't too hot or cold in the daytime. However, do bring some winter clothing, as it can get chilly in the evening. I stayed by the coast in Rapallo, which is next door to two well known places that are Portofino and Genoa. Also nearby is Santa Margherita Ligure and the Cinque Terre. All of these towns and villages are all worth a visit, as they are home to a lot of history, culture, art and of course insanely delicious FOOD! I will be doing a separate post based on all the Italian food later on. I will lastly be talking about my time at Pisa, as I was lucky enough to go to the leaning tower.
Rapallo:
Rapallo is a very relaxing aesthetic small town by the sea, which is the perfect place to stay whilst you're visiting other nearby destinations. The whole place is fairly cheap,we stayed at the Hotel Riviera which over looks stunning views of the sea, small islands, palm trees and a glorious sunset and sunrise. This hotel has a lot of highlights, such as free breakfast and WiFi, laundry and lift facilities, stunning views from your balcony, T.V facilities and pets are allowed. There are also many other hotels and apartments you can stay in Rapallo if this place is fully booked or you fancy something else.
There are shops, cafes, bakeries and beautiful walkways through the town. Additionally, there's a train station about 5 minutes walk away from the Hotel Riviera, which is a great way to travel to all of the other nearby places. I recommend having that as main transportation rather than using a car, as it is very hard to park in that coastal area of Italy. There was a public car park right next to the hotel, but you did have to pay and it is uncertain whether you will definitely get a space.
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| View from hotel balcony |
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Hotel Riviera
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| Rapallo |
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| Rapallo |
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| Rapallo |
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| Rapallo |
Santa Margherita Ligure:
This beautiful destination is right next door to Rapallo and you can either go by train, car or you can even walk it. Walking took around an hour, a train journey takes around 50 minutes and driving by car takes about 20 minutes. This is a bigger version of Rapallo, that has brightly coloured buildings, a lovely port where you can catch a boat to Portofino or go on a boat to different diving destinations. There are also many shops, restaurants, bakeries and gelato places. By the way if you ever go anywhere in Italy you need to try the tiramisu gelato, so YUMMY!
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| Santa Margherita Ligure |
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| Santa Margherita Ligure |
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| Santa Margherita Ligure |
Portofino:
So I was lucky enough to go to the breath taking destination
of Portofino, which was full of vibrant buildings, stunning views and yummy
food. There weren't too many eating places and a lot of places were closed and
I think this is because we went out of season when not many tourists go, but it
was still really nice to look round. Furthermore, a cheap, fun way to travel
from Santa Margherita to Portofino is by
getting the boat which is an experience in itself with water gushing around and
the sun gazing down on you. It also is probably the quickest route to get
there, takign roughly 15 minutes. Whilst I was there I was totally surprised by
something. Basically years ago my sister and I had seen one of those luxury
pictures online that looks like paradise, but we didn't know where it was from
and when I came around the corner there it was, two beautiful buildings over
looking the open sea! Below you can see the photo we saved from years next to
the one that I took.
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| Other version |
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| My version |
There are many different passageways to walk through in Portofino and we went down one secret passageway and as we kept going I could see vibrant blue water in the distance and we ended up by the port next to a lovely restaurant (Ö Magazin) that I ended up having the most yummy spaghetti with Portofino sauce (pesto and tomato sauce mixed) and then I shared half a tiramisu and half a panna cotta, which I highly recommend having. If you are in to your fashion then there are some high end shops at Portofino, for example Luis Vuitton and Balenciaga.
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| Portofino |
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| Portofino |
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| Portofino |
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| Portofino |
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| Portofino |
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| Portofino |
Genoa:
Genoa is the main big city on the coastline, it's kind of like their miniature version of London or New York, full of museums, churches, shops, restaurants etc. However, one part of Genoa that we visited was slightly on the outskirts of the main centre and that was the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno. Now to me it kinda of sounds strange and bleak to visit a cemetery when you're travelling to a different country, but this one was more like a huge, extensive work of art, as it is most famous for its sculptures. It covers 250 acres of land, making it one of the largest cemeteries in Italy. Each sculpture has so much expression and depth to them as you can see from the images below. You can climb stairs and stairs as well to discover marbled tombs surrounded by forest like features.
Cinque Terre:
The Cinque Terre is a series of 5 villages that you can visit by train, bus or boat. I recommend using the train, as you can get a good price deal if you ask for a Cinnque Terre ticket only costing 16 Euros, which is great value if you're visiting 5 different coastal villages! The different villages are called Monterroso al Mar, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. I only went to the first three and they are all so stunning, with great views, vinyards, gelato places, restaurants, little walkways and if you're a hiker there are walks going all around the Cinque Terre going all the way up in to the hills. Here's a website on more information about that:
https://www.earthtrekkers.com/hiking-cinque-terre-italy/
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| Cinque Terre |
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| Cinque Terre |
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| Cinque Terre |
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| Cinque Terre |
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