Picturesque Portofino

We had to meet ‘Gabriella’ at the ferry terminal at 10am today, and it wasn’t until we arrived there, that we realised what a difficult undertaking that was going to be. There were hoardes of people waiting to board the ferry, purchase tickets and connect with tour groups, on a perfectly sunny Sunday morning. 

After a couple of false starts, a tall, very bald man strode towards us holding a sign that read ‘Kim Enderson’. Even missing the ‘H’ we recognised it as Kim’s name and introduced ourselves to our guide ‘Gabriele’. While she has been here Kim, being the contact person for bookings etc, has been referred to as either Kim Anderson, or Kim Enderson, but rarely Kim Henderson. 

Gabriele procured our tickets for the 10:15 ferry and we queued with what seemed like hundreds of other prospective passengers. Our guide fought his way to the top of the ferry, where the outdoor seating better facilitated him talking us through the sights on the short journey to Portofino. 

The town, so named by the Romans as the Port of Dolphins (delfino) presented itself as another Italian fishing village built directly on the waterfront with the now familiar colourfully painted houses, also decorated in the trompe d’oeil style that is so evident in Santa Margherita. 

Our tour continued after disembarking the ferry, on the waterfront, with information about the traditional wooden fishing boat called a gozzo. Then we moved down a side street to escape the ‘madding’ crowd while Gabriele  continued his story telling before taking us to the best bakery in town to sample the focaccia. I can confirm it was amazing. 

We wandered back to the foreshore and continued up the hill to the Chiesa di San Giorgio (church) which had to be rebuilt after extensive bombing in WWII. The rebuild in the original style went well, except for the fact that some of the internal paintwork did not have the necessary additives to combat the effects of salt and as a result, half the interior of the church is in a terrible state with peeling paint and plasterwork that is breaking down. 

Outside, we saw the plaques on the exterior of the building to honour people who have done a service for Portofino over the years. One such sign commemorated Marconi and the fact that he tested his radio transmitter from this humble fishing village. Another interesting fact was that our guide’s aunt was apparently  the model for the statue of the madonna that graces the front of the Church which was commissioned after the rebuild. 

We then returned to the dock area and the milling crowds that seemed to grow by the second, as there were two very large cruise ships docked in the channel and the tenders were plying back and forth, delivering masses of people into the small village. After successfully navigating the crowds, we were shown into a restaurant and provided with the tools and ingredients to make basil pesto, a dish for which the Ligurian region is well known

Donning our aprons (which we were allowed to keep, as a souvenir of the experience) Gabriele talked us through the process of making pesto by hand, using only a mortar and pestle, and we followed along, all producing something delicious which did resemble pesto in the end. All the time this was taking place, there were passers-by filming and photographing us. We felt a little like the rich and famous for a brief while. 

After our pesto making lesson and then a local lunch of trofie with tomato and pesto sauce, we tried to wander the town briefly, but we soon tired of the crowds, and while the majority of the group headed towards another very crowded ferry, Sheryl and I opted to walk the 5kms along a well made and picturesque path back to Santa Margherita. 

We all met up again at 5:30 and  for Aperitivo, pleased that the substantial ‘snacks’ served with the drinks were sufficient for our dinner (when topped off with gelato on the way home) and we returned to the hotel for either an early night, or a party night, depending where our preferences lay.