Portofino

Our hotel--top center 3 windows and view out our window

Saturday afternoon the weather broke and we enjoyed a cool, sunny day. As soon as it stopped raining we hurried out and walked through town. It doesn’t take too long to get from our hotel to the waterfront, but there are plenty of store windows to look at between here and there.

Since we weren’t too hungry for dinner after our lunch, we decided to picnic in the piazza. There happens to be an Italian A.J.’s here, Seghezzo Deli, which has the best store window, all different kinds of Chocolate! We kept passing it (we tended to go in circles) and always remarked at the delicious looking creations in there. So we decided to go in and get chocolate for dessert and a couple of slices of ham and cheese. Then we found the bread store that is known for its fresh focaccia bread and picked up two pieces for sandwiches. We then went to the town square, put our ham and cheese on the focaccia and had another great sandwich! Of course, we knew what was for dessert and it didn’t disappoint us!!!


Today we visited the town of Portofino’. In summertime, this is where the rich and famous dock their yachts and spend some time. Not in November though. The town was pretty much closed down; there were a few fishing boats in the harbor and even Tom Cruise and the new Mrs. Cruise didn’t stop by here. A few tourist shops were open but nothing else.

We stayed for awhile, walked to our little artist’s home that we found last year; she was closed so we headed back to our town.


Now that we know about “Liberty Style” painting of the buildings, we see it everywhere. In Portofino’ there is one building front that has shutters and a balcony. Everything else you see is painted on. In Santa Margherita we found one building that even painted a man looking out the window!


Santa Margherita town square with all the townsfolk milling around

We tried our hardest to help “Mama” out this morning by making our own bed so she wouldn’t have to do it. But we got back to our room and discovered that it was remade! We must not have done it right. We feel so badly because she is rather old and she cleans all these rooms (well out of the 12 maybe 5 are occupied). I guess she wants to do it her way and only her way.


Santa Margherita on a sunny day

We have also been meaning to talk about our TV experience here in Italy. As we are usually in our apartment by 9:00 PM we have gotten attached to the Italian style of “Deal or No Deal!” Jim says it helps him with his pronunciation of Italian numbers. FLAVIO is the host and he is a riot! He is quite animated, always sheds his jacket after about the 4th box chosen runs his hands through his hair when stressed, and he peeks into almost every single box! Sometimes he fakes out the audience, but most of the time when he reacts you know the news is bad instead of good.
They only go to 500,000 Euros (Friday night we see 2,000,000 Euro) but the banker never offers much more than 30,000 Euros. When the news is bad, Flavio always says,” Calma, Calma, Calma” trying to calm down the audience and the player. The other night they had a segment with Howie Mandel and some Italian guest from the American show. The Italian was soooo excited to see Flavio!

OK you are saying what in the world are you doing watching TV at night. Like I said before, these Liguria coastal towns are pretty much dead when the sun goes down. There are no movie theaters, no malls and most of you are just waking up so we can’t call you!


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