Rapallo

 June 15 - 18, 2022

The trip to Rapallo was longer than expected and much less fun than I had hoped. We drove right by our old house in Vicenza and also past Verona and Soave, which was fun for the kids since we had been drinking Soave the night before. We headed south from there and through the fertile farm land of the Po valley, and things were going well until we had to get over the mountains to get to the sea.  It was a series of switchbacks and tunnels, which I hate, coupled with lots of closed lanes and reduced speeds, all of which added forty minutes and more gray hair to the trip. But finally we were in Rapallo and were ushered to our rooms overlooking the harbor. Well, almost! You had to look beyond the construction that was taking place on the promenade to see the water - but hey, we were at the sea. 

We chose Rapallo because it has frequent ferry service to all the places we wanted to go: Cinque Terre, Portofino, La Spezia, and Santa Margherita - and the ferry terminal was just steps from our hotel.  Did I mention construction?  Turns out they are also dredging the harbor and therefore all ferry service has been suspended.  When I made this reservation, and when I reconfirmed it two weeks ago, no mention was made of this "slight" change to ferry service. They also failed to mention that construction was going in the building next to our hotel and also across the street that involved heavy equipment, drills, and pile drivers, but hey - we were on the water!

Rapallo is far more expensive than Bassano, by lots. No more three-Euro Proseccos and eight-Euro plates of pasta. But hey, we were on the water.  We wandered the town, which is really quite lovely, especially the old town off the waterfront.  We did find an affordable place to eat that night but the service was, shall we say, less than social. Rapallo is a tourist town, plain and simple. Tourists from all over Italy as well as the rest of Europe flock there and therefore the locals are willing to accept their money but they do not extend themselves as they had in Bassano and Ravenna. 

Kent had done some re-con on things to do in Rapallo and suggested we take the funicular up to a church some 600 meters above in only nine minutes, quite the thrilling ride with spectacular views of the harbor and city below. It seems that some shepherd - they are always shepherds - was visited by the Virgin Mary in 1548 and was told to build a church in her name at this site. And build it they did.  It is huge, ornately decorated, and sparsely attended - for obvious reasons, namely, you can’t get there from most places!  We wandered the grounds and noted that there were two B&Bs as well as three cafés to cater to the needs of the pilgrims, all of whom must be wealthy given the price of things.

On the second day we had planned to visit Cinque Terre, and with no ferry service we decided to take the train to the first stop, Monterossa. To avoid last minute problems with tickets, I wandered over to the station early while Cindy ran, intent on getting everything squared away for our 10:20 train. The ticket office was a zoo and I stood in a line that was well outside the actual office for twenty-five minutes. When I got to the head of the line and ordered four tickets I was told there was a rolling strike that had been called by the union so while we might be able to get to Monterossa by train, we certainly would not get back!!  But hey, did I mention we were on the water?

We regrouped at breakfast and made an alternate plan for the day and decided to walk to Santa Margherita.  No one is quite sure why, but we did. It was a fifty minute walk mostly up lots of steps and then down to the sea where you can walk a little by the water and then follow the road into town. The road is dotted with five and six star hotels, huge monsters of elegance and grace catering to those whose cars cost more than most homes. The city itself is a yawn if you don’t like beaches, which we don’t, but we did find a place for some cold water and wine. The kids continued on to Portofino while we opted to walk back to the hotel for a nap.

That night on the recommendation of the hotel we dined at a local place called Elite, our first of three dinners there!  Again, rules are made to be broken and this place had it all:  wonderful staff, great fresh food and house wine in liter carafes. As we reviewed our day, the kids really loved their visit to Portofino and convinced us to go with them the next day - but this time by bus, which is what we did, as did several thousand other people. There were two huge cruise ships off-loading many guests at the port at the same time that buses were unloading tourists at the top of the town. It was a zoo, but a very beautiful one and we were happy to have visited and happier still to hop on the bus home. We had to change buses in Santa Margherita so we used that stop for a quick lunch of sandwiches and wine.

A word about food and wine in Italy. You will note that I’m referencing our frequent stops for refreshments, usually Prosecco. Prosecco is a sparkling white wine that is almost always served ice cold. It only has 11% alcohol as compared to 12.5% for most French sparklers. This means that it is consumed at breakfast, lunch and dinner and all other times between meals. Many times you will have Prosecco with the entire meal, not just for an aperitivo. Most Italians do not eat large lunches, preferring to have sandwiches of all shapes, fillings and breads, depending upon where you are in Italy. Salads are also becoming quite fashionable and tasty.  Dinner usually is served in restaurants between eight and ten at night, sometimes later in the warmer climates. These past two weeks have been unusually warm for Italy, challenging AC units (where available) and using lots of fans to blow the hot air around.

Our last evening at Elite was again lovely - we walked in and were treated like old friends and given our ‘usual table’ and immediately served a liter of wine and a liter of water.  The food continued to be fresh and delicious - and for Rapallo, affordable.  The next day we were off to Torino…..