4th July 2011
This morning we left Griante at 9am to drive to our next destination, Rapallo, on the Italian Ligurian coast. The drive back to through Como, follows the lakeside most of the way and gave us our last views of Lake Como before heading south, initially across reasonably flat plains.
As we got closer to the coast, we re-entered mountainous territory and spectacular scenery. After a brief coffee break, we eventually hit the outskirts of Genoa, before turning east towards Livorno. The road from Genoa to Rapallo is amazing, almost completely made up of tunnels through mountains that come right to the sea, interspersed with elevated roads across valleys in between the mountains. It took us roughly 4 hours to get to Rapallo.
We had only limited instructions on how to find our hotel, the main clue being it was somewhere on the waterfront. Rapallo is a busy town, with narrow streets and lots of traffic. We eventually stumbled on our hotel, and checked in to our room on the top floor with spectacular ocean views from our balcony. We parked the car in an associated carpark across the road and headed off on foot to explore the town.
Our hotel is the tallest one and our room is on the 2nd level from the top
The view from our room
There is a large marina and yacht club on the western side of the harbor and an old fortress, just off the shore in the main harbor area. It is obviously a popular holiday area, but doesn’t look like it is on the bus tour circuit. There are restaurants everywhere and a few “pebble beaches”, right in town.
The marina
The fort with a little pebble beach alongside
The waterfront boulevarde
We found a nice little wine bar/restaurant for lunch and had the best bruschetta I have ever had.
How this for bruschetta
Another beach near our lunch restaurant being 'groomed" for guests
Walking back though town after lunch, the place was dead as the normal siesta period results in shops closing until about 4pm for and extended lunch and rest.
We are fitting in to the custom well and went back to the hotel for a rest and reading our books.
We tried a waterfront restaurant for dinner and had excellent seafood pasta, and a Pinot Grigio from Venezia.
A novel ice bucket !!
Rapallo by night
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