Think of all the joy you’ll find …….. Update - January 06

[dizneeat]

7

Day 3, August 18

From one beautiful place to another … Part 1

All too soon it was time to get up again. And after taking a shower and getting ready we headed down for breakfast. Today the tables were marked and we sat at our regular table. Again, Tom got some coffee and I made my own tea before we headed to fill our plates with

Italian Salami, ham and cured ham, cheese, rolls and butter. Tom again had a plate of

sautéed veggies, scrambled eggs and bacon while I had a

custard filled croissant. After breakfast we said goodbye to our servers and headed back up to our room,

well, Tom did, while I walked outside

to take a photo of him on our beautiful balcony.

Then we packed up the rest of our stuff, checked the room for forgotten items and finally rolled our luggage to the elevator and went down to the front desk. We checked out and I settled the bill and while he explained it to me, I added up our bill and they had missed the wine and water from the dinner the day before.
The front desk clerk went to the back room, then came back and told us that the wine and water would be on the house as they did not have the order slip. Well, thank you very much again.
We settled the bill and asked if someone could take us to the parking garage. And in a minute the very nice front desk clerk that had picked us up the first day was at hand to help with the luggage and drove us up to the garage.
Once we had loaded everything into the car Tom went to program the GPS to take us to the next two locations we wanted to go to, a shop that sold regional produce and the Grotta Cascata del Varone. Yeah, the GPS didn’t recognize any of the addresses, but we found something close to it and off we went.
And after a little searching around the area we found the shop, parked the car and went inside and found a few things we wanted to buy. We loaded everything into the boot and then went to find the Grotta Cascata, a waterfall inside a cave.
The GPS was no help, so we just programmed it to the center of the village that was close to the waterfall. We follow the GPS and end up in front of an underground garage. No, not where we wanted to go.
So we turned around and now try the old fashioned way, following the signs.
It took a while, but finally we were on the correct road, which led up to the mountains. We had already passed the parking lot for the Grotta Cascata, but Tom turned around and we parked the car.
There was a short walk up to the entrance,

we bought a ticket and in we went. There were many reminders that this part of Italy had been part of the Austrian Empire

and that Emperor Franz Josef had visited the waterfall during his reign.
We walked up to the first viewpoint and were greeted by an awesome rainbow

when entering the cave. You could feel the spray from the waterfall and it got more and more the further we went, but the view of the water rushing into the cave was just amazing.

But the space in there is really small, so we had to leave that first viewpoint after a few minutes.

There was a lovely walkway going up the mountain, along a lot of lovely flowers that we followed to the higher viewpoint.

To be continued ..........​

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 3, August 18

From one beautiful place to another … Part 2

There was a lovely walkway going up the mountain, along a lot of lovely flowers that we followed to the higher viewpoint.

It was just 11am and it was already pretty hot, so we crept up the mountain, stopping now and then to take a look at the wonderfully arranged flowers

and finally we had arrived at the upper viewpoint of the waterfall.
You had to walk into the cave and you could feel the spray from the waterfall, which came from high up and fell deep down past us. It really was an awesome sight.

We moved around the cave to watch it from every angle but since the cave was small and people were streaming in we had to make a move on after a few minutes. Then it was time to slowly walk down to the car again.

We could not believe how the carpark had filled and now a coach was blocking us from getting out of our spot as well.
Finally we were able to squeeze out of the parking area and drove back to the main road and through Riva and finally got on our way to our next destination, Santa Margherita Ligure. Once we had left Riva the street winds along the lake

and the road follows the mountain.

We passed through quite a few tunnels

and sometimes the road could get very narrow.

We only went along the street halfway down the lake before we left the road and drove further inland and soon found ourselves on the motorway again.

To be continued ..........​

 

[Flossbolna]

The waterfall cave looks amazing!

I am so happy to see you back at posting! I was starting to get worried about you!

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 3, August 18

From one beautiful place to another … Part 3

We only went along the street halfway down the lake

before we left the road and drove further inland and soon found ourselves on the motorway again.
We had been driving for the best part of two and a half hours when we found ourselves in need of a break.
A rest station was quickly found and we were pleasantly surprised to find it well maintained and clean on the outside. Walked inside and it was just as clean.
There were two food stations and both had a line, so we looked around and then decided against the pizza station and just went in line to pick up a sandwich. Took a while to get served, but we ordered our sandwiches and drinks, were handed the Diet Cokes and some free Coke travel mugs

and then were motioned to step aside. We did and waited and waited some more until an Italian guest started to get antsy and talked to the sales person. And suddenly another sales person appeared and handed out the sandwiches. I wanted mine toasted, so we waited another two minutes, were handed our food and then went to find a table. There was one at the back of the restaurant and we sat down and tried our lunch. Tom had ordered a

Salami sandwich, while I had a

hot Prosciutto Panini. Both were really nice and hit the spot and we had our Diet Cokes to wash them down. Once we had finished eating we went to the restrooms and were happy to find them very clean. So after using the restroom we headed back out to our car, got in and got going again. We still had quite a way to go and the motorway wasn’t too crowded, so we made good progress.

Around 3.30 in the afternoon we got to the town of Rapallo, where we hit the rush hour traffic, but soon we found ourselves on the outskirts of Santa Margherita

and were in awe when we drove into town.

It is a beautiful seaside town and it looked really nice in the afternoon sun.

We quickly found our hotel, which was smack in the city center, right across the beach.
Funnily enough we had to go around as we missed parking in front of the hotel. So around the block we go and we try again, this time we pull into the small space in front of the hotel and head in to check in. The receptionist was super friendly, he had all the paperwork filled out, told us about what to do here, where the sights were and that the even sold tickets for the boat to Portofino. Yeah, no getting in line at the port would be fun, so we bought two return tickets to Portofino for the next day before a porter helps us to haul our luggage up to our third (US forth) floor room. Soon we arrived on the third floor and were surprised by the design.

To be continued ..........​

 

[dizneeat]

The waterfall cave looks amazing!

I am so happy to see you back at posting! I was starting to get worried about you!

I had seen photos of the waterfall cave on the internet and it had looked really nice, but it was far more impressive to see it right there. The photo do NOT do it justice.

And yes, I have not been updating or being around here much lately, as school started out to be far more demanding than I thought it would be. I have been reading up on everyone's TR, but never really got around to respond much. Now, this weekend I came down with a headcold and am currently on sickleave, which gives me a little time to update between sneezes.

 

[jedijill]

Oh no! I hope you feel better!

The waterfall looked so pretty...I'm sure its much grander in person. Those towns are really lovely...love the architecture!

Jill in CO

 

[dizneeat]

Oh no! I hope you feel better!

The waterfall looked so pretty...I'm sure its much grander in person. Those towns are really lovely...love the architecture!

Jill in CO

Staying home where it is nice and cosy and I can take a nap now and then helps a lot. And, as I said, it gives me a little time and space to update on my long lasting TRs.

The waterfall was really stunning and the drive along the lake was awesome. The photos just never come out the way I want them too, if I take them from inside the car. And Santa Margherita was a really beautiful little town. Very tourist oriented, but beautiful.

 

[Pinkocto]

I'm sorry you're not feeling well. But it definitely benefits us to be able to see these beautiful places.

Nice that they didn't charge you for the wine at the hotel.

The waterfall cave looks amazing!

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 3, August 18

From one beautiful place to another … Part 4

Soon we arrived on the third floor and were surprised by the design.
If you wanted to get to your room you had to go down a few steps to reach two opposite doors.

We opened the door and looked around. The room at the Lido Palace was HUGE. When we got into the room there was the bedroom

which had a writing table desk

and a beautiful view of the beach,

on the other side you walked down another few steps

and on the left side was a huge wardrobe and on the ride hand side was the bathroom.

If you walked further ahead

there was another small room with a single bed

and another window which opened up into a typical Italian street with laundry hanging out.

We were more than happy with our room and after checking the room out we went to park the car. The receptionist had given us directions and we were on our way. There was a side street just wide enough for a car to get through and it went uphill and into a small garage. We had thought it would be a regular parking garage, but it was just a small carpark.
We had to hand over our car keys to the clerk and he was to park (and repark) the cars in order to fit in as many as possible. So after dropping off the car we walked back to the hotel surprised at how they handled parking, but happy to have another two nights without having to drive somewhere else.
Up in the room we took showers, then headed out to explore the city. We had been given a map with the main shopping areas and sights and that was where we were heading. We found the town to be pretty small,

but we did find a grocery shop, where we made some purchases, some snacks and some drinks and then we walked back to the hotel. On the way back we walked past some restaurants and one peaked our interest and we wanted to look it up on Tripadvisor. Turns out it was the second best rated restaurant there and a few minutes later we found ourselves on the way there.

To be continued ..........​

 

[dizneeat]

I'm sorry you're not feeling well. But it definitely benefits us to be able to see these beautiful places.

Nice that they didn't charge you for the wine at the hotel.

The waterfall cave looks amazing!

Thank you for your concern. It is not that bad, I just have the usual "runny nose" and feel tired. Last year I did not give in and went to work and ended up having to stay home for more than two weeks as it got really bad. So when I didn't feel on Saturday I made my mind up and since it got worse, I just headed to the doctors today and am now just staying home, enjoying my time on the board.

I could not believe they would not charge us for the wine, especially since it had not been just cheap house wine. Well, I guess we will stay at the hotel again, so we will kind of make it up to them.

We were both so happy in the end to have decided to go to the cave as we had debated just putting it off for another visit. It was an awesome sight and contributed to making a beautiful day an awesome day.

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 3, August 18

From one beautiful place to another … Part 5

Turns out it was the second best rated restaurant there and a few minutes later we found ourselves on the way there.
In the meantime the restaurant had filled up quite a bit and we had read that reservations are recommended, so our hopes were low, but we tried and asked if they had a table for two and yes, yippie, they did!
We were taken to our table and handed menus in seconds.
There we sat and had a hard time deciding what we wanted to try. But first we needed to order some drinks, Tom got a

local beer and we decided to share a bottle of still water and I had my heart set on the

Portofino Lemonade. So with the server on her way to get our beverages we quickly discussed our dinner. When she came back and placed the beverages and a basket of

cubes of Foccaccia on the table we ordered our dinner and tried our drinks and we were both very happy with them. Soon enough our starters arrived. Tom had ordered some

fried parcels, which were filled with a mixture of soft runny cheese and were to die for. I had gone for

ravioli filled with herbed cream cheese and served in a walnut sauce. It was one of the house specialities and it was melt in your mouth good. We shared and changed plates halfway through and really enjoyed both starters.
For his main course Tom had ordered

Linguine pasta with clams in a light tomato broth, which was excellent. I had been less adventurous and ordered the

breaded veal escalope, served with salad. And while it was what we call “Wiener Schnitzel” (Viennese Schnitzel) it was done perfectly well and I just loved every single bite of it. We were both far too full for dessert, so we settled the bill and wobbled back to our hotel,

where we relaxed on the beds,

watched TV and called it a night shortly after 10pm.

To be continued ..........​

 

[Pinkocto]

This new hotel looks huge, like a little apartment. Love the view of the beach, how can you beat that.

Dinner looked scrumptious

I'm glad you didn't push it this year when feeling ill and are taking it easy.

 

[franandaj]

Sorry you're not feeling well but it's nice to see these updates.

I'm really enjoying this trip though Italy, especially since these are locations off the beaten American tourist path.

I'm going to need to pick your brain in the neat future. We are putting our trip to France and DLP into place for about 18 months from now, and when we start really looking I'll ask for suggestions on hotels, can services and such. It will be difficult for us as we will need handicapped accessible locations and services so.I'm really going to need to do my homework.

 

[dizneeat]

This new hotel looks huge, like a little apartment. Love the view of the beach, how can you beat that.

We could not believe HOW large that room really was, especially with the addition of the second room. We loved it there. We had our luggage in the room with the single bed and our bedroom with the beautiful view wasn't cluttered at all.

Dinner looked scrumptious

OMG, it was so good! So good we went to eat there the next evening as well.

I'm glad you didn't push it this year when feeling ill and are taking it easy.

Since I suffered even more last year, by not giving in when I first fell ill, I learned my lesson. Now, I have had 5 days to recover and will go back to work tomorrow. I am not quite 100% but I feel a lot better and it is only a half day tomorrow.

Sorry you're not feeling well but it's nice to see these updates.

There is something good in every evil.

I'm really enjoying this trip though Italy, especially since these are locations off the beaten American tourist path.

I am glad you enjoy it - we did too. We were really happy with the choices of places we had made - it worked out wonderfully!

I'm going to need to pick your brain in the neat future. We are putting our trip to France and DLP into place for about 18 months from now, and when we start really looking I'll ask for suggestions on hotels, can services and such. It will be difficult for us as we will need handicapped accessible locations and services so.I'm really going to need to do my homework.

Just let me know whatever you need - there are lots of places to stay. Onsite is pretty expensive at DLP, but there are some fun places offsite as well and most of them even offer a free shuttle. Again, just PM me with whatever you need and I'll try to help as much as I can.

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 4, August 19

More than one beautiful view … Part 1

The sun was shining into our room and we knew it was time to get up and get going.
So a little while later we were on our way to the breakfast room where we quickly found a table for two, got ourselves some

coffee,

tea and juice and went to explore the buffet. There was quite the array of savoury and sweet items and we both filled a plate with savoury breakfast foods. I had ham,

Cherry tomatoes and Mozzarella balls, some Quiche, a piece of Fritatta and some Insalata Russa, which is basically cubed veggies in a mayonnaise sauce and some really nice, old fashioned Panini. Tom had about the same plus

Mortadella, Salami and a hard boilded egg. We sat down, tried our food and it was pretty tasty.
There were so many more things on the buffet so we went back for more. Tom’s second plate was a bit boring, some

toast and ham and cheese. I tried the sweet selection, which had a

jam filled croissant, a chocolate Panini and a small piece of “green cake” which was a little too much on the dry side for me.
Breakfast done we headed back to our room, applied loads of sunscreen, took our day-bags and off we went to the pier to catch our boat to Portofino. It was a picture perfect day and we walked through the little park

and up to the pier and were happy not to have to get in line for tickets as we had purchased those at the hotel.

We got in line and a few minutes later our boat arrived,

a lot of people got off and we kept our fingers crossed for an outside seat and low and behold we got ones at the front of the boat.

It did not take long and our boat started to move and we were on our way.

We had chosen our seats wisely and sat on the side that was towards the land and had a great view.

The boat ride to Portofino is only a short one, it takes about 15 minutes and soon we turned in to Portofino. Seeing it from the sea was absolutely stunning and if you have ever been to Universal’s Portofino hotel, I have to admit that they did an awesome job recreating the real Portofino.

There were loads of small boats and some pretty big ones in the harbour, but it still looked awesome. Soon it was time to get off the boat and we first stopped and looked around us.

It was such a beautiful sight to see.

To be continued ..........​

 

[dizneeat]

7

Day 4, August 19

More than one beautiful view … Part 2

It was such a beautiful sight to see.
Then we decided to do those sights that we had hoped to do while it was still early and not as hot as we had heard it would become. So when we saw the steps up to the church we started climbing them.

They were steep and a bit uneven but soon we made it up to the church

and paused for a little bit to catch our breath again. The sun was standing right behind the church and gave it an unreal lighting.

Again, it was beautiful. There were mosaics in the front of the church made from stones and they just looked wonderful. And when we got to the churchyard you had awesome view of the town of Portofino.

We could not get enough of it and have all the photos to prove it.

After we had taken in the view we walked up to the church and inside. It was so light in there. The white walls made it airy and spacious.

We lit some candles

as we always do for the family members that have already left us and these candles were special. You paid for the candle and it was an “electric” 24 hour candle. When you put it in the holder it would start to glow for the next 24 hours. Never seen it that way before but what a neat idea, no pollution and no waste.
Once the candles had been lit we walked outside again and over to the other outlook in front of the church.

There you had a view of the steep rocks going down to the sea.

Another awesome sight and we took it in for quite some time. We then headed past the church and came to a small cemetary which we visited as well.

It was so interesting to see the high ladders that were there to take care of the graves that were high up on the walls. And after we had looked around a bit we walked back to the main path and followed it to our other point of interest, the Castello Brown, which sits on top of the hill and gives you a stunning view of the town. We walked along the path which was narrow

and went up and down with a few sets of steps in between

until we got to the path down to the public beach,

but seeing how many steps we would have to climb down and then up again

we gave it a miss. We actually had just wanted to go to Castello Brown, but we saw a signpost for a lighthouse and bar and decided to go there since the signpost said it was only 300 metres.

To be continued ..........​

 

[englishrose47]

Wow the scenery at Portofino is amazing , the church is so "light" , not like most English churches that are dreary looking in side . That breakfast at your hotel looked mighty tasty. Just loving all this travel you are sharing !!

 

[perfectmatch300]

OK, know I haven't been around here for quite a while. I'll spare you the long story. I am here now, and I'm determined to catch up. I am way behind so I expect it will take me some time, but I will get there.

 

[jedijill]

Portofino is just gorgeous! I would agree about not climbing up/down those stairs to the beach!

Jill in CO

 

[jenseib]

I have seen pictures of portifino before and it amazes my now well universal did their hotel. Again more amazing pictures. I am enjoying all your touring.