Rapallo & Portofino, Italy

After we left Lucerne, we headed down to the Italian Riviera. 

We stayed in Rapallo, which is the largest city in the Italian Riviera. 

We had originally wanted to go to and stay in Cinque Terre. 

We have heard so much about the region and everyone raves about it. 

Since we had to plan this trip literally at the last minute though, all of 

the hotels in all five of the towns in Cinque Terre were booked. So 

we used Google Maps and made our way up the coast until we found

a beach town with a vacancy. 

That turned out to be Rapallo and one of the best places we've stayed. 

Rapallo is a hidden, little known gem. We had never heard of it before

(and Im betting you havent either). 

It sits right on the Med, has a castle in the sea, a promenade, unique 

shopping and fantastic restaurants. The people were all very nice

and there is a sandy beach to lounge on. 

Another plus is that is was very affordable, especially compared to 

Switzerland.

We liked Rapallo so much that we will definitely go back one day

and we highly recommend it to anyone who is traveling in the region. 

Rapallo 

The harbor in Rapallo

The castle in the sea.
It was built in the 1500s to protect against
pirates!


We took a 30 minute boat ride from Rapallo to Portofino.
The boat stopped in Santa Margarita on the way. That town looked
gorgeous and we would definitely like to check it out one day.
The boat ride was fun, crowded and inexpensive.

On the boat, on our way to Portofino

Portofino is a very small coastal town in Italy.

It literally had one street and the promenade, a couple of churches, castle 

ruins and shops and restaurants. 

This was a very high class, almost snobbish town. The shops were all very 

high class and expensive. (Think Louis Vitton)

The restaurants were all expensive as well, but we did have the best lunch

here. They had the freshest, yummiest mussels that Ive ever eaten. 

We also had gelato here which was delicious of course.

When we got back to Switzerland the next day, we saw online that Leo 

Dicapprio and Blake Lively were in Portofino the same day we were! 

I so wish we would have seen them! 

We imagine that they were on one of the huge, expensive and gorgeous yachts

that were anchored there. 

Pulling into Portofino

The Portofino harbor

The water was a gorgeous color!

These are the crazy large and expensive yachts.
Hmm....which one was Leo on....
When we got back home, we googled the largest of these yachts to see
how much it would cost to rent one for a week.
Yes, we were dreaming.
Any guesses as to how much it cost?

250,000 EUROS/WEEK!!!!!
Seriously?
That's more than an entire house! 

We liked Portofino, but we probably wont ever go back. 

It was gorgeous, had great food and gelato, but then, so 

does most of Italy right?