After a leisurely morning, the hotel arranged a taxi for us to visit Portofino. It’s about an hour’s drive. Our taxi driver agreed to drive us there and back and wait two hours in Portofino to give us time for exploring and for lunch.

This apparently is a common service provided for visitors to Genoa. The cost of €180 (almost $A300) is not cheap, but it provides an opportunity for us to do something we didn’t think we could, and Portofino is a place I've always wanted to see. 

Our driver was very friendly. He acknowledged that his English was not very good, but nevertheless tried to point out each important sight on the way. Whilst Portofino is just 36 km from our hotel in Genoa, it was a slow trip because from Rapallo which is reached by freeway, the route is via a very narrow and busy winding road with a cliff on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. It is an absolutely beautiful section of road however, with a number of tiny picturesque oceanside villages clinging to the steep hills and cliffs around them.

(I've since learned we could have caught a train from Genoa to Santa Margarita, one of the pretty villages and a very popular tourist destination on the winding road from Rapallo to Portofino, and then a 15-minute ferry ride to Portofino. Arriving by sea would be a beautiful way to catch one's first glimpse of Portofino.)

Portofino was not as big as I imagined. Although relatively small, it presents an idyllic scene. A pretty harbour full of fishing boats and leisure craft, restaurants clinging to the harbour edge, and multi brightly coloured houses and buildings climbing from the harbour’s edge up the steep hills behind the village. 

We enjoyed another beautiful Italian meal sitting in a restaurant right on the edge of the harbour, savoring the scenery and absorbing the atmosphere. Tomorrow we’re off to Milan, a big city, and then we fly home from there. So, sitting there at lunch we recognised that this idyllic spot will almost certainly be our last cute seaside location on this holiday.

Our taxi was waiting for us, so after two hours we had to drag ourselves away and head back to Genoa. However, the sightseeing was not yet finished. Our friendly taxi driver said he’d be happy to deviate to show us a famous ancient fishing village just outside Genoa.  We’d heard about Boccadasse, so willingly accepted his kind offer. It looks a smaller version of Portofino, is very cute and very pretty, such that we intend heading back there this evening for dinner at a restaurant spotted by Sharon on the harbour’s edge.