Category Archives: Photography

Day 6 – The Most Expensive G&T In The World?

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Friday 19 June 2026 – At yesterday’s briefing, we had been, as usual, presented with a choice between two walks. The main difference would be pace, with a well ‘ard group simply walking a little faster and doing a couple of extra kilometres before being set free to get some refreshment. I actually put my name down for that, because it didn’t seem, on the basis of the information to hand, to be too arduous, just slightly longer. However, on the day, given that the forecast was for temperatures in the 30s (yes! almost as hot as the UK where I write this one week later!) I chickened out and joined the shorter walk. Which turned out not to be shorter at all. Or even much slower. But it was still chickening out.

Anyhoo, for both groups the end point would be the same: the jewel of the Italian Riviera – Portofino.

Our start point was a place called Camogli, which would be a boarding point for a boat ride and which Tomaso said was-a nice-a place, so I expected another charming fishing village. Wrongly, as it turned out. Camogli is 38km as the crow flies from Bonassola, but as the bus drives it’s over double that distance and takes an hour and a half. The bus we were in was the same (horrible, noisy, cramped, uncomfortable) bus that had brought us in from the airport the previous weekend. And it dropped us in the middle, it seemed, of a city. Which is fair enough, what with Camogli being a city an’ all, just not what I’d expected. It didn’t seem like-a nice-a place at all, particularly since the bus had to drop us off some distance from where we had to board the boat. There seemed to be other tourist groups as well, as we trooped off to find our quay.

We passed a point where we could look further along the coast, and could actually make out the city of Genoa in the distance.

Then abruptly we turned right down some steps, and we could see why Tomaso liked the town.

There were lots of steps down through some typically Italian narrow streets, and some very fine trompe l’oeil on the buildings.

The harbour itself is very attractive,

and the structure of the town is unusual, as can be seen from a map.

You can see that  there is a peninsula jutting out from the mainland; originally this was an island (hence being called L’isola) reached by a bridge, and this was the original old town. We went for a look round, but only after having bought our lunch, at a focaccieria specifically recommended by Tomaso.

The main component of l’isola is a church, the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta.

To get to it requires climbing steps which then gives one a decent view back over the harbour,

and, looking the other way, the town beach.

Outside the church is a lovely tiled description of L’isola

above a patterned courtyard.

The church itself is, once again, sumptuously appointed, with some gorgeous painted illustrations and decoration

and some colourful stained glass.

We had a few moments before our boat departed, so I wandered round taking some more photos of the harbour.

The rather colourful boat shown above is “U Dragun“, a symbol of Camogli, a hybrid sail- and rowing boat, known for its traditional design and used in historic re-enactments and festivals.

As we boarded our boat, we noted that someone, sadly, had lost their hat,

but there were lots of places that would have sold a replacement, so probably not a tragedy. Soon, we were off and could see the slightly surreal frontage of the city – all those uniform buildings with their uniform dark windows staring at the world.  Attractive, but slightly unsettling at the same time.

It was a short trip, just round the headland to a place called San Fruttuoso. The reason we were going by boat is that it can only be accessed on foot or by sea. It’s well-known for its abbey,

a Benedictine monastery dating back to the year 1000. It’s also a miniature beach resort, of course,

and, unusually, something of a centre for scuba diving. In the abbey is a statue called “Christ of the Abyss”.

which is a replica of a statue which has been placed in the waters of the bay in memory of Dario Gonzatti, the first Italian to use scuba gear in his dives, who tragically died near this spot in 1947. It’s at a depth of about 17 metres, and is garlanded with flowers every July by scuba divers in memoriam.

We had to walk around the back of the abbey to get to the start of our trail, and this gave us some more views of the village.

We passed an old lavatoio,

which would once have been where the public could wash their clothes, and walked between a restaurant and its terrace,

which looked like a wonderful place to have said “sod it, it’s too hot, let’s have lunch”, but we pressed on. The sea was a wonderful colour. It would have been a lovely lunchtime view on that terrace. Sigh.

It almost immediately became obvious that my hopes for a gentle uphill gradient for our walk were completely misplaced.

Bugger. That lunch-on-the-terrace idea was an increasingly attractive proposition at this point. But we soldiered on. To give you some idea of the climb, here’s a view of a Saracen watchtower taken early on.

And here’s the view of the same watchtower taken some 37 minutes later.

Between these two shots, this is the terrain we had to deal with.

We got a final view of San Fruttuoso

before – finally! – making it to our lunch spot,

where, amusingly, the well ‘ard set were still having lunch. We shooed them off so we could have ours, and then pressed on. The views continued to be lovely

but the trend, annoyingly, continued to be upwards,

albeit past some lovely views.

I see some cypresses have escaped from Tuscany

I discovered this boat is called Sea Cloud II, operated by Sea Cloud Cruises

The path levelled out a fraction and we came across, of all things, a lamppost! With a light bulb still in it!

Then there were more, and it became clear that we’d reached an outpost of civilisation, a small hamlet called Prato, where there was a water point.

Rebecca invited us to refill our water bottles, but we didn’t, because we still had plenty left. The general manic focus on water and hydration was a bit puzzling to Jane and me. We were enjoined to take litres and litres of the stuff with us, and each of us had a couple of water bottles in our backpacks; hers were 800ml and mine were 500. In all the walking in all the heat, we never needed to broach mine – I simply carried the same water up and down all the hills we’d covered. And yet we didn’t go thirsty at any point. Sure, the beers at the end of the walks were very welcome, but I found the dichotomy of what we were told we needed and what we actually drank a bit of a mystery.

Anyhow, the route to Portofino was all downhill from here, which at first seemed like a good idea,

leading us past a fantastic view of the town of Portofino,

but the path soon degenerated into steps.

Lots of the fuckers.

I had been perfectly all right going down steep slopes for the past few days, but for my right knee, these steps were the last straw. By the time I walked into Portofino, it was clear that All Was Not Well. I wasn’t crippled; walking straight and level was OK, but anything other needed care, concentration and, preferably a handrail. Didn’t stop me from joining the others at the Dolce & Gabbana bar for a glass (or, in my case, two) of something cold, though. We were joined there by the well ‘ard set, who were supposed to have done extra kilometrage out to the Portofino lighthouse and back, but it was too hot, poor dears.  Actually, in their defence, I think they took a longer route from the top down to Portofino which involved a more gentle descent – longer and hotter, maybe, but their knees were still working when they got down.

I was expecting Portofino to be (a) larger and (b) more impressive than it actually is. It’s by no means unattractive

but nothing outstandingly different from the sort of places we’d seen over the last days. It is, though, at the heart of the Italian Riviera and has a reputation of being very up-market. Well, anywhere that’s got a Dolce & Gabbana shop that doubles as a bar is likely to be on the posh side. So I was not particularly surprised to see the bar bill.

I had the gin and “Portofinese Gold” (perfectly nice beer in a very fancy bottle), and Jane had the spremuta – freshly squeezed OJ. Naif that I am, I don’t think I’ve ever paid over £20 for a G&T before. I’m not complaining, by the way – I knew it was going to be expensive. But I thought the prices worth commenting on, you understand. Actually the chap at the till was all over the place and initially wanted to charge me €90, but I’d only had a couple of drinks, so I was wise to his game.

We had to make a reasonably swift departure to catch the boat for a further short cruise round the Portofino headland. Out we went,

past the Splendido Hotel, which is a Belmond gaff, and thus thoroughly in line with the up-market values espoused by the Portofino set,

and the Portofino lighthouse that the well ‘ard set had so signally failed to get to.

The destination for our short ferry ride was the next town along the headland, Santa Margherita Ligure. It has the same slightly unsettling uniformity of architecture in the houses along the sea front, so it’s obviously A Thing in these parts.

It’s a very fine town,

with the usual crop of top-notch trompe l’oeil décor

but we had no time to stop and stare, as our bus was waiting for us so we could bump and grind our way back to Bonassola in time for a slightly delayed evening briefing and drinkies before dinner. Today was our last walk, and we had to return home on the morrow, so the briefing was kind of important in order that we understood the timings for the day. My knee being in the state it was, I was rather grateful that the hotel had a lift to get me to the fourth floor terrace for that…

Our official flight time home the next seemed quite reasonable, but because of the potential for cock-ups courtesy of the EES, we had to make an early start. The day turned out not to be entirely uneventful and I will detail it in the next post, which will be the valedictory entry for what has been an excellent, if quite sweaty, week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 5 – Campiglia to (almost) Porto Venere and That Boat Ride Back

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Thursday 18 June 2026 – As was usual, we were offered two walks. The end point would be Porto Venere, a town at the southern end of a finger of land beside the major port of La Spezia, which itself lies south of the Cinque Terre National Park. This would be the departure point for a boat ride back along the coast. And, as usual, we opted for the shorter one, as (a) it started with a taxi ride up into the hills which obviated the need for the steep uphill climb on offer with the other walk in the (b) forecast temperatures of over 30°C. I therefore had the hope that our route would be largely level with only a bit (or possibly a massive amount, stay tuned) of downhill.

Some hope.

Anyway, Rebecca, Tomaso and all of we punters took the train to Riomaggiore, the furthest of the Cinque Terre villages. Rebecca took off up into the hills with the usual well ‘ard team, and the rest of us followed Tomaso. There was a nice echo of the Castellaners of Catalunya as we exited the station,

and I managed to get a shot which combined two elements of our Italian exerience:

Tomaso’s unwavering focus on being a guide; and a taxi rank that featured three taxis but no driver.  Eventually, a driver did turn up, clutching a focaccia or some such, and we all climbed on board so we could be taken up to Campiglia, a tiny village in the hills. The taxi dropped us off by a terrace of shaded tables which looked like it was made for sitting and drinking coffee at, and which offered a decent view over the surroundings. This, by the way, is the spot where the well ‘ard team would be walking up to and taking their lunch. This would be an ascent of some 500m over 6.5km, so now you know why we opted out.

Across the street from the terrace was Erbo Gianco, a place that outwardly seemed a rather unpromising grocery store

but which was actually a tiny miracle perpetrated in this hamlet in the middle of nowhere.

Luca, its owner, deftly prepared us focaccie for our lunches and coffee to help us on our way.

The shop is the single alimentaria for all of Campiglia, and, as well as supplying the villagers, is a popular place for hikers and other passers-by to stop for a break.

Coffee quaffed, we set off. We had a way to go, with the intriguing possibilities offered by the “Green Caravan”, a place where we could take our lunch and which might even be open to sell us something cold and refreshing.

On the outskirts of the village (i.e. in about 20 yards) we came across the local parish church, Chiesa Cattolica Parrocchiale di Santa Caterina.

It was open, so we looked in.

It had another of those processional crosses that we first saw in Bonassola.

If I understood it correctly, it’s not an active church, but is a popular venue for weddings.

The path led in a satisfactorily level kind of way

past the remains of an old windmill

and rather pleasingly downhill through woodland,

before reaching a fork, where we turned left on the Alta Via del Golfo (AVG). (AV5T is the Alta Via del Cinque Terre, the High Path that started way over in Levanto.)

Much of the path was OK,

except for the odd tricky bit.

Sadly, the basically level nature of the path was a temporary phenomenon. As usual, when you get to a decision point on these kind of hiking holidays, to quote Yazz and the Plastic Population, “The Only Way Is Up”.

We had, indeed, come down a fair way, as was shown by the view we got back towards Campiglia

which was revealed to be a bit larger than I had expected from the part we saw. We headed along a military road, through a quarry

where the local “marble” had been taken. It’s not real marble, meaning sedimentary limestone, but it’s a stone that polishes to a fine shine – dark with white veins through it. The rock we saw didn’t look that dark, and, although he hadn’t got his polishing machinery with him, Tomaso demonstrated  what he meant by wetting a small chunk,

which gives an idea of what the finished article might look like. In some cases, the veins are of a golden colour.

We were heading steadily and occasionally steeply uphill, and arrived at the high point, where I thought that, even though I didn’t have the drone with me, I’d indulge in a bit of aerial photography,

and we finally reached a view of La Spezia that had been threatening to become visible for the last few hundred metres of upward trail. And it really was quite a view.

The naval military area of La Spezia is huge;

everything to the left of and below the harbour bar in the photo above is the La Spezia arsenal – a town within a town. As well as the city, we could see across to the Carrara mountains.

The white areas are (real) marble, the posh Carrara marble that can be seen in posh places, such as the Sheik Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which must singlehandedly have consumed a mountain or two from the range.

The path then became a pleasantly downhill dirt road,

suitable for vehicular access to the quarries we’d passed, and indeed we weren’t alone on the track.

We pottered along past a viewpoint which showed us that there was an island, Palmaria, at the very tip of the finger, and gave us a sight of the castle and church at the extreme edge of Porto Venere,

and, at closer range, a Scarce Swallowtail Butterfly.

It wasn’t that scarce, actually. There were at least three of ’em, and I was glad to get this shot when one perched, un-butterfly-like, for a few instants.

Continuing downhill, we came at last to the Green Caravan, which

was closed. A sign told us that it would open in a few days’ time, which was a fat lot of good. But we found some shady patches and ate our lunches there anyway.

The walking route from the Green Caravan, which is formally identified on Google Maps as “Gitana on the road“, to Porto Venere has an exceedingly steep downhill end section. Rebecca had mentioned that there were some 2,000 steps to go down and as far as I can tell, these took one down 250m vertical in one kilometre – that’s one in four. We said “bollocks” to that, and  Tomaso organised a cab to take us the rest of the way down. Thus it was that we arrived on the outskirts of Porto Venere.

Entry to the town is through a medieval gate.

Beside the gate are some mystery objects.

These are actually measures – standard Genoese units at the time – which were used to enforce fair trading.  If I remember correctly, on the left is one for wine, in the middle for olive oil, and on the right, one for grain. On the other side of the gate is a frescoed arch

and the town is – would you believe it? – very attractive,

though some sartorial choices on view  were less aesthetically pleasing. The town was also, delightfully, relatively uncrowded.

We had the chance to visit the church-and-castle that we’d seen from up in the hills.

The church is the Chiesa di San Pietro. We looked inside, of course. Entry is through a couple of magnificent doors.

and the inside is wonderfully calming. Remarkably there were very few people to intrude.

We walked back to the town,

which led past an intriguing tinkly shop.

and headed for the quay to board the ferry that would take us back towards home along the coast. This give us some decent departing views of Porto Venere and the castle

and then we had the chance – and the light – to take some photos of Riomaggiore, Manarola and Corniglia from the water, with the sun behind us. Forgive me here for a plethora of photos, but this was seeing the villages from a fantastic viewpoint.

Riomaggiore – New town to the left, old town to the right

Riomaggiore old town

Riomaggiore new town

Manarola

Corniglia

Corniglia

It made me think that we could have foregone all that bloody trekking up and down hills for days on end, and just taken the ferry.

Well, not quite, I suppose.

Anyway, we had to disembark at Vernazza in order to get back to the hotel in any kind of decent time, so we had another of those train journeys,

but got back to Bonassola with the feeling of great satisfaction about the day. Yes, it was hot and occasionally sweaty, but we’d seen some fantastic views and visited a couple of lovely places.

We had one more day’s walking as part of this trip, and it would be nowhere near the Cinque Terre, but much further to the north.  Perhaps it wouldn’t feature the sweaty toiling up and down hills that are such a hallmark of the Cinque Terre? Keep watching these pages to find out!

 

Day 4 – Playing Tourist in Sestri Levante

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Wednesday 17 June 2026 – One day of our week in Liguria was designated a non-hiking day. There were many options open to us, not the least of which would have been well-earned sloth. One of our group actually headed off to get to Genoa, about an hour and a half away if you catch the right train, but a world of pain if you don’t. We were not so interested in art galleries and museums, which are definitely Genoa’s strengths, and instead Tomaso had strongly recommended Sestri Levante as a place to visit.

The name’s something to conjure with. People are familiar with “The Levant” as meaning the Middle East, based on the meaning of “levante” as “rising”. The sun rises in the east, hence The Levant. However, Sestri Levante is on the west coast of Italy and emphatically not in the East. Unless, that is, you are of a Genoese persuasion; in that region, “Riviera di Levante” means the eastern riviera, with “Riviera di Ponente” meaning the western riviera, all defined in relation to Genoa. So Sestri Levante means, by implication, Sestri in the eastern riviera, as opposed to Sestri Ponente which is, you guessed it, to the west of Genoa, albeit only just. “Sestri” in this context might means “sixth”, which I can’t find a credible reason to explain, or it might mean “a quiet place”. Depends on which AI you ask. In any case neither I nor any AI that have consulted on the matter understand whether all this has any bearing on the name of Bonassola’s neighbour, Levanto,

Anyhoo…

Sestri Levante is a half-hour train ride north-west from Bonassola, so seemed a good option and six of us decided to head there so that we could go for a walk around it. Obviously.

There are ticket machines at each station, but Trainline works well and obviates the risk of falling foul of Italian engineering*, so, tickets in our Google Wallets, we headed for the station and caught a 10.30 train heading north. This meant that we would arrive at 11am which (Tomaso jokingly told us as a matter of Italian law) is the very latest time you are legally allowed a cappuccino. So we left the station

and headed into town;

Jane had identified the Caffè Centrale as a promising destination, and so it proved, serving decent coffee that was almost hot. The heat of the day hadn’t fully developed and so we were able to sit outside as we supped, and opposite us was a wonderful, if somewhat bonkers, piece of architecture.

It is the Palazzo Fascie Rossi, and houses the city’s archaeological museum, library and historical archives. The “Rossi” means “red”, which is pretty self-explanatory just from looking at the colour of the building; and it’s named for one Vicenze Fascie, (interestingly described on the website as a “Cavalier”, whatever that means – maybe a cowboy builder?) whose legacy funded its construction in the early 1900s. The tower is distinctive, both in shape and, frankly, its jarring architectural discontinuity from the rest of the building. On its four corners are braziers which can hold beacons to be lit on festival days. Looking at it from a different angle

one can see the spiral staircase that enables access to the roof for placing and lighting of beacons. Over the main door is a decoration celebrating love, work and hope.

To my complete lack of surprise, Jane had spent some time investigating the possibilities of the town, and everyone in the group seemed entirely happy to follow her suggested peregrination. Thus, coffee over, we wandered off towards the seafront.

There is some very fine trompe l’oeil on view decorating the buildings,

so convincing that I had to go and brush the surface to assure myself that it was painted. Some of it was very ornate.

Tomaso had mentioned a specific patisserie that was worth a look in, so we found it and, erm, looked in.

It’s a wonderful interior, and, even more wonderfully, the lady behind the counter was entirely unruffled at a bunch of tourists leaning in, taking photos and departing without buying anything.

As you head for the seaside, there are some ritzy buildings, not the least of which is a very fancy-looking four-star hotel, the Grand Hotel Villa Balbi,

which does it best to be difficult to photograph by hiding bashfully behind a bunch of trees. (The Cross of St. George atop the place is nothing to do with England – St George is one of the principal patron saints of Genoa.) A neighbouring building has on its walls a colourful tribute to the maritime nature of the place,

not dissimilar in style to a boat on the beach nearby,

though, this being the med, if they’re waiting for the tide to come in so they can float it, they’re going to be there a while.

As far as seaside is concerned, the town has a distinctive and unusual shape,

which gives it two seasides (the boat in the photo above is not far from the capital S in Sestri). The bay to the north is called the “Bay of Fables”, in honour of Hans Christian Andersen, who lived here at one point, and so I wandered out to see if it was pretty.

Not really, is my verdict, although overlooking it are some very fine houses on the lumpy bit that stick out from the mainland.

I found the juxtaposition of crowded beach umbrellas and fine mansions rather amusing. Some of those villas on the headland are very handsome.

At the neck of the headland is a church, the Basilica of Santa Maria of Nazareth,

which, like so many others in the area, has a sumptuous interior.

with beautifully painted surfaces all over.

Having looked around the church, we headed for the southern bay, the Bay of Silence, which was altogether a more attractive proposition.

All beach life was here, with kids and adults equally splashing around and generally not being silent at all.  In the water was a sculpture of a fisherman

and among the folks cavorting on the beach (or, frankly, slumped in the heat) moved a hopeful entrepreneur.

We didn’t see her successfully sell anything, and she must have been rather warm, but one infers (and certainly hopes) that she must make enough to be able to stay in business.

Apart from anything else, the bay had a perfectly decent café/restaurant which offered some nice focaccia and many varieties of cold beverage,

so we refreshed ourselves and then split up. Some of our group wanted to do some shopping, but Jane had identified a punto panoramico on the opposite shore, so we went to take a look. It was worth the slog in increasing temperatures.

You can clearly see the headland and the neck that divides the two bays. in order to reach the viewpoint, we passed the Convento Frati Cappuccini, which incorporates the church of Santa Maria Immacolata,

and was open (albeit not selling any coffee) so we went in. It was rather lovely, with some striking painted decoration,

and wonderful mosaics on the floor.

The choral music of (we think) Palestrina was gently playing in the background as we walked in, which made for a very calming interlude.

We walked back through the very elegant old town towards the station,

and discovered that we had time for another coffee at Caffè Centrale before hitting the station. An uneventful rail journey had us back in Bonassola in time for the evening drinkies and briefing – and even the lady who’d been to Genoa managed to make it back in time for that.

During the rest of our time here we had two more walks to do, and neither of them were in the actual Cinque Terre park, as we’d covered that on walks two and three, as far as one can given that the path from Manarola to Corniglia is closed. The next day’s walks were south of the park, in the area of Porto Venere, with the return to Bonassola involving a scenic boat ride. The walk could potentially involve a hideous amount of steep and tricky downhill walking, we heard.

Stay tuned to find out if we managed to engineer a way around that ghastly prospect.

 

* I’m probably not being fair, here. In many cases, the Italian train network is more joined-up that ours in the UK. For example, when you buy a ticket at a machine in Italy, assuming your train is in transit at the time, the ticket machine will tell you whether it is on time, or by how much delayed, which would be helpful in the UK. Roll on nationalisation of the UK rail network, anyone?