Portofino stole my heart

At least we had time to plan our day to Portofino. We took the train from Sestri to Santa Margherita Ligure which is a beautiful seaside town north of Sestri. 

 We then walked along the road the 30 mins passed some of the most beautiful houses in the world and finally made it to Portofino.

 The water was turquoise and stunning, we were in tank tops loving the heat and the sun and the beauty of where we were. The weather was gorgeous and since it is late October, we were the only tourists on the trail.

 The houses and castles along the water are to die for and that was before we even arrived in Portofino.

Portofino is a town of glitz and glamour. The houses on the water are literally the houses you see in magazines and movies. 

 The sailboats and yachts in the harbor made me drool and the restaurants all boasted outrageously expensive beautiful seafood dishes. Even in the off season there were high heel clad beauties walking the main piazza with rich husbands carrying their bags in tow.

 This is the town of celebrities and money where there is not a lot to see, but the point is to be seen... Bogie and Liz Taylor frequented Portofino in their haydays and the locals are used to tourists and money.

 After wandering Portofino for a bit, we made our way up about 300 stairs on our hike to San Frutuoso. We walked up and up and up past little villas and olive trees until we made it to the ridge above the town.

 From there we hiked for 2 hours along the cliffs and hillsides on the most beautiful hike I have ever done in my life.

 My new dream is to sit outside on one of the private vinyards drinking homemade wine and cheese while looking out at the beautiful Mediterranean. It is very easy to understand why this area was pillaged and ransacked by pirates throughout history.

  I have never been happier to sweat that much in my life. I could go back and die happy.  It didnt seem like the Italian Riviera, it looked like the Caribbean and was hot enough to be. People who live there enjoy the slow and simple life and I now want to do just the same.

 San Frutuoso was a welcome site for our rumbling tummies.  It is a tiny town that you can only reach by hiking or by boat that has an abbey and a tower and some restaurants. C’est tout.

  We had lunch on the beach and shared a plate of mussels and Troffie pesto. Pesto originated in this region and troffie is a specialty. It is a type of pasta gnocchi mix that was delicious. And the mussels were caught that day 30 feet from where we were sitting, drowned in white wine sauce and served with bread...

 There was really nothing else to do in San Frutuoso, so we hopped on a ferry for a 40 minute ride back to Portofino, and that is the way to see that town.

 Pulling into the harbor at Portofino  is magical, like a fairy tale, passing yachts with old women drinking wine on the shore. I am completely in love. I will absolutely go back.

  Unfortunately we had to keep going to Santa Margherita but that was a cute town too. We ate the best gelato I have ever had and wandered the expensive stores until finally taking a train back to Sestri.

 After spending money on lunch, we didnt want to have to buy dinner too, so we bought salad and went home and made risotto with pumpkin and carrots with the meat that Tina had made us and salad. For dessert we had ice cream and lattes and just talked and laughed all night, it was beautiful.

Toussaint!!! Day 1 Italia!

Ooh Toussaint... This was our Halloween break meaning “all saints”. Since we are transferring schools, we had a few extra days off. So I skipped school on Wednesday and took the train from Aix to Nice (40 mins delayed) then from Nice to Vintemille.

  This trip was absolutely gorgeous and the train went down the coast the entire time.

 When I arrived in Vintemille, I was caught completely off guard because I totally forgot I was in Italy and I dont speak a word of Italian! Anja had texted me saying that she couldnt get her train from Pisa to Sestri because there was apparently flooding. I was out of phone credit and confused because the weather was beautiful but I figured when I got to Sestri I would find internet and figure it out.

  In the Vintemille station however, I saw a girl who looked just as lost and confused as I was. I walked up to her and asked if she was Emilee and thankfully she said yes. Emilee is one of Anja’s friends from school in Lyon who was going to meet us in Sestri. Thankfully the only text I received from Anja told me that we might be on the same train and to keep an eye out. Thank God we found each other. We got on the train and rode it all the way to Sestri where on arrival we had to call the maid of the house we were staying at who only spoke Italian.

 Anja had called her and said that it would just be us and thankfully Emilee had credit on her phone. We found a taxi driver who spoke french who took us to the cross streets of the house and then Tina, the maid, met us outside with the keys. Through a combination of Spanish, English, very few Italian words, and hand gestures, we figured everything out. So there we were, two strangers staying in a house in Italy who we dont even know the owners of, who speak no Italian, ready to begin our adventure...

 As it turns out, Emilee is great. She is 21 from Grass Valley who goes to UCSC and we know tons of the same people. The house we stayed in was very cute, but about a 20 minute walk out of town. Tina had stocked the kitchen for us with milk, bread, cake, meat, cheese, juice, beer, everything we needed, it was sooo nice. So we were set for breakfast in the morning where we made ourselves lattes, toast, and cereal.

 Unfortunately for Anja, the train coming from the south was cancelled because of the flooding in Cirque Terre and she was stuck in Pisa. She decided to take a train from Pisa to Florence to Milan then down to Sestri instead of being stuck in Pisa alone. Very very frustrating especially since they wouldn’t refund her money for the ticket and she had to go 8 hours out of her way. The train system in Italy is not even comparable to France and it made us very thankful to call France home.

 So Emilee and I spent the day exploring Sestri. It is a very small town with not much to do in the slow season. There are two bays, the Bay of Silence and the  Bay of Fables. These bays were named by Hans Christian Anderson who wrote the Little Mermaid which is said to be based off the town of Sestri Levante.

 We walked around the town around 2:30 when most things in France open back up after their 2 hour siesta at lunch time. In Italy, it is different, they take 4 hour siestas and things dont open up until 4. We were very confused because it was as if we were walking around a ghost town on a thursday afternoon.

  We walked and saw the few tourist sites that are in Sestri, an old ruin of a church, an older actual church, pretty views, but there really isn't that much to do there. We had lunch, then finally the stores opened and we looked around those, ate gelato, and walked some more.

 We were basically killing time until Anja’s train arrived. Finally it did and we took another taxi home and called it a night.

A fun but sick week

School yet again all week but Wednesday night was very fun. I went down to Marseilles to watch the Champions League Soccer game between the Olympique de Marseilles vs. London Arsenal. OM has a hugggeee fan base that get crazy so we couldn't speak english the whole time we were in their section.

We left Aix around 6 on a bus with 18 other foreign students in our group. The bus ride took longer than expected but it was very fun. I think the bus driver was punishing us for being so loud and rowdy because he turned the air conditioning off and everyone was dying of heat. Coordinating that many drunk people from a bus, to a metro, to a soccer stadium is much harder than you would think too.

The game was ridiculously fun, OM supporters chant and sing the whole time and are very loud and obnoxious. Unfortunately... we lost. And since it started raining on us at the end of the game, I am now sick as well.

So I have spent this weekend inside watching movies and drinking tea trying my hardest to get better so that I dont have to be stuck inside any longer. It is definitely cooling down too, it smells like winter. But I am excited for winter, just not the wind.