The road to Hana....I mean Portofino

The drive from Gavi (small town in the mountains of Piemonte) to Portofino (small town by the oceanside of Liguria) should have only taken an hour and a half, but, after a few minor detours, the mandatory bathroom stop(s) at the Autogrill (think Hwy 5 truck stop but with panini and espresso), a police escort and 20 kilometers of crawling through a Lombardesque roadway that could barely fit our minivan but also managed to simultaneously accommodate a transit bus, our little afternoon drive to the seaside turned into a half day adventure just to arrive.

Rather than show you some photos of my mom as she hyperventilated into a paper bag, I will post a few snapshots of this lovely little oceanside town.



The views alone made it worth it, even though my birthday lunch at Delfino (shame on you Frommer's) turned out to be nothing more than an overpriced tourist trap.

Again though, you go to Portofino so you can snap a few photos and say, "Hey, look where I was, wasn't it absolutely beautiful and aren't you jealous of me?"

So ragazzi, by reading this blog and looking at these photos, I have saved you a trip to Portofino. I may get some major pushback on this, but would say the same for Cinque Terre....just buy the postcard instead.


And since this post is mainly about the photos, I will leave you with a nice one of the four of us....Robin and my mom were focused on another camera at the time, but I think it's a keeper all the same.