Italian Honeymooners: Portofino & Santa Margherita Ligure
I'm supposed to be cleaning today. Or sleeping. Or cooking. Or packing and repacking my carry-on bag. But instead, I'm writing and drinking coffee. A pine scented candle is lit nearby, my Christmas tree is on even though it's broad daylight, and I'm enjoying my afternoon before I head in for three more nights at work. I've been feeling under the weather for the past few days but isolated myself yesterday, slept in today, and am feeling like I will be good to go for work and Christmas celebrations this week.
I've decided that it's finally time to share our honeymoon adventures with you. It's been about 6 months since we honeymooned to Italy, and I realized that I've only shared little bits and pieces with you. I think it's time to tell the whole story. I'll probably have to spread these out into a series of posts to avoid overwhelming you with too much all at once. Today I'll tell you about the first places we visited and maybe my favorite parts of our trip-- to Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure. If ever you have the opportunity to hop on a place to Italy, do not miss these towns. I almost included the Cinque Terre region in this post but decided that it needed its own special post, so more to come on that later (that may be my ACTUAL favorite place in Italy so far. But Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure are awesome beachy places to visit, and very quaint).
We'll start with travel. Scott and I decided to take an overnight flight to Italy, thinking we would sleep on the flight there and be ready to go when we arrived in Milan at 10AM. I slept for maybe 1 hour of the flight, Scott might have slept a little more than that. When we arrived in Milan, I had been told a bus would be outside for us to hop on to take to the train station. We never intended to stay in Milan; I had been in high school and found nothing Italian or special about Milan. It felt like any other big city to me, and on our honeymoon, we wanted something with Italian charm. There was no bus waiting outside, and I knew we had to get to the train station quickly to avoid missing our train. After awkward pointing and smiling at the Italian help desk, we made our way to the train station below the airport to catch an express train to Milano Centrale, the city's main train station.
After arriving at Milano Centrale, we had an extremely frustrating experience (which is now hilarious) trying to print our tickets and find our train. We ended up having to run to catch our train, only to find we were on the train to Geneva Switzerland instead of Genova, Italy. With 2 minutes to spare, we ran faster than either of us had ever run to catch the train on the opposite end of the station. As soon as our feet landed on the train, it started moving. We then rode the train for about 3 hours feeling hot, exhausted, and hungry. There was no air conditioning, no food cart (which had been promised), and we were both too on edge to fall asleep or speak. Great start to a honeymoon, right?
In any case, we arrived at our hotel (which we LOVED. Hotel Jolanda, for anyone interested in visiting), took a quick nap, and freshened up for our bike ride to Portofino. We stayed in Santa Margherita Ligure but used the hotel's free bikes to bike the 25 minutes to Portofino. Most terrifying bike ride of my life, to be honest. We were on these windy Italian roads where Vespas were zooming by and small Fiats maneuvered around us. I was a little bit scared for my life.
We arrived at the main bay at Portofino where we ate gelato, walked around, and ate pizza (gelato came before pizza. We decided gelato could be had at any time of the day). I LOVED Portofino and would totally go back. It is so adorable. Santa Margherita Ligure was also very adorable-- both are busy fishing towns, but have amazing night life. We were too tired for that so we ate more gelato, walked around the coast of Santa Margherita Ligure, and rode our bikes back to the hotel to head to bed.
The next morning, we had an INCREDIBLE breakfast that was included in our stay. Italians do awesome pastry breakfasts with nutella and jams and cheeses. Oh my. I'm drooling just thinking about this breakfast again. And the coffee. Oh, the coffee. Not like American coffee, but equally delicious.
We spent the day at the beach before we headed to Cinque Terre that night. The beach was interesting, you'll see in pictures below that it's actually made of gravel and rocks instead of sand. It was so lovely and different, and maybe not the Turks and Caicos beach that I always dreamed of for our honeymoon, but entirely lovely in its own way. This part of the trip was our compromise-- I wanted the beach honeymoon and Scott wanted to travel far. We chose Italy because we knew we could get both there. Portofino, Santa Magherita Ligure, and Cinque Terre were on my "must-have" list so I could feel like we had a beach honeymoon. I think Scott ended up enjoying them VERY much. We are small town people, even though we live in a big city right now. At heart, we love the quaintness of small towns. These places were dreamy for us.
I think that's all I'll type for now. The rest I'll just tell in pictures. Hope I didn't bore you too much, and please please go to these places if you ever go to Italy.
Happy Sunday, friends. Hope your week ahead is a good one and that you find joy in the holiday season. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Love,
Cristina.
I've decided that it's finally time to share our honeymoon adventures with you. It's been about 6 months since we honeymooned to Italy, and I realized that I've only shared little bits and pieces with you. I think it's time to tell the whole story. I'll probably have to spread these out into a series of posts to avoid overwhelming you with too much all at once. Today I'll tell you about the first places we visited and maybe my favorite parts of our trip-- to Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure. If ever you have the opportunity to hop on a place to Italy, do not miss these towns. I almost included the Cinque Terre region in this post but decided that it needed its own special post, so more to come on that later (that may be my ACTUAL favorite place in Italy so far. But Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure are awesome beachy places to visit, and very quaint).
We'll start with travel. Scott and I decided to take an overnight flight to Italy, thinking we would sleep on the flight there and be ready to go when we arrived in Milan at 10AM. I slept for maybe 1 hour of the flight, Scott might have slept a little more than that. When we arrived in Milan, I had been told a bus would be outside for us to hop on to take to the train station. We never intended to stay in Milan; I had been in high school and found nothing Italian or special about Milan. It felt like any other big city to me, and on our honeymoon, we wanted something with Italian charm. There was no bus waiting outside, and I knew we had to get to the train station quickly to avoid missing our train. After awkward pointing and smiling at the Italian help desk, we made our way to the train station below the airport to catch an express train to Milano Centrale, the city's main train station.
After arriving at Milano Centrale, we had an extremely frustrating experience (which is now hilarious) trying to print our tickets and find our train. We ended up having to run to catch our train, only to find we were on the train to Geneva Switzerland instead of Genova, Italy. With 2 minutes to spare, we ran faster than either of us had ever run to catch the train on the opposite end of the station. As soon as our feet landed on the train, it started moving. We then rode the train for about 3 hours feeling hot, exhausted, and hungry. There was no air conditioning, no food cart (which had been promised), and we were both too on edge to fall asleep or speak. Great start to a honeymoon, right?
In any case, we arrived at our hotel (which we LOVED. Hotel Jolanda, for anyone interested in visiting), took a quick nap, and freshened up for our bike ride to Portofino. We stayed in Santa Margherita Ligure but used the hotel's free bikes to bike the 25 minutes to Portofino. Most terrifying bike ride of my life, to be honest. We were on these windy Italian roads where Vespas were zooming by and small Fiats maneuvered around us. I was a little bit scared for my life.
We arrived at the main bay at Portofino where we ate gelato, walked around, and ate pizza (gelato came before pizza. We decided gelato could be had at any time of the day). I LOVED Portofino and would totally go back. It is so adorable. Santa Margherita Ligure was also very adorable-- both are busy fishing towns, but have amazing night life. We were too tired for that so we ate more gelato, walked around the coast of Santa Margherita Ligure, and rode our bikes back to the hotel to head to bed.
The next morning, we had an INCREDIBLE breakfast that was included in our stay. Italians do awesome pastry breakfasts with nutella and jams and cheeses. Oh my. I'm drooling just thinking about this breakfast again. And the coffee. Oh, the coffee. Not like American coffee, but equally delicious.
We spent the day at the beach before we headed to Cinque Terre that night. The beach was interesting, you'll see in pictures below that it's actually made of gravel and rocks instead of sand. It was so lovely and different, and maybe not the Turks and Caicos beach that I always dreamed of for our honeymoon, but entirely lovely in its own way. This part of the trip was our compromise-- I wanted the beach honeymoon and Scott wanted to travel far. We chose Italy because we knew we could get both there. Portofino, Santa Magherita Ligure, and Cinque Terre were on my "must-have" list so I could feel like we had a beach honeymoon. I think Scott ended up enjoying them VERY much. We are small town people, even though we live in a big city right now. At heart, we love the quaintness of small towns. These places were dreamy for us.
I think that's all I'll type for now. The rest I'll just tell in pictures. Hope I didn't bore you too much, and please please go to these places if you ever go to Italy.
Santa Margherita coast on our bike ride
Our ride for the night on our way to Portofino
Our first Italian gelato in Portofino!
Stairs leading to the Ligurian Sea
Beach day!
Portofino's bay. Hello Italian Riviera
Santa Margherita Ligure
Restaurant in Santa Margherita-- great seafood pasta dishes!
Santa Margherita at sunset
Continental breakfast at Hotel Jolanda
Had to stop on our bike ride to Portofino for this shot. So pretty
Train tables. I think by the end we finally understood them
Portofino's bay
View from our hotel
My ride again
Portofino Bay again
Beautiful house, maybe we'll live here someday?
Portofino
Italian beaches
Loved this bike ride. This was my happy place
Portofino
Wandering the streets in Santa Margherita Ligure
Happy Sunday, friends. Hope your week ahead is a good one and that you find joy in the holiday season. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Love,
Cristina.
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