Liguria

This is the Italian Riviera Di Ponente and Riviera di Levante. Drive along the coast and as you leave France you enter the Liguria Region of Italy.

If you are driving through the Region, and you are planning or hoping to get somehwere on a schedule. Take the Autostrada. But some years, when we have had nothing but time to kill we have driven the coastal highway. It is town after town. Yes the are some ooohhhs and aaaahhs views along the way, but you really have to have patience.

Alassio

Well this is the place we say we want our ashes deposited. We have stayed six or eight times in this town. It has a great beach. We have established ourselves as regulars at a great hotel the Hotel Tirreno - see our notes in Great Places to Stay. And, Alassio has some of the best gelato in Italy.


View from a Hotel Tirreno	The great beachof Alassio	Pleasant streets of the town

English tourists discovered Alassio at the end of the 19th Century. There is still a good feel to the place as it lacks the take-over by modern development.

The only concerning thing is the work on a new convention centre. This does involve the restoration of the classic old Hotel Alassio but we wonder what price will be paid for that contribution. I know that when Karen was talking to some of the hotels while booking some trips for folks (Marcus Travel Planning), even the hotel owners are getting worried about what the convention centre will do to the town.

Santa Margherita Ligure

So if we are not staying in Alassio, we are staying in Santa Margherita Ligure. This is a great town to serve as a base for your travels in the area. You can walk the 2 km along the water to Portofino, drive or take a bus to this eye stopper. Also, the train station is in town and in a half an hour you can be in the Cinque Terre - and with the limited roads you don't want to be thinking about take a car into that area anyway.

When in Santa Margherita Ligure we now for the past three visits have stayed at the Hotel Jolanda (see Great Places to Stay). We have also stayed at the Albergo Fasce which is a very nice hotel also only a few blocks up from the water.


Beautiful coastline along Santa Margherita Ligure	Grand old hotels along the water and up the hill.	Walkway along the coast with the old town in the background.

Portofino

I know that when people hear the phrase "day trip location" it can lead to the question: do we really want to go there? But in this case, yes. This is one of the most unspoiled promontory on the Ligurian Coast. The harbour is so scenic. You can walk up to the 16th century fotress of S. Giorgio and get great views of the bay. If you take your car, and you really don't have to, there is a parkade on the outskirts of the town and then you walk down to the harbour.

The multi-coloured houses line the harbour. You can pick up some food and wine in one of the stores and walk down to the harbour and enjoy a picnic lunch - or eat in one of the fine cafes along the water.

Camogli

Camogli is another one of the towns that you can drive to when you stay in Santa Margherita. We visited it in 1995 when we drove down to the coast to meet Karen's parents. Camogli is a fishing village — but we are not talking quaint. But the colours of the buildings built on the steep cliffs, the harbor and multitude of small boats of a rainbow of colour just hits you.

Portovenere

Just past La Spezia is the town of Portovenere. We stayed here a night and enjoyed a really great meal. You can walk along the water and there is the San Pietro church that dates from the 6th Century and rebuilt in the 13th Century - white and black stripped marble. So enjoy the views, and the slower life pace of this town and count the cats - there seems to be an endless number.

Rapollo

We have stayed here when we could not get a hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure. One year Karen's parents were travelling in Italy at the same time we were. Well, despite the fact that we were in Alba (South of Torino) when we decided "what the heck" - lets drive down to Santa Margherita Ligure and surprise her parents. Well it was a beautiful drive, and we arrived in the evening only to find that we could not find a hotel anywhere in town. Well, it is just a couple of kilometers down the coastal road to Rapollo.

San Remo

After driving through or around this town on many many trips along the coast, in 2001 we decided to stay and night and see what the town was like. We had dropped our friends the Grants off in Nice and they headed back to Vancovuer and we headed towards Italy. This was a short drive from Nice.

So the picture at the right pretty much sums up the town. Lots of old multi-coloured buildings, lots of traffic, and lots of hotels that one day were just "the" place to stay. Some of them are being renovated. We stayed in one that was almost there in terms of being a find!

Karen and Glenn Marcus travel extensively throughout France and Italy. We would enjoy hearing from you. Karen and Glenn Marcus

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