Sunday  12^th October, 2014……Bonassola……A beautiful morning after the big storm yesterday so we opted to take the train to Santa Margherita and then a bus to Portofino……very interesting train journey going through all the villages on the coast not to mention the tunnels you go through…….we remembered the tunnels from last time when we came from La Spetzia to Bonassola and we went through them all again getting here this time…..the Italians sure know how to build tunnels even if their train timetables are a bit erratic!!!!  And oh the dogs that people take onto the trains here, obviously an accepted thing in this part of the world….the bus journey was shades of the Amalfi Coast in that we had to stop if we met a car on a corner….however the Portofino headland epitomises the Ligurian coastal landscape……about 20 nautical miles separate the headland of Portofino from Punta del Mesco which marks the beginning of the Cinque Terre, the 5 villages known as Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggoire………..Portofino itself is an old sea village with multi coloured houses and a quaint harbour…..being Sunday loads of tourists boats came in so it wasn’t very quaint for long!!!  So many restaurants…we walked and walked, climbed 106 steps and then walked further up a hill to Castello Brown…..originally a fortress used by the Genoese when they ruled these waters…… in 1798 Napoleon renamed Portofino “Port Napoleon” increasing the building works, the number of soldiers and the artillery…..however after Napoleon’s defeat by Horatio Nelson the Corsican’s domains in the Mediterranean Sea suffered sudden downfalls……the Castle fell into disrepair and was abandoned, until the English Consul in Genoa, Montague Yeats Brown fell in love with the place and bought the Castle/Fortress in 1870 from the State…..he employed architects to make it a home, the remains of which is open to the public today….certainly a grand viewing point for looking down into Portofino……..looking at the family photos on the walls, it must have been quite a place and a  very good life they enjoyed here in Portofino………and so we bussed back to Santa Margherita then the train back to Bonassola……a very enjoyable day with a temperature of around 24 degrees…….M & F

Monday 13^th October, 2014…….. Bonassola……the weather looks threatening again today but we’ve opted to go and explore some of the 5 villages…..took the train to Riomaggoire……walked and walked…sadly all the tourist walks are closed as the heavy rain last Saturday night did the final damage apparently…they have had a lot of rain here and some of the walks were closed but now all the walks are closed…….we had fine weather in Riomaggoire but the humidity is back….we managed to walk some of the paths around the cliff faces before taking the train to Manarola….the train timetable we have does no read true so a lot of time wasted waiting for trains…..however walked and walked and again managed to walk some of the rock cliff paths…….we stopped for a bite of lunch……I am on nil food today as now I have diarrhoea so a lot of today has been spent looking for toilets, needless to say they are mostly 1 Euro a time!!!!!  Very expensive going to the toilet in Europe these days!!!  A shower of rain came through but it didn’t amount to much and so we went to take the train to Corniglia but got talking to folk on the railway platform and they said they had been advised to get back to their hotel as a category 2 storm is expected to hit so we opted to head back to Bonassola……..just as we got on the train it poured so we were glad we had opted to come back to our hotel but now back in Bonassola the sun is shining!!!!  You just can’t win but hopefully we will get to go to the other 3 villages tomorrow…..we were here in 2005 and had magnificient weather and we looked forward to revisiting the villages…..Bonassola is the 7^th village with Levanto being the 6^th village but they are all just a few minutes apart….M & F

Portofino.....

As above.....

Local Fishing boats...Portofino......

The view of Portofino from 'Castello Brown'.....

As above.....

Looking up to 'Castello Brown'.......

St Georgio Church ....Portofino......

Looking up to 'Castello Brown'....such a location!!!

The restaurants....Portofino......

The train station going into one of those many tunnels...Riomaggiore.....

Riomaggiore......Cinque Terre....

Manarola....Cinque Terre.....