My wife and I will be traveling for two weeks in Italy with three other couples this May. We will spend two nights in Lerici and one day will go to one or two of the Cinque Terre villages (we've done all five before). We want to also go to Santa Margherita or Portofino for part of that day, and take a boat back to Lerici. Which of the two towns would you recommend? Anyone have experience taking the boat that far along the coast?
Posted by
San Diego
1540 posts
Portofino is much smaller than Santa Margherita - it seemed to be about the size of Vernazza - but very chi chi and expensive. There were several very large yachts in the harbor. The shops were mostly designer shops. I stayed in Santa Margherita and it was larger and more beaches. But if you have never been to Portofino - maybe you should go and have
lunch on the seaside and enjoy the ambience.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32398 posts
Dan, Are you planning to travel from Lerici to either Santa Margherita or Portofino by boat? That's a bit of a distance so travel by train might be faster. If you take the train to Santa Margherita, you could easily stop and have a brief look at the town, and then take the boat from there to Portofino. You can purchase boat tickets at the small Tabachi / Cafe at the station, and then walk down the stairs to the main part of town. There's a small park next to the boat dock, which provides a bit of shade in the hot Ligurian sun. The boats run fairly frequently and the trip is only about 20-minutes. As the previous reply mentioned, there will probably be some Yachts in the harbour, and probably one or more burly crew members standing at the plank to keep the riff-raff from boarding. You'll notice some posh shops as soon as you get off the boat. There are lots of restaurants in the harbour area, which is a great place to have a nice hot meal and watch the activity there. Of course, the prices are a bit on the "high end of the scale". If you walk further up into the town towards the road access, there are more posh shops. There's usually a staff member standing out front to prevent anyone taking photos of the expensive trinkets. You may want to take the short hike up the hill to Castello Brown. It's actually not much of a "hike" as it's a very gentle walk for the most part. The view from there is awesome, but there's a small admission charge to actually get into the Castle. There are often art exhibitions or other attractions on display. I've never travelled from that area to Lerici by boat, so can't offer any comments on that. Happy travels!