Living the Good Life in Portofino

The view from Elena's house. Breathtaking.
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The rich and famous of New York City summer in the Hamptons, while the beautiful people of Boston relax at the Cape. If you are from Milano and you want to be in a place where you can see and be seen, Portofino is the place for you.

Once a sleepy fishing town on the Tigullio Gulf in Liguria, today it has become one of the most popular spots on the Mediterranean, its main piazza on the small harbor one of the most recognized points of interest in Europe. Still quaint with its painted facades and narrow, steep streets, Portofino is also known for its chic designer boutiques and outrageously expensive prices. A weekend in this posh little town can ruin someone’s budget – especially someone with my budget- unless you happen to have a very dear friend whose family owns one of the most amazing houses in town.

The rich and famous of New York City summer in the Hamptons, while the beautiful people of Boston relax at the Cape. If you are from Milano and you want to be in a place where you can see and be seen, Portofino is the place for you.

MMM... focaccia!
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Luckily I have such a friend, my ex-roommate Elena, who was kind enough to invite three of us to spend an end of the summer weekend at her place in Portofino. The house, built in the second half of the 1800s on top of a mountain behind the town, is surrounded by a gorgeous garden and it offers the most amazing view one can ask for. But what really was amazing, as we reached her house, was the road we had to take to get there. My car, a pretty small Audi A3, had to be left behind because too big for the road, and we had to cram our begs and ourselves into a Fiat 500, a matchbox with wheels, to climb up the mountain and get to Elena’s house.

The table where we had breakfast and lunch... a nice relaxing corner of the garden.
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It was late on Friday night, and I was tired by a three hour drive and a half bottle of red wine that I had with my dinner, so I didn’t have the chance to appreciate the breathtaking view until the next morning, when I joined my host, her mother and the other friends for a quiet breakfast on the veranda. I called it “breakfast”, but brunch might be a better word to describe it: we drank coffee and champagne, and ate focaccia, cheese focaccia and salame. The whole region is famous for making the best focaccia in Italy: it’s thin, crusty and generously dressed with extra virgin olive oil, a culinary delight one has to try while in the area. After our decadent breakfast and a lazy afternoon by the pool, we were ready for our night out.

The famous square in Portofino.
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We crammed ourselves in the Fiat 500 and drove down the mountain to Portofino’s famous harbor, where people were strolling around and having pricey drinks by the water. We decided to follow suit and set down at one of the many bars in the piazza, ordered a vodka martini and enjoyed the nighttime breeze. When it was time to pay and leave I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the drinks were 9 Euros each, only a couple of euros pricier than most regular bars in Europe. For dinner we drove up a mountain again, over the small town of Zoagli, and feasted at a restaurant called “Le Due Quercie”, famous for its seafood and beautiful views of the Gulf. The appetizer of smoked tuna and swordfish was amazingly tasty, and the Vermentino –a refreshing white wine- complimented it to perfection.

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On Sunday afternoon, after another good night of sleep, we took a nice walk from Elena’s house down to Portofino downtown, a leisurely half hour trip with more beautiful views and a couple of interesting encounters with wild pigs. She pointed at all the amazing villas on the sides of the mountains and told us about the rich and famous people who vacation there, and some good town gossip you can’t find on magazines.

When we reached the piazza we sat down for one last drink before getting back in the car and driving back to Milano. It was five o’clock and the square was still packed with people, mostly day trippers taking pictures of the quaint, narrow houses and the old boats sitting in the harbor. I picked up a few slices of focaccia from Portofino’s most famous bakery and got into the car: it was time for us to leave, because if there is one bad thing about Portofino is the never ending traffic jams that form on the highway on Sunday nights, when all the tourists and weekenders reluctantly leave the peace and quiet of the Tigullio Gulf.