Saturday, July 1, 2017

Italy and Switzerland...Day 5: Camogli...

We woke up on Monday and made our way to the train station in Varenna.  We were sad to leave Lake Como but were very excited about our next stop, the Italian Riviera!

We had about four hours of total travel to get to Camogli.  The most popular place on the Italian Riviera, at least for people from the US to visit is Cinque Terre.  We knew we did not want to visit this area, just because I had read how crowded it can be.  We like more quiet areas and after reading about Camogli, I knew it was the place for us.

Leaving Varenna to head to Milan.  The train station was only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.

We took the train from Varenna to Milan and the from Milan to Genoa.  Our final trail was a regional train from Genoa to Camogli.  This train stopped at all of the villages along the coast.  We arrived to Camogli and made our way to the beach to find our hotel near the harbor.

Getting my first ever view of the Mediterrean Sea.  P.S. I am a fan.

Beautiful Camogli and its beach bums for the day.  Can you believe that beach is all rock?

We found our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed out.  Camogli is a very small working fishing village, so it did not take us long to explore the entire village.  We found a cute spot on the water and stopped for a focaccia sandwich and some drinks.  Focaccia bread came from this area and I have to say, it is amazing.  I could live on focaccia from Italy.

Our refreshing drinks and more potato chips.  Seriously, we ate our weight in potato chips on this trip.  I ate more potato chips on this trip than I have in any other situation.

We quickly noticed that there were very few Americans in Camogli.  In fact, during our three night stay here, we ran into one American man that was solo and one American family.  We did not mind it at all.  In fact, most of the people would approach us and great us in German.  I guess we look German.  

We didn't do a lot our first day, as we had big hiking plans the other days.  We spent most of the afternoon at different beach side restaurants enjoying cocktails and we walked around the boardwalk.

Walking the beach front street in Camogli

Checking out the beach

One of the many fishing boats we saw from the view from our room.

The view of the harbor from our room

The darling streets of Camogli

We found a bakery and stopped for some shortbread cookies to enjoy before watching the sunset from the pier.

Lots of outdoor seating options

Ready for the sunset after a very low key day

Sunset watching in Italy.  Not sure that it gets much better than this.


Happiness, lots and lots of happiness

We walked around and looked at the village without the sun and beach bums.  Camogli is a sleepy little place and it was the perfect place to stay.

The same view as earlier, just much quieter


Beautiful Camogli

We stopped for some gelato and made our way back to our hotel and enjoyed a bottle of wine while watching the fishermen come in with their daily catches.  It was the perfect way to end our first evening in this adorable place.  

Up next, we hike above the Mediterranean!

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