At about 11 a.m., we agreed that we had packed enough and should partake of this lovely town that lies along the coast of the Italian Riviera. A wise choice according to Chris, our assistant tour director, who told us that if we had docked at any other port on the coast, we would being paying for a tour to Portofino to sit in one of the lovely outdoor cafes to enjoy a glass of wine or a mug of beer. The best site was seeing Captain Andrea Poggi, wearing khakis and a polo shirt rather than his brilliantly white uniform. He and his family live so the outskirts of Genoa so after 106 days of sailing us around the world, he was starting his vacation on the last full day of ours. He looked so happy and relaxed. We actually had a new captain for the last day of the world cruise but no one ever learned his name.
We walked through the charming streets to the hill at the end of town, which Ken wanted to climb and Sara mistakenly thought led to the castle. It seemed as if we climbed straight up or tread cautiously on steep stairs. Of course, Ken charged ahead. When Sara got to a fork in the path, she sat down on a step to study what the ship referred to as a "somewhat accurate map." Two couples who were hiking up the hill told her if she went to the right, she would eventually reach the Gulf of Genoa, where she could take a ferry back to Portofino. After hiking for several hours on the path to the left, she would arrive at another village. With neither choice sounding appealing and no euros in her purse, she decided to stay seated on the step until Ken came back. When he joined her and they reached the place where the path started on the out-skirts of town, they learned that the road to the castle was near where the tender had dropped them. While described as winding with several sets of steep stairs, the walk was a breeze after Ken's ambitious hike.
On the way to the castle, we stopped at the Church of San Giorgio, which stood on the ground of the temple dedicated to the Roman god Mithra, the god of the sun. There and in other churches in Portofino, we were amazed by some of the most ornate crucifixes we have ever seen, with Jesus either a white or black man. In the back of the church was a cemetery with all the graves above ground.
The original castle was necessary to dominate and protect the port and the gulf, so naturally its location was at the top of the hill. Because traces of the Roman culture were found in the 1950s among the building materials, which dated the castle to the II century. The castle did save Portofino from several attacks. After the Congress of Vienna and the return of peace in the 19th century, the Kingdom of Sardina was not interested in keeping the castles or fortresses working because they needed constant and costly maintenance while their strategic value was negligible. When the sale of the castle began in 1867, the English Consul in Genoa, Montague Yeats Brown, bought the castle from the State for seven thousand lire. He had fallen in love with the place after seeing it from his ship Black Tulip while sailing in the Tigullio Bay. His architecture and engineer transformed the castle while not altering the original design. When Brown died in 1905, his children inherited the castle and looked after it until 1949 when they sold it to John and Joceline Baber of England, who completed valuable works of renovation so the stones could talk about what men's history could not tell. In 1961, the Babers sold the property to the Municipality of Portofino so everyone could enjoy its incredible beauty, fairytale setting and breathtaking views of the Gulf of Genoa.
While we were impressed by the furnishings and sculptures and posed Punxsutawney Phil for photographs with the antiques and voluptuous metal women, we enjoyed most the black-and-white photographs from the 1950s and 1960s of such luminaries as Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren and many others who vacationed in Portofino when the village came to international prominence. When we left the castle, we strolled among the vendors with their fashionable and pricey goods. Several women remarked that Ginger had scarves similar to those displayed, and Sara assured them that Ginger probably had spent that much money for hers--remember the three-scarf day that Joe so lovingly name after Ginger's shopping spree in Singapore. We talked with Timmy, the 19-year-old ship's dancer, and his mother and grandmother who had recently joined him on the cruise. Mom proclaimed Timmy's performance in last night's grand finale by the Pacific Princess singers and dancers as fantastic while Grandma said he was better than she expected.
When we returned to the ship, we finished packing and zipped up our suitcases. The evening's entertainment was the Texas Tenors, the 2009 winners of America's Got Talent, who were highly touted by Brett, our cruise director who had watched every show on which they competed while on his summer away from the ship that year. While most of us had never heard of this trio with a combination of operatic and country-western styles, we all quickly became big fans. The singers and dancers appeared one more time to dazzle us with their costumes, kicks and vocal range for Donna Summer's Last Dance. What a fitting tribute to an absolutely awesome trip!
Do we really have to walk down the gangplank for the last time tomorrow morning? More than a dozen passengers including Terry and Jack will be staying on for the 12-day Mediterranean Cruise to the Holy Lands, Ginger and Joe will be spending four days in Rome before flying to Toledo, and we will fly to Ireland for eight days for our first trip to the Emerald Isle before reentering reality.
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