Camogli and Back Again

Today, we took the train from Rapallo to Camogli, which is on the other side of the Portofino peninsula.

Camogli is a beautiful seaside town with a small harbour and nicely coloured buildings, including some with trompe l’oeils designed to make them look like much more lavish buildings than they are.

Even in the old section of town, a number of the buildings are tall. Although, locally, tall is only eight or nine storeys.

One salient question—at least, salient for me—when seeing these tall buildings was, why?

I probably should expand on that for you. The buildings in the old section of town were all built before the advent of elevators. Who in their right mind would build an eight- or nine-storey building before there were elevators? I mean, really. What the heck were they thinking? Who wants to schlep groceries, let alone furniture, up that many flights of stairs?

That having been groused, elevators have likely since been retrofitted into some, maybe even most of the buildings. However, the elevators retrofitted into old buildings are usually large enough for just one person and a bag of groceries, provided the bag of groceries isn’t much more than one tomato. So, I still don’t know how they deal with moving furniture into apartments.

Camogli is built on a hill. So it’s possible that some of the buildings also have entrances at a higher floor off the next street up the hill. But even if that’s so, some residents would still have to climb up or down a minimum of four floors. And there were some buildings I saw that I’m sure had entrances only on the lowest level.

But, that’s their problem. I was there only as a tourist.

A Church with Chandeliers in Camogli Too

There is a beautiful church in Camogli that, like the one we stumbled on while walking to Santa Margherita Ligure, Nostra della Rosa, had crystal chandeliers. And the church in Camogli had even more of them.

I guess the churches in this area got really good deals on crystal chandeliers. Maybe God told them where to get the chandeliers wholesale.

A sign on the entrance to the church forbade videos and photos. So, the heck with them. If I couldn’t take pictures, this is all they’re going to get me to say about the church. Think of all the business the church is missing out on by me not telling my readers—all four of them—more about it. Then again, my most loyal reader was with me at the church. And they don’t charge anything to enter it. So, they probably don’t care. Their loss.

Tactical Error

Today is Easter Monday. That’s a holiday here. Coming to Camogli on a sunny, mild Easter Monday was probably a tactical error. Half the world’s population also decided to go to Camogli today.

Obviously, that’s an exaggeration. Half the world’s population couldn’t possibly have been there. Rapallo was crowded today too. So some portion of half the world’s population was in Rapallo today. And I’m sure the other half of the world’s population was nowhere near the Ligurian coast.

After spending a few hours in Camogli, including a nice, leisurely lunch, we took the train back to Rapallo. We went up to the rooftop deck that’s part of our Airbnb apartment. There, we drank Prosecco and ate focaccia. Before coming back downstairs, we picked a couple of lemons off the two lemon trees growing in pots on the deck. As a result, had fresh lemon juice in our salad.

The preceding paragraph is just to say that life is good. Well, that is, life is good apart from disease, news of foreign wars, and the usual problems that constantly come along as inherent elements of life, the universe and everything.