Travel Review of Portofino, Italy: A Ghostly Tale

I recently wrote two articles that dealt with ghostly going's on in places I have visited but neither one happened to me personally, they were just legends and stories told by historians and passed down over the centuries....This little tale is the exception! It's just a little occurrence but scared me silly while we were on road trip through southern France and Italy.

Portofino, Italy is a walker's delight because cars are not allowed in the town itself but can be a bit inconvenient when first arriving since we had to leave our little Fiat in a car park quite a walk away from where we were staying. They did send someone to help with our luggage though...Our hotel was located right on the harbor in a perfect location but it was quite a schlep so we only brought the bare necessities we would need for the two nights we had planned on being there, leaving the rest in the car... thank goodness we had rented a car with a trunk so our other belongings were not in clear view in the backseat....something we had learned the hard way, years earlier, in Rome, but that's another story altogether.

Our hotel had quite a long history since once it been the home of some very wealthy Italians going back centuries, each time it was handed down the stories went with it....Eventually it was converted into a quaint hotel and we felt lucky to book a room for a pretty fair price during one of their high seasons... we weren't disappointed since the hotel was very attractive and had quite a lot charm and flavor along with friendliness of those running the place.

Portofino is a tiny port town on the Ligurian coast, also known as the Italian Riviera, the name means "Pearl of the world" and it is considered to be an extremely colorful and romantic towns....with it's pastel colored buildings, surrounded by the shimmering aquamarine Mediterranean sea, lapping at it's doorstep in one direction, the hills of the Maritime alps in the other, it just oozes charm and ambiance with a slightly funky flavor.

In the hills above, are homes that belong to the very wealthy, years ago called the jet set, but whoever lives in them certainly must have quite a view below, which must be really something to wake up to each morning...we did a little hike on one of the hiking trails, and each time I looked behind me I almost gasped, it was that beautiful....Looking out into the distance at the yachts and fishing boats bobbing in the water is a sight I will never forget, and certainly defines the term "picture postcard perfect"

But I digress, the town is basically a large square like you would find in most Italian villages, only this one is fronted by the water while it is lined on the other 3 sides with hotels and cafes, intermingled with small shops, expensive boutiques, art galleries and of course tourist kitschy spots selling postcards and inexpensive memorabilia...It is really a laid back kind of place with not to much to do except people watch and eat some incredibly delicious meals in those cafes which featured seafood, freshly plucked from the sea, served with the most incredible pasta...as an added delight they have some of the best local wines, coming from neighboring Santa Margarita...

After dinner we decided to take a walk along the harbor and, if you do the same, be careful not to fall in the water like I almost did after the two bottles of wine we had consumed with our marvelous meal. We had planned the next day to take a boat ride which promised even more incredible sights as it toured the coast line along with a visit to the old church of San Giorgio, built on land settled by the Romans. So I wanted to see where the boat left from...walking around the harbor, at night like that could have turned out not have been a good idea...luckily my husband caught me.

My Ghostly experience:

While dressing for dinner that night my husband finished ahead of me and decided to go down to the lobby to check out what was going on while I was showering.... I had put the outfit I was going to wear on the bed...as I mentioned, this was an old hotel and of course had been furnished in lovely antiques which included a very high bed....to accommodate short people like me, a little step stool was placed beside it, which is where I put my shoes....but a strange thing happened, when I came out of the bathroom my clothes were not on the bed neither were my shoes or the step stool. Scratching my head, I thought I could have sworn I'd put them there, but then I said to myself, maybe you just think you took them out, so I removed them again and got dressed, leaving my shoes beside the bed while I finished fixing my hair and putting on my makeup in the bathroom. When I went back into the bedroom my shoes weren't there but were beside the stepstool next to the closet. Hmmm, very strange I thought but shrugged it off though I did mention it to my husband when he returned to get me wanting to know what was taking me so long to get dressed!

After we had that delicious dinner and our wobbly walk we retired to our room. The bed had been turned down, scrumptious Italian chocolates had been left on our pillows, the step stool was in place and I was happy to get into the comfy down filled bed. Satiated by the fine food and wine I fell immediately asleep, which is unusual for me.

I was sleeping soundly when about 3 am I felt as if I was shaken, hard...I turned over and whispered to my husband "what do you want"? What do you mean, what do I want? He said, why did you just shake me? I asked, I didn't shake you he said, go back to sleep, you must be dreaming, all that wine you drank, he muttered. Ok, but first, I think I'll go to the bathroom, so stepping down, to reach the step stool, I nearly fell on my face, and the stool wasn't there! Now, I'm not crazy, I knew I used it get to get into bed in the first place when I went to sleep....

OK, now I was more than just a little bit freaked out and couldn't fall asleep even if I wanted to, so for the remainder of the night, I pretended to be asleep in order to see what was going on, but, of course, nothing else occurred and my husband slept like a log. In the morning when I reminded him about what happened while I was dressing for dinner and then combined with being shaken awake in the middle of the night, we decided to checkout of the hotel that day instead of staying the following night. Call me chicken if you want but when I was shaken awake it was hard, not just a tiny little shake and I wasn't dreaming and that step stool did not move by itself two times, maybe once would have been in my mind but not twice...so we decided to cut our trip short, just do the rest of our Portofino tourist thing, that delightful boat ride along the gorgeous coast line and a visit to that most interesting San Giorgio Church...we just didn't stay overnight but went on to our next destination which was a short distance away and a different hotel.

So that's my little "Ghost Story" nothing spectacular but it certainly shook me up for a short while, and though it took place about 9 years ago, I remember and can feel that shake it like it was yesterday..

Happy Halloween everyone...may it be a safe one!