Last week I travelled to the Italian Riviera (now there’s an opening sentence I never thought I’d write), spending seven nights at the delightfully rustic Casa del Pellegrino, a former monastery in the hills above Rapallo that now functions as a retreat centre.
I went there with the aim of working on my novel-in-progress (current title: Kintyre In My Rear-View Mirror) together with two fellow writers, T & G. Although our schedule was fairly loose, we quickly settled into a rhythm of writing, workshopping and, of course, eating.
But getting to Casa de Pellegrino from Fryslân was a story in itself, involving a train from Leeuwarden to Schiphol to catch a flight to Basel, which I’d booked after my NightJet reservation from Amsterdam to Zurich was rudely downgraded from sleeper to seat. Maybe if I was thirty years younger.
I spent a rainy and forgettable night in Basel, then hopped on a train to Zurich the next morning. After taking a a stroll around the old town I boarded a Trenitalia service for Genova (Genoa), just six hours, countless tunnels, multiple delays and a gigantic stretch of the Swiss Alps away.
Arriving in Genova to brilliant sunshine, I spent the next two days roaming the city’s many atmospheric streets, eating compulsory amounts of foccacia, gelato and pesto Genovese and sculling espresso. I also took a return trip on the Funicolare Zecca-Righi, and checked out the castle ruins at the peak there.
On Sunday, I caught a local train along the coast to Rapallo, gazing out at the umbrella-shaped pine trees and the pastels of the Ligurian architecture. While waiting for T’s train to arrive, I spent an afternoon wandering Rapallo’s promenade and watching cricket on my mobile phone.
To arrive at Casa del Pellegrino from Rapallo, one can take a bus that winds its way through increasingly steep hills to the Santuario Basilica Nostra Signora di Montallegro. From the sanctuary, it’s a ten-minute walk along a path with magnificent views of Rapallo and the Mediterranean.
Or, one can take the funivia (cable car), which is much quicker but comes with a big dose of vertigo. As the funivia was closed on the evening of our arrival, and the bus wasn’t running, T and I took a taxi, and for the steep fare were rewarded with some stunning view of the Riviera unfurling beneath us.
As a special bonus, when we arrived at the sanctuary our bags were whisked across the airspace to Il Pellegrino via flying fox. It really was the golden hour, and we couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the place where we would spend the next seven days writing our derrieres off.
As for the writing itself . . .
I’ll probably need to draft another post about that.