Santa Margarita/Portofino, Italy

After the two hour wait for our flight from Barcelona, where we took advantage of the outdoor patio's cocktails, we were finally in Italy.  We headed out to simply pick up some wine from Rachelle's friend's bar for quiet night in,  because we had only slightly freshened up from our beach day and plane ride, but to our"surprise" we ended up closing down his bar and hanging out with the locals until the sun came up.  We must say Santa Margarita with it's port and seaside location are beautiful at dawn! We obviously slept in, started some laundry and got ourselves moving, finally....Rachelle made us a delicious lunch for a pick me up and we headed out to grocery shop and meet Nicole, Rachelle's friend, for a Bellini.  We put away groceries, continued with laundry and got ready for a night on the town.  At the first stop, we met another of Rachelle's friends, who so generously ordered us, the worst vodka martini, we'd ever had. Each of us struggled to choke them down, causing nausea and cold sweats, but we finally managed and headed to enjoy an delicious dinner of pesto lasagna (Santa Margarita is known for their pesto--they certainly didn't disappoint), margarita pizza and a traditional steak prepared the Milanese way ( pounded out and coated in bread crumbs and egg).  Still feeling a bit hungry--likely a residual affect from the night before--we also got prosciutto and melon to "cleanse" our palettes.  After more cosmos, we went dancing at a new local club,  again staying out until the wee hours of the morning.  When we woke up, Rachelle made anther delicious lunch with the groceries we had bought, we got ready and headed to Portofino.  We enjoyed all that Portofino's beautiful city had to offer and yes, another cocktail or two.  On our way back, we arrived at the bus stop, only to find that our bus and come and left just minutes before.  Fortunately, a taxi drove by just in time and we head back to Santa Margarita. We missed the local pesto cook off by another few minutes,  unfortunately, so we moved on to dinner with another two of Rachelle's friends, who ordered the local fish for us.  That night we called it an early night (1:00AM)and headed to Cinque Terre early the next morning.  Cinque Terre did not disappoint, the villages were just like the pictures and insanely pretty! After a long day of walking and sightseeing, we headed home for a healthy meal waiting for us--thanks Rachelle!  After dinner we researched hotels and things to do in Tuscany.......