29 June 2013

Italy--Portofino Wedding!

June 2013

I was invited to a wedding by one of my colleagues from work, Evgeny Chuikov.  His wedding was in Portofino, Italy, so it was a great excuse to go to Italy for the third time in a few months (since April).

Of course I would fly into Milan and get my bike, and then ride down to Portofino.  Actually, there are hardly any hotels in Portofino, and they were all booked and/or very expensive, so I got the same hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure where I had stayed before (Best Western or something?), right on the harbor.  Here are some shots from my balcony:


 Here are a few shots from walking around town, although the town is nothing very special:

The first night was a dinner down by the harbor, and it was very nice; one of the restaurants had hired a female singer, and she was really good...a very nice evening.

The wedding was the next day.  It was in the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, which is an amazing place, on the top of a hill overlooking the town.  Here are some pix of the hotel, and of the wedding:









 As you can see from above, the wedding itself was very nice, and the reception (see below) was spectacular, with everything from magicians to opera-singing Italian waiters.  Very nice...

 One of the guests (see below)was also named Reiter, although she was Russian, from St Petersburg.
And of course after the reception everyone went to a club, although it didn't really stack up to Moscow standards:
The next morning I had to head out again, back to Bellagio.  Here is the bike parked in front of the hotel in Santa Margherita:
And of course the obligatory Bellagio/Como/ferry shots: