Portofino

“This was a lovely rail holiday, without a doubt. It was unfortunate that on the outbound leg there was a landslide in the Alps near Chambery, resulting in a coach trip from Lyon to Turin instead of a train trip direct from Paris. The landslide was obviously not the fault of Great Rail, however it seems that the coach driver made their own decision to drive across the Alps rather than through the Mont Blanc tunnel, as we had originally been advised. This resulted in a six hour journey, instead of four! On our very late arrival in Turin, the driver took a wrong turning, resulting in us all ending up a long way from the hotel, and the driver being totally unwilling to do anything about it. Our tour manager, Lynn, who was absolutely brilliant throughout the whole trip, organised taxis to get us to our hotel. Hopefully the landslide will be cleared soon so future travellers will not have to go through this experience. Our main criticism, however, is that although the Hotel Due Mari in Sestri Levante, where we were based for 7 nights was ok, the evening meals were very poor. This seems to be a problem mentioned in many other reviews, and Great Rail seems to have disregarded this so far. The excursions from Sestri Levante were well organised and excellent, and our tour manager always set our expectations. Our return trip went as planned and our overnight stay in Saint Raphäel instead of Nice (hotels fully booked due to the Rugby World Cup) was a bonus. The hotel, dinner and breakfast in Saint Raphäel were excellent. The train up to Paris was extremely comfortable, as were the outward and return Eurostar journeys.