Camogli - Portofino 15 km + return by boat

Hike (15 km) from the picturesque village of Camogli to the picturesque village of Portofino via the abbey of San Fruttuoso. In Portofino you take the boat back, first to San Fruttuoso, and then on to Camogli. Hiking times: Camogli to San Fruttuoso 2.5 hours; San Fruttuoso to Portofino 1.5 hours; roundtrip from Portofino harbor to lighthouse 0.5 hours. The boat takes 0.5 hour for both the stretches between Portofino and San Fruttuoso and San Fruttuoso and Camogli.
The hike starts outside the train station in Camogli where you go down the stairs to the starting point. From there you first climb to San Rocco at 221 m where you have a beautiful view of the coast towards Genova. From there you follow trails through the woods to the highest point of the Portofino promontory: the Monte di Portofino at 612 m. There is an old lighthouse ('Semaforo vecchio') there, but not much of a view as the trees have grown too high. From there, the path descends, first to the Pietre Strette, and then further down to San Fruttuoso. This beautiful little hamlet centers around the former Benedictine abbey and can only be reached by boat or on foot. You can visit the abbey (opened at 10.00) and there are bars and restaurants and a beach. When you arrive here before the first boatload of tourists, as I did (9.20), it is serenely quiet and beautiful. From San Fruttuoso, a path goes up to 'Base 0' and from there to Prato and then down to Portofino. Here the route continues to the lighthouse and then back to the harbor. Portofino is a picturesque and expensive village with big yachts in it's harbor.
In Portofino you can take the boat back in two stages, first to San Fruttuoso and then to Camogli (see waypoints for more information). It is a nice way to finish a beautiful walk: sitting in the sun with the sea breeze in your face watching where you walked.
The walk was inspired by but is slightly different than walks 4 and 5 in the german book "Rother Wanderführer: Cinque Terre" by Martin Locher. I saw some wild pigs with young in the woods near Pietre Strette. A gate with sign near Portofino, which you have to close to avoid wild pigs going off in the gardens near Portofino, indicates that they are quite abundant in the Parco Naturale di Portofino.