Lazier by the hour, we didn't get to breakfast until well after 9. Everyone is sold on beach club day, but first we "drag" the kids to Portofino. The bus ride takes ten minutes or so, every possibly inhabitable part of the shore line has been privatised, you can even "Beach Club" on a pier. But the tiny bays are beautiful all the same, old castles, fortresses and family homes dot the shoreline.

At Portofino we're surprised how small it is - a tiny bay, maybe the size of Shelley beach, the super yachts sit shoulder to shoulder in the bay, but the biggest sit out in the open water with impressive vaporetti moored in the bay for access.

We had a rolling espresso on a pontoon cafe in the bay, strolled the shops - nasty tourist trash side by side with Ferragamo, and inched our way around this beautiful bay. The villas climbing up the walls of the valley look like an awful way to spend your retirement, while the party kids on the super yachts in the harbour look like they have plenty of ideas for spending away the retirement nest egg that morphed into an inheritance. A coffee, coke and Pellegrino was €25, we headed back to Santa Margherita.

We got off at one end and strolled to the other looking for the best club for the day. Along the shore were market sellers of antiques and curios, if we had a way to get such heavy and bulky things home we would have. From first edition Pinocchio prints to vases to fill a room they had everything here - most tempting the reclaimed Channel CC from the door of a previous store, would have impressed Gab, but weighed a ton.

We chose Club Helios, private beach, private pool, jacuzzi and restaurant made it the perfect place for us. €70 set us up at our own deck chairs for the day, and frankly a blink later it was 6pm. The kids made friends with a few Italian kids, it was funny to watch them all reduce their game play to what they could mime or convert with their limited common tongue but they all had fun for hours. Gab and I relaxed the afternoon away: Sleeping, plunging, sipping - the fitbit says it's the laziest day so far but ohhhh we feel good.

On the bus back we met a Canadian father & son backpacking around Italy. The son turns 21 next week but was more taken with Fid turning 12 and starting high school next year. They talked travel and rugby for the short ride back to Rapallo.