As if we hadn't gone far enough yesterday, today we thought we would get full value out of our rental car and go even further. How about the beautiful Cinque Terre (five lands). Sure, sounds good. So we hopped into the car reasonably early for us, although still after lunch, and headed for La Spezia. It was a gorgeous day, the sky was clear and the temperature was hot. I was navigating, and thankfully the road to La Spezia is so easy. Once you're on the autostrade, you can go straight there, follow signs for La Spezia and you can't go wrong. So I thought. I have a thing about travelling where after about half an hour of it my eyelids become very heavy. This journey was no exception and as we were on the right road, i put down my article on Bob Dylan's new album and rest my head against the window to the sound of the ground below and the air rushing by outside. My beauty sleep was interrupted when dad asked me which road to take. What a silly question I thought, the autostrade goes straight there. I tried to be asleep and not answer, only when i opened my eyes we were headed instead towards Viareggio. Perhaps it wasn't so straightforward.
We managed to find the autostrade again and head towards the nature park. We eventually arrived in the crowded, bustling seaside port of La Spezia. Turns out there aren't enough spaces for the number of cars but we eventually find a car park, only to be told by a policeman that our car will be towed away if we leave it there. There's a demonstration later on tonight, so we move it, and get the train to Monterosso.
The Cinque Terre are five villages built at the bottom of cliffs by the sea. Originally they were only accessible by boat, but eventually they tunneled through a train track to link all five. We step out at the station of the furthest land, Monterosso. The scene is spectacular. The sea is sooo blue, reflecting the sky above. The temperature is blissfully warm and the sound of the water lapping onto the sand is mesmerising. We walked around a bit and then took the train to the next village, Vernazza for a swim. Vernazza is probably the most beautiful town, the houses are painted in such bright colours and the road leads down to a sheltered little harbour. There Heather and I found a rock, not too secluded, peeled off into our swimwhere and jumped into the warm sea. All the salt made the water so boyant that swimming was efortless. As one of the waves came in, it knocked heather off her balance and she scraped her leg on a sharp rock. We dried ourselves off and after a coffee and a little more sun, headed home.
It was late by the time we approached Lucca, after midnight. We went back to the restaurant we were at on sunday and wednesday. It it ain't broke...
I love spaghetti, but i also love eating new things, so i looked down the italian menu and spied a spaghetti i hadn't heard of before. I ordered it and awaited the results. What came back was a cross between spaghetti and a rock-pool. There was a little bit of spaghetti wrapped around cockles and mussels and clams and octopus. My father is allergic to sea-food, so it's not something I had at home. Nevertheless, I attacked the shells to find the tasty moresels inside. Everything tasted a bit of seawater, added to that I was still covered in salt from swimming in the sea. We returned home tired, with heather in search of some TCP (her cure-all) to put on her wounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment