Al Terra di Mare Levanto

We will be staying Riomaggiore (one of the five villages) and have booked our accomodation already at Casa Lorenza  We will be staying in apartment Nettuno.

What shouldn't we miss while we are here?

... randonne de 4.5 heures avec des vues incoryables sur la mer et les falaises.

avec le retard du train, nous somme revenue a Pise en debut de soiree. Apres un autre excellent repas accompagne d'un chianti local, je me lance a la recherche d'une auberge pour notre destination de demain : florence

... so we decided it was best to settle away from the centre of town for a change and park in a residential district about 1km away... much more tranquilo!!

Splashed out on take away pizza for dinner but ate it in the shop and washed down with a bottle of beer. We became the hot topic of conversation when owners and local patrons found out we were Australian and were ...

Our first train transfer was in Pisa, we had only about a 20 minute time frame to switch trains so unfortunately we couldn't make the 30 minute walk to the other side of the city to see the leaning tower. I can at least say I have been to Pisa though. I'm pretty sure they purposely put the train station as far away from the tower on purpose so you have to spend extra time in the small city and spend more money. Maybe next time.

In La Spezia our transfer didn't go as well ...

Tuscan Riviera Portovenere
Had seen it on Getaway and looked very pretty.. Found a hotel with sea views and have spent 2 nights here resting , climbing around local castles… eating sleeping and watching the boats go in and out… not much English here but we are not hungry or thirsty so all going well….
Tomorrow we are off to the South of France.. 3 nights planned in Nice.. Really looking forward to it but have loved Italy…

... but all very lovely. We finsished yesterday at Monterosso where you can look back down the coast and see all five towns.We have been eating lots of fantastic food - really fresh seafood, more pizza and fresh fruit. Levanto is a holiday town with a beach! Unfortunately the sand is dark grey but there are still people swimming etc - I may go in this afternoon if it gets warm. The weather is fine today but we had some showers mostly ...

... easy for me.... and why should he, you learn better when an experience is difficult right? Anyway, that first morning on the train to Levanto I was sitting by myself. Angus had sat in a different carriage to me most likely to stop himself from throttling me - and for good reason, I was ready to throttle myself too. Giving me this space was the best thing for me. Although I adore Angus I need a lot of alone time - because we are going going going on this trip I run out of steam quickly ...

... that our bus driver had driven this route many times before; I think I would have been more scared had he not known the route. I said the roads were narrow -- they were two way roads that would have only been a one way back home. There are several points where there is an area just off the road that looks like a parking spot in the middle of nowhere, but it is really a spot for one car to pull off and wait while another passes. Once, when we were turning a corner, we came nose to ...

... the little towns didn't really provide for cheap self-catering travellers. We decided to get meat, fruit and veggies from little deli's rather than the supermarket as the selection really was fairly poor in the supermarkets. It made for an entertaining experience with a lady in one of the delis when getting some sandwich meat. We were trying to tell her which type we wanted and Carmel flapped her arms like a chook and the lady said no, no, no pollo and made a ...

... gikk tilbake, Petter gikk for å øve, jeg fikk kontakt med Alfonso fra Madrid. Det var en pussig skrue, å vi bestemte oss for å slå følge til La Spezia. På toget traff vi en tysk jentegjeng som skulle til Levanto, jeg flørtet med ei som het Susanne, hun var ganske søt. Vi fant ut at vi også skulle til Levanto, og Alfonso ble med. Det var en fin tur, nydelig natur, behagelig varme og lite folk. Det var ganske gøy selv om vi reiste om dagen, tog er ...