My Hotels La Spezia Hotel La Spezia

... best friends by the time we left... 7 Euro well spent!!<br><br>Fri 13 Nov<br>Drizzle greeted us this morning so we got on our wet weather gear and headed off for a walk along the coast to Portofino which was 5km away. The wind blew away any cobwebs we may have had but it blew the rain away so we were happy. The walk followed the coast where we looked into the deep blues ...

... the sun went away behind the clouds before we could actually watch it set. Instead we shared a bottle of wine at a restaurant near the marina and listened to the waves crash.<br><br>In my travel book we had ran across a restaurant that was in Manarola and had pretty good prices. Dinner was delicious as I have come to expect in Italy. Ravioli for me, (favorite) and a really weird fried seafood platter for Laura equipped with 'little fishes', calamari, and prawn (shrimp). It was a ...

... a pleasant female voice that we have affectionately named "Fraulein" for our trip. Fraulein would later become our best friend.<br><br>As we moved about through the city heading to the highway, and ultimately to our first Autobahn, another odd tend was noted. When stopped at a red light, the yellow will light with the red for a couple seconds, to signal that the green is imminent. Once the yellow and the red go out, the green comes on. This ...

... bed every few nights... for your benifit of course! <br><br>It took two trains and three hours to arrive in La Spezia and another quickie up the hill to Riomaggiore which is where I am now. The most southern of the 5 lands. I was sitting on the train just enjoying the view, of mountains in the distance and houses speckled throughout farms, until we went through a tunnel, and I saw some flashes of light ahead and ...

... off tourists to 4 out of the 5 towns (the town of Corniglia is too high off the dock with cliffs too steep and thus appears untouched by time). <br><br>We enjoyed the salty Mediterranean and photo opportunities from boat, and got off at the southernmost village, Riomaggiore. There, we enjoyed a leisurely trek along the coast on the famous Via dell' Amore (Lovers' Lane ...

<br> Tuscan Riviera Portovenere<br> 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&#8230; eating sleeping and watching the boats go in and out&#8230; not much English here but we are not hungry or thirsty so all going well&#8230;.<br> Tomorrow we are off to the South of France.. 3 nights planned in Nice.. Really looking forward to it but have loved Italy&#8230;

... the way to the train station who should we see sitting down drinking at a café but Dee! I couldn&#8217;t believe it, wasn&#8217;t she supposed to be meeting the group? I was going to say hello to her but thought better of it, I was too disappointed with her.<br> When we got to the train station we saw that the next train we could get wasn&#8217;t until 6:30pm, but there were a few going in the other direction before then. We decided to catch one back to the third town to find Sarah ...

... I have had various types of seafood (lot's of salmon and anchovies, which are specialties of the region), pasta, pizza...oh it's heaven! We had a pizza night were we (more them than we...we all know the level of my culinary skills) made several types of pizza: spicy eggplant, mascarpone and speck (beef prosciutto, kind of), tuna and onions, and anchovy pieces, capers and olives. Delightful!! We also ate farinata which is essentially ...

... least a little time on the beach. Jess frolicked. Bernie sat very quietly. We then headed straight back to La Spezia and didn't stop at the rest of the towns. Bernie promptly went to sleep and Jess explored a little and went to the group dinner where bananas were desert. Bernie spent most of the night curled up in a blanket nest she had made in the bathroom. Jess spent most of the night awake wondering how to tell Italian doctors what Bernie's symptoms were.

... was hard to find dinner at Levento so we popped into the first available place and I had some nice pasta with peso. The five villages of cinque Terre consist of Monterosso, Vernazza, Cornoglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. The best way to explore Cinque Terre is to hike from a village to another. There were several routes that we can hike or if you are lazy, there is always the train. Our frist hike was from Levento to Monterosso. It was suppose to take 2 hours 30 mins but ...