It took 2 hours to drive from Frienze( Florence) to La Spezia.
Here we boarded a boat and headed off to Portavenere which is a beautiful
fishing village. From there we cruised to Riomaggiore, which is the first
village of Cinque Terre (5 villages). We quickly realised that the Romans
invented concrete and the Italians found the most obscure places to use it,
such is Cinque Terre. The 5 villages consist of Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia,
Venazza and Monterossa. However, our tour did not stop at Corniglia (very small
not much there at all) and Venazza as it was destroyed recently by floods and
is slowly being rebuilt.
After such an early start and all the walking up and down and
around the villages we were very hungry and we had lunch at Monterossa. Our timing was perfect as it poured with rain
during our restaurant stay. Lunch once
again cost 50 Euro.
We then headed back to La Spezia by train and followed by a
2 hour mini bus trip back to Florence.
We had a light dinner and once again an early night. We are obviously getting old!!! Our young friends from the tour said the
night life in Florence would be exciting – we passed.
We were driven at speeds up to 160kmh yet we felt very safe.
The drivers on the motorways are very courteous and move to the right (Europeans
drive on the opposite side of the road from us) whenever someone approaches
from behind at a greater speed. While we were in England our driver said that
the police were trying to increase the road speed from 70mph to 80 mph( 120 to
140kmh) because they say that speed doesn’t kill reckless or stupid driving
kills so your rarely see a speed camera on the motorways in England and not one in Italy.
Tomorrow we are off to see the Academia and Uffizi
galleries. (Statue of David, paintings by Michaelangelo, Donatello and the
other 2 mutant ninja turtles.
Another record has been broken: Colene did not spend a
single euro today, so it was a good day for the budget. Heaven help tomorrow!
Ciao.
The start of a wonderful day.. Portavenere. All the villages depend on fishing hence the word Barca (Italian for boat) is everywhere.
