Annoying cafes and wonderful people and places

Wrote a long entry in Pisa and suddenly the computer quit so nothing got posted! Apparently the system the cafe has just turns itself off when the time is up - they just didn't tell us ahead of time . . . oh well. So - we just quit and went home. I will try to recap some highlights.

So - Venezia - we liked it. 3 nights was not quite long enough. We saw the Guggenheim, the museum and the Doge's palace. Missed the massive cathedral, would have liked to have seen it, although after the Vatican . . . . . Went to the island of Mirano where the glass factories are. The best glass blowers in the world have been born and bred in Mirano for centuries - we saw the glass museum with samples of glass from the first century BC. It was all very interesting but overall not the richness or quality or culture we saw in Florence. Seems to be set up to lure the tourists - one small tourist shop after the other. Lots of shiney things - jewellery, glass, glass jewellery, glasses of every size and color, glass art, glass lighting, glass everything - beautiful, and yes expensive. They will ship anywhere. They will bargain (a bit) on the price. We have very small suitcases so bought nothing to speak of. Food incredibly expensive, some of it good. We stayed in a B&B on the island of Lido, a short boat ride to St. Marc's square.

So - Pisa - yes the tower is still leaning - a wee bit more every year. Food not so pricey as Venice. Stayed one night in a nice little B&B so that we could arrive early in the day at Cinque Terra. We were unable to arrange accomodation before we got to Cinque Terra. Nothing else much to say about Pisa.

Cinque Terra - Oh dear! May 1 is a big big holiday for Italians - its sort of their labour day so it was a long weekend. Turns out that most of the country decided to go to Cinque Terra the same time we did - five little picturesque and remote villages that cling to the cliffs on the West Coast of Italy. There are hiking trails that go between them. Friends have told us - no problem getting accomodation after you get there, there are lots of places that don't have a web connection for prebooking. Hah - that may be true on any other weekend in the entire year.

We arrived and nothing could be found in spite of efforts made by the kind local people we met in the towns. On their suggestion we went to Levanto, a town outside the park of the Cinque Terra, no luck there either - we were befriended by two people who run the Tobacco shop at the train station - I called all the places they recommended - nada! While I was doing that Natasha went into town to the tourist info place and ended up at a travel agency. There she met two German ladies that were having the same problem. The travel agent was able to find a country house for the four of us away up in the hills - she called a taxi to take us there and it turned out that our friend from the tobacco shop was the cab driver. He drove us up an impossibly steep and narrow road to the top of a mountain - much higher than mine - and told us there was no grocery store but there was a restaurant up there in this very tiny village and dropped us off. Good there was a restaurant as we had no food with us since everything just happened so quickly. We all showered and changed and trooped over to this delightful restaurant hanging off the cliff and overlooking the steep valley, the town of Levanto and the ocean below. Walked in and there was NO table possible, they were totally booked - it was after all the holiday weekend! We pouted and imagined going hungry when the phone rang and there was a cancellation! Yippee! We enjoyed a wonderful meal at a very reasonable price, including delicious teramisu!

Next day our taxi driver (now called Papa) arrived to take us down to the town and agreed to take us back up again at the end of the day - no busses - it was a holiday! Had great hikes over the next two days - even though it was a bit like being in a parade, so very many people. Beautiful setting for hiking but a lot like East Sooke park - with thousands of people. The towns are very picturesque, however, totally packed with people! We had to imagine what it would be like there without all the crowds.

The train goes between each town so you can hike one way and train the other - the train experience was something else - wow - many many people squished together and pushing to get on - very claustrophobic!

Our two new best friends Marie and Ann were wonderful and so much fun, we just laughed and laughed. Marie had to drink quite a bit of wine before she could talk English - but she was certainly able to make herself understood even so. Ann could speak English quite well so she had to be the translator. We were so very lucky to have met them.

We spent one afternoon and night on the beach in Finale Ligure another small Italian Riviera town, so that we wouldn't arrive late at night into the big city of Nice as we didn't have a reservation. That night we got the first rain of our trip - a huge thunder and lightening storm - wet pavement the next day but otherwise it is nice in Nice. We were able to easily get a place right close to the old city of Nice. So we will be here for three nights then on to Barcelona for three nights before a week in Paris and then home. Still having a wonderful time!