We headed into town for dinner and having no idea where to go found a hotel that didn't serve food, but a lovely couple said they were heading to a town five minutes away called Ovada, for pizza, follow them. We did, and ended up in a great restaurant with very nice food. We were lucky that they spoke for us and got us a table in a place we would never have found by ourselves; very tasty pizza and red wine night.
We travelled down the coast expecting to find a lovely Mediteranian beach to soak up the sun for a few hours, how wrong were we. A very highly populated and rugged coastline, no parking and not an inch of beach space to spare even if we could have stopped. The views were great from the top and the day was cloudless and hot.
We ended up in a city campsite in a town called Sestei Levante, in the province of Genoa, and walked to the beach which was about a kilometre away. The narrow streets we walked through before the beach had many historical buildings, arty shops and foody places. Again very crowded and a thin strip of beach with buildings dominating the bay. The adjacent beach which was more open, was covered with beach goers in hire chairs, and umbrellas and it wasn't even a weekend!
It certainly reinforces my appreciation of the beaches in New Zealand, our water temperture is cooler, but we have beautiful beaches that are easily accessible by everyone with wide open spaces, and parking!
Our destination the next day was Cinque Terre and the town of Vernazza. This is one of the five more known cliff side historic villages along the coast. The drive into each village is winding and narrow, it seems most visitors take the train from Levanto, or there is a walking track connecting each coastal village if you have the time. We drove and were happy to pay for parking, luckily finding a spot. However the walking track along the coast would certainly be something to plan for as a holiday destination.
The village had a castle and old high rise buildings of different colours, a sea wall and several small craft moored in the bay, outside restaurants with colored umbrellas making it a very picturesque spot. Swimming was possible and we took a quick dip to cool off as again the temperture was 30+. There were heaps of tourists, but a relaxing spot! We took the opportunity to go into the castle to get a full view of the coastline from the tower. To finish off we had gellato before our walk up to the car park.
I would have loved to visit each village rather than view the others from the road, but you needed more time than we allowed. Great day however.
Using the GPS to locate a campsite, we finally arrived at a busy site called Camping Gianna, which was terraced camping amongst an old olive grove. It was home to lots of permanent caravans with built on decks and verandas. The camp had a pool and restaurant which was welcome. We watched the Argentina - Swiss game, 1-0 into extra time.
Before we headed away in the morning we walked to the closest accessible piece of beach and managed to get a spot because we were early. Half of the small area was taken up by a cafe with rental chairs, roped off. Again the weather gods are in our favour.
We only had a small distance to travel today to Pisa, and are staying here for two nights about two blocks from the marina and beach in a B&B, again limited access to some areas of the coast. Jim has been doing all the driving and we need a rest from the busy roads here.
Some of you may scoff, but it's quite a busy job planning your route, finding out what to visit, making choices and finding accommadation, not that we are complaining.
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