Travel day to La Spezia, Cinque Terre

Our day started off with a stop at Poste Italia. I was hoping for a UPS store experience but unfortunately I got a typical Italian experience. Slow…Gabe was losing his mind. We got some things packed up into a medium sized box and shipped it home. It cost $36 euros. I thought that was pretty good. We are out of room in the car. We finally got on the road to La Spezia. It’s the town we are going to sleep in for the night while we visit the Cinque Terre or the 5 towns. Cinque = 5, Terre= Towns.
Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso
We drove straight to Riomaggiore. Which is the 1st town . We parked and walked down 100+ steps to the marina. Gabe rented us a little boat to see the towns from the water. The boat company suggested we get here as soon as possible because the weather is going to be bad for the next few days. So we got a layered up with gloves, beanies and rain jackets. Even though it was chilly and foggy, the views are beautiful. Seeing the towns from the water is a must! We were starving of course. A family walked in front of me carrying a paper cone filled with Fritto Misto!. Shrimp, calamari, fish, fries…Yumm. I pulled out my phone and found the place. Andrew was in heaven because they had fish and chips. Renee got chicken nuggets which were pretty good. We didn’t get a photo of this. Next time…
Our boat guide was a nice, young man from La Spezia who likes to surf. He told Andrew about surfing in the area. We pulled into the marina in Vernazza to have a little walk around. They have cute shops and lots of restaurants. This town is what the movie Luca was filmed based around.
We got back on the boat and finished the tour down the coast line. It’s not very long. Approximately 2 miles. Lots of people hike from each town but its very hilly and there are tons of steps. It takes approx 5 hours to walk to all the towns. That’s why there is a train and its so easy. Just hop on and off. The ride back to the marina was interesting. The weather was much worse and the rain started. We did have a cover thankfully. But we all for sure got wet.
We walked back to the car and Gabe got his first parking ticket. Oops. We drove back to La Spezia and checked into the hotel. Our suitcases would not fit in the elevator because its so small. So we had to walk up 5 flights of stairs. Oh we haven’t discussed how the floors here are 0,1,2,3…So the 5th floor is really the 6th.
We took the boat captains recommendation for dinner and walked over around 7:30pm. I had a different version of bean soup. It was chickpea and farro. La Spezia seems to be a nice town. It’s a huge shipping port. And the Italian Navy has a base there. The ships were super cool to see docked in the harbor.

Cinque Terre is a National Park and a UNESCO world heritage site.

**Laundry saga - Things have been going well with the washers. I successfully washed at the townhouse and they had a laundry line outside in the yard. I still don’t want to hang dry undies and socks. Hoping to find a coin operated laundry soon.Read more