Saturday

16th September
We leave the lovely Hotel La Pia in Montecatini where we feel we have been well looked after by the friendly staff, it's a bit overcast as we head for the coast and we see several white storks fly over the road. We have never driven this part of the Italian coastline before, it is really beautiful, we stop for coffee and a pastry in Lido di Camaiore but it starts to rain so we drive a little further up the coast. We stop again in Forte dei Marmi it is a very smart place and most of the beaches are private with no public access so we take a long walk along the promenade to a public beach. It is very clean and a place we might like to stay sometime, although we would want to be in one of the hotels with a private beach. The sun is shining now and it is very hot, there are lots of walkers and cyclists with designated paths for each. There is some sort of cycle race and we only just manage not to get involved!
Our hotel, Le Travi, is very much off the beaten track, it's an old house but beautifully decorated, the owners are very friendly and give us a choice of rooms.
We walk into Sarzana to check where the railway station is and train times for tomorrow as we plan to go to La Spezia and onto Cinque Terre. The centre of the town has some lovely buildings and two large squares. Wandering around as far as the city walls we come across the Citadel which is playing host to some sort of living museum or medieval re-enactment. We watch for a while and then walk through the narrow streets back to the Piazza Nicolo and sit outside and order pizzas, when they arrive they are huge - we should have just ordered one between us!!Read more