In
deepest Italy – 22 - 25 September
Can you believe that just as I was about to post this letter last night we ran out of paid time on the hotel's log on?? So here is the report now from an overcast and cool Les Houches. From our hotel room we could look up at Mont Blanc if it wasn't shrouded in cloud. Maybe tomorrow.
And, if you didn't manage to get to the photos of our day in Venice, here they are again:
22nd - On the road and our first toll road (one we’d already been
on coming into the Venice area the other day) confused the devil out of me but now we’re
getting the hang of this. The further we
drove the heavier the smog became but out in the hills it was less
noticeable. We’d over calculated the
distance to Arqua Petrarca and it was only around 90km north eastish and a little
more than an hour away so we arrived around midday.
So far, driving in Italy has been easy enough. We have been warned and even several websites
give Italian drivers minus points. Yes,
many are plain ignorant, but not all. I
just drive along at my pace and ignore any antics, like the flailing arms and
active mouth of the woman in the rear view mirror as we entered the old town
along a very narrow and windy cobble stone road, hardly wide enough for one car
in places. Arqua Petrarca is built
entirely in stone and has been looked after, so it is pretty in a stony way. It winds itself around a hill with numerous
lanes and roads to get lost on.
We were able to check in on arrival and oh, we liked
this place - www.villadelpoeta.it. The small hotel isn’t very old and to us two,
smacked of understated luxury. We had a
bit of lunch in our large room, Howard took a nap while I did some typing and
later in the afternoon we took a walk down into the village. I didn’t take my camera but if you look at
the Monselice photos, you will get the general picture of the stonework. We walked up to the tomb of the poet,
Petrarca and on the way back downhill, stopped to buy some local produce with
the help of a bit of German and sign language, then at another store a very
strongly flavoured lavender gelato, yum!
There aren’t many English speakers in this area though
it’s very popular with Italians and also Germans and, Austrians in particular,
as the areas overlap. As we all
understand, just because you draw a line through a country and call it
something else on either side, you don’t change people.
We arrived in the lovely restaurant downstairs for
dinner and were shown to our table where three wait people fussed over us. First a welcome sparkling wine and a basket
of bread varieties, we could have had more problems with the menu but with the
help of the waitress whose English was good enough, ended up with a tasty
risotto and salad. They bring olive oil
and balsamic to your table in Italy, you dress your own salad (I still rate
Swiss the best). We had more fun with
the wine. First ordering a glass of
Pinot Grigio and then confusing the issue when we asked for the same bottle to
be brought to the table and more so when we were finished and asked for the
remainder to be put away for tomorrow. I
might mention that the restaurant was quite busy while we were making our
demands.
Sunday and the church bells tolled the morning. We arrived for breakfast and discovered that
they do things very differently here too.
Most of the lavish fare was sweet, and although it all looked so
delicious, sweet is not our start to the day, but we managed with the bread
varieties. We decided to do a round trip
through this area and I slowly drove off.
Being Sunday morning there wasn’t much traffic on these country roads. First we saw what looked like a castle atop a
hill in Monselice and drove around looking for the access. No luck but I eventually parked as close as
possible and we started to walk. We
discovered that the best part of the old walled city was in the middle of renovation
and a path led us up the hill to the sanctuary and church. Unfortunately, the path didn’t go all the way
up and we never saw the castle at the top but it was a good look at what used
to be. The restoration work includes
modern shops in old buildings, no car traffic and cobble stones roads.
More driving and the Italians were on the road now –
and overtaking at any opportunity. No
problems for me, at least we were following the speed limits, mostly. We headed for one of the larger conical
mountain/hills with the plan to find a path to get to the top for views. We did find what looked like a regional park
with walking paths on Monte Venda and walked in circles for about 90 minutes
with ever increasing difficulty as the chosen path became rockier and
steeper. There were so many conflicting
direction signs for an ever increasing number of walks as we went on and we
just hoped that we were on the way up.
Well, we never did get right to the top, that area was reserved for
multi communications towers, and the promised panoramas didn’t eventuate
either. The scenery we did see was
heavily smogged. So many hill tops are
littered with communications towers – thanks no doubt to prior premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Once we had passed the top and started
our descent, we thought about where we might come out as we didn’t recognise
any landmarks from our ascent. Happily,
we didn’t come out miles away and ended up back at the car. Sunday must be “lunch in the country” day as
there were many crowded establishments – good for me, for keeping drivers off
the road for a while.
Continuing our discovery tour, we headed toward
another hill top, the Monte Della Madonna Santuaria sits atop. Near the top a picnic area and a huge
restaurant lots of cars and even more motor bikes – so this was where they were
all headed? We walked around the
sanctuary and found their church was the least decorated church we had ever
come across (we are sure of that). Also
at the top, more communications towers.
Eventually we returned to the hotel and had another
wonderful dinner. Too bad we were only
here for two nights. So relaxing. By this stage Howard isn’t so determined to
fill our days with activity and we might actually be slowing down a bit.
Monday morning and another sweet table for
breakfast. I asked our hostess if we
could buy a couple of slices of cake for the road. Obviously a strange request but one met with a
box and lots of silver foil for freshness.
I doubt we were charged for the mouth-watering slices. It was a bit of a sad farewell, we’d have
loved to stay a while longer.
Back on the road and soon on the Autostrada. Just the one toll booth and this time we
rolled up, grabbed the ticket half hanging out of the slot and away. I think we were on various toll roads for
around two hours even though we only went through one booth at either end and
the exit was easy, just put in the card, the boom flies up, take your card back
and go. I’d forgotten to see if a receipt
popped out so we’ll have to wait until I check my bank as to what the damage
was. The smog was still hanging around
and the air even stank. Somewhere between
Bologna and Modena Howard started to sneeze and I started to cough. Also on that stretch we had four lanes each
way, very easy to drive in spite of some madness from impatient and/or arrogant
drivers. I was less happy about three or
two lanes in our direction as trucks – and I won’t be complaining about the
truck traffic on our highway back home for some time – were allowed to overtake
here and they often slowed the pace. We
went through/past many road works and this was where the Italian’s shone, no speed
reduction sign made a blind bit of difference to them and there would be a lot
of red taillights ahead, especially when we were required to detour and cross
over to the on-coming side. Rain for the
last half hour didn’t help. We were in
mountainous country now and I could see villages perched on hill tops in the
distance but we didn’t drop down to the coast until shortly before entering
outer La Spezia, which we chose because it is the nearest city to the famous
walks area and our hotel had a car park.
Anyway, we arrived in La Spezia just after midday
and again were able to check in straight away and didn’t get wet through during
the latest downpour, unpacking our stuff.
The Hotel Ghironi seems to be well known here, appears to have seen
better days but that may have been before the main highway passed its front
door. Our room is large and comfortable
but the bathroom basin tap (a mixer lever type) needs emergency surgery it is
so stiff I can hardly move it.
The
Cinque Terra in one day!
Once again, we had a bit of lunch – helped by some
lovely cake – then decided to walk into town and get the info on the Cinque
Terra. La Spezia is a largish port
city. It is dirty, busy and loud, sirens
whether police or emergency fill the air numerous time a day. The walk took nearly an hour to the railway
central station – and hub of all transport and information. Well, of things that could drive you crazy,
it took us nearly 45 minutes finding and wandering between three different
information locations to get our travel and walk information. We learned (Howard learned, it took me longer
for the information to reach my brain) that the entire walk had been
closed! It had been raining and there
had been a rock slide between the lower two villages. Four Australian women on a pilgrimage had
been caught and two of them serious injured.
Our next plan of attack was to visit every village
on the route and walk around them. Then,
after we thought we had all the information we needed, we went into the station
tobacconist (YES!) and bought all our tickets!
We could have bought train tickets had we lined up in the ticket
hall. With the time we saved on ticket
buying, we got drenched outside by the next downpour. The rain came down so heavily that we were
wet before we got our raincoats on! Oh
well, them’s the breaks, it wasn’t cold anyway and we dried out quickly. Pity the poor town, water gushed everywhere;
the out-dated guttering and draining systems couldn’t cope. The rain didn’t wash any of the sewer type smell
away though. The city itself was grand
once, now it’s just tired. We walked
many colonnades where the tile and stone work paths were just wonderful and
intricate, like the buildings had once been. Found a good sized supermarket and stocked up
on our travelling groceries.
The
big day dawned with early morning rain. We went down to breakfast and were again
surprised. I suppose with a more foreign
clientele the hotel breakfast buffet included a more savoury selection
including bacon and eggs. Eggs looked
good, hadn’t had any of those since I don’t remember.
Our bus stop into the station was just across the
road and it didn’t take long to reach the station. Our train was at the platform waiting. We’re impressed with the inside condition of
both trains and buses, could do with a few of these back home. Plus the ticketing systems in Europe seem to
work quite well when we in Sydney can’t get the integrated system going at
all. Back to the story; did we really
think that we could do this walk in one day?
We were well and truly kidding ourselves. Just because the distance between the five
villages is only 9 km and the guide says 5 hours. We would never have managed walking the track
AND exploring the villages. We started
with the furthest village which had a beach and went down to check out the
rocks, many of which are now sitting in a box in our room. Although rain threatened a couple of times,
the day became progressively brighter. We
really enjoyed the adventure though you wouldn’t catch me taking a holiday in
any of the villages, too claustrophobic for me.
Although we’d packed a lunch we managed to have morning coffee at a
beachside café in the first village, lunch in the third, a cooling glass of
wine in the fourth and a refreshing gelato at the last. What more can I write? Check out the photos.
Tomorrow we head to Chamonix (we're here now, down the road in Les Houches), France. We’re enjoying the slowdown in activities although I
believe that HP will have at least a couple more walks for us in Switzerland. More as soon as we do something worth talking about. xxx
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