Sestri Levante in the rain!

So, yesterday the forecast was for quite a bit of rain but it hardly rained on us.  Today, the forecast was for torrential rain and...... well, let’s say we weren’t as lucky as yesterday!!  We got to sleep in a bit as we didn’t leave until 10:00.  When we got to Sestri Levante, it was raining moderately.  We walked around and took pictures by the seaside and then walked up the hill to a church, which allowed us a beautiful view of the bay.

We had free time to wonder the streets and check out the shops but the rain persisted!!!  The die hard shoppers stuck it out and made sure they hit all of the shops while others very quickly retreated to the nearest coffee shop.

We had an included group lunch at the Polpo Mario restaurant.  It may have been the rain but everyone thought that the meal was spectacular, in fact, one of our best yet!

The plan was to then go to Portofino, another lovely seaside village that was high on my bucket list.  However, when we got back on the bus, the rain really did hit the torrential Mark.  We took a vote and only 5 of us would have still agreed to go to Portofino so we got out voted and returned to the hotel.  So now we have the rest of the day to relax and repackaged.  It is not a bad thing as this is a long tour and it is good to have some down time.  We will hit the ground running again tomorrow and hopefully head away from this rain!!!  This only means that I will need to come back to the Cinque Terre and Portofino, hopefully to do the hike between the 5 fishing villages!!

I am sorry that the pictures are so sporadic!!  The internet in this hotel is very weak so the pictures won’t upload. I thought that I would actually get caught up today but it is not meant to be!!!  I will keep trying!!
Ciao for now!!!














































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sorrento

Image
We said goodbye to Assisi and set off on our long trek to Sorrento, south of Rome. We left at 7:30 and drove almost 5 hours in a horrendous downpour.  At times cars were pulled over and we even had some hail.  All the while we were sick with anticipation about this being the day that we go to Pompeii.  When we got to Naples we drove part way up Mt Vesuvius to our restaurant for lunch. It was a very cool drive with lots of switchbacks and amazing views.  When we came out from lunch it had quit raining.  Laura was able to call our guide and he arrived at Pompeii an hour earlier than we had him booked so we could take advantage of the break in the rain.  He was a fabulous guide and we had a fantastic two hour tour of Pompeii.  I think Everyone actually listened the whole time!!   Pompeii is one of the most amazing archaeological sites in the world,  in 79 AD Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried the ancient city under 4 to 6 metres of ash.  It...
Read more

Cinque Terre

Image
With a forecast of torrential rain, we bravely hopped on the bus, headed for the Cinque Terre.  Cinque Terre means “5 lands” and it refers to the five little fishing villages that cling to the hillsides of the Italian Riviera.  These five towns are connected only by railway tracks and foot paths.  It has become a very popular tourist area in the summertime. We went by bus to the nearby town of Sestri Levante.  When we arrived at the train station, Laura got our tickets and we had 45 minutes to kill before our train departed.  Since it is the “off season”, the trains only run once per hour.  We split up to visit several cafes to grab a coffee before we got on the train.  It started to drizzle arounfnthat t8ne so we thought “here goes...”.  We hopped on the train and rode to Vernazza, the second town in.  When we arrived, it wasn’t raining.  We had an hour before the next train came and that was just the right amount of time to explore t...
Read more

Assisi

Image
This morning we said goodbye to Florence and hit the road for Assisi.  We enjoyed views of hilltop towns as we drove through Tuscany and noticed how the landscape subtlety changed as we entered Umbria.  The countryside is breathtaking, with a “postcard” view around every corner. We arrived in Assisi mid morning and met our guide for our tour.  Assisi is built on a hill so we had a bit of a hike to begin our tour.  We started in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, which consists of a lower and an upper church.  The churches contain beautiful frescoes that tell the story of the life of St. Francis, as well as containing the tomb of St. Francis. From the churches, we walked UP the narrow street to the town’s main square.  We then went for a delicious included lunch.  Then we had theee hours of free time to explore and shop.  The sun came out and it was a beautiful afternoon!!!  Most of is hiked way up to the Castle, which gave us amazing ...
Read more