La Spezia, April 5

Woke up early this morning and after cleaning up and finishing packing we headed out in direction for the train station. We were over one hour early but we hadn’t had breakfast so went to a nearby coffee shop and each ate a chocolate croissant. Our train was early so we were able to board about 20 minutes before our departure. There was a double decker section so we sat there. Much better views of the countryside even though in the end there wasn’t much to see.
La Spezia was the last stop on a milk run. It took 2 1/2 hours to reach our destination. We had good directions to our Airbnb and the owners were there to meet us. (We did stop at the info center to get a city map before arriving at our rental) Ricardo and his wife were awesome even though we didn’t really speak very much as neither of us spoke the other’s language very well. This place is much bigger and nicer than our place in Florence and we are very central. This city is also much smaller than Florence so it should be easy to find everything we want to see and do.

Our bedroom

Bathroom

View from our patio

Little living with tv

Other view of patio 

Our patio/balcony

Large full kitchen, with a washing machine. Bonus

After getting all of the instructions we head out to eat lunch. We chose La Pisa since it was suggested by our host. It’s obviously popular with the locals as it was busy at 1:30 pm. We had a Peroni beer and each a pizza. 

Walking near the marina. Fishermen repairing their nets.

Tour boats to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately don’t run until April 21.

Lift bridge to allow sail boats to go through. 

View from the top of the castle 

More views from the castle 

Beautiful day

Great day for a sail as well 

Orange trees abound 

 Beautiful marina 

As you can see there is an old castle in town. We paid the 3.50 Euros to have a great view of the city and the sea. 

We walk down to the city center and make our way to a market where you buy all kinds of clothing. If  I lived in this city I would certainly shop here and by he looks of things most people do. Amazing prices for Italy. Jeans, dresses, underwear, footwear, jewelry, fabric, etc. We then visited a church nearby, the first one since arriving in Italy. We wanted to soak in the sun so we sat by a fountain for 10-15 minutes. 

Stairs leading up the hillside 

Market 

Ron looking his best 

Inside church- not great lighting 

More market 

We had bought a few fruits from the fresh market earlier and a bottle of white wine called Vermentino. It is made from a grape in this area so we wanted to try it. A bit sweet for me, but not bad after a few glasses. Ha.

We just made reservations in  a restaurant that Ron found online. It has great reviews. It’ about a 30 minute walk so hoping that it is worth it as it will be dark heading back. We asked for 7 pm and we got 7:30. Not bad for Italy. 

We started walking to the restaurant. Ron was very excited about this choice. Unfortunately after 7-8 minutes we had to ask directions. The ones I had taken from Google maps was not very accurate. We were told to take the bus as the walk would be 30-40 minutes. So we cancelled and started looking elsewhere. We finally make a decision around 8 pm. Italians usually have a starter, a first course which is pasta then a second dish which is either meat or fish. This is way too much food for us. I order a seafood spaghetti and Ron does have two dishes, the first being homemade ravioli, the second was shrimp risotto. Everything was very very good. It is now 9:20  back at our place. 

No photos tonight. 

We are looking forward to going to Cinque Terre tomorrow. We will not be able to take a boat tour and it sounds like the walking trails are closed as well. We’ll see when we get there. Going to be a sunny day, so we are happy.