Europe 2014: Cinque Terre/Portofino 3 nights before driving to Lucca

Saturday 14th June 2014

Having enjoyed Turin, it was time to collect yet another rental car and head south to the Italy's north coast and Sestri Levante. It has been great having an AVIS preferred customer card as mostly they just give us the keys and off we go. We were upgraded us to an automatic Citroen (normally twice the price so that was lucky but it is bigger to manoeuvre). It does everything automatically a bit like our Peugeot at home. Automatic park brake, lights, wipers, rear vision mirror dip, even the radio comes on with traffic information from time to time. But it also does one more thing, it turns itself off (carbon/fuel saving) when you stop at a traffic light, toll gate etc. or pause for too long before reversing into that tiny space you think you may not fit into. It works well and starts itself as soon as the accelerator is depressed.

Oh no we are driving again - this time in Italy

It's wonderful not having to manage the gears as well as drive on the 'other' side of the road and make sense of road signs in a foreign language but it has taken some getting used to feeling comfortable when your vehicle seemingly 'stalls' when you stop, especially when you are already slightly anxious about the crazy traffic around you. The only really tricky time is when you want to move just 1 inch in a car park and have to depress the accelerator to get it to start but then brake quickly to get it to stop.

The roads are just amazing. Must have been 30 tunnels and massive bridges to flatten out the road. Double lanes both ways and separated nearly the whole way. Speed limit usually 130km/h even in the tunnels. The Italians drive very fast especially if there is a road works sign. We drove for over 2 hours for a 20 euro toll. You get a ticket when you get on and then insert that when you get off.

Sestri Levante

Only got honked once and it wasn't our fault as the car in front had my lane blocked. Made it to Sestri Levante and had a walk around and gathered info on our visit to Cinque Terre (5 lands) in the morning.

Sunday 15th June 2014

Caught the train from Sestri Levante to the southernmost C5 town of Riomaggiore (nearly an hour for 4 euros). The 5 towns don't have cars just a local bus. After a while exploring we boarded a boat to Vernazza which was very scenic (8 euros). Fruit for lunch to get ready for our steep/scenic 2hr walk to Monterosso al Mare (the northernmost town). It is the only section of coastal track that is open due to landslides and is best to walk north, like we did, as from the other direction you start with a killer climb.

Both Vernazza and Monterosso were devastated in Oct 2011 when they had 22 inches of rain in 4 hours. They are built in old river courses and the rivers run under the roads and paths but the systems couldn't take that amount of rain and the towns were under 10 feet of mud. The roads now have metal grates the full width regularly and you can see the rivers running maybe 30 feet down under the roads

Tons of tourists in C5 and that would be fine except that they outnumber the locals by such a huge ratio. It certainly is an interesting and beautiful area. Enjoyed a nice dinner on the esplanade of Monterosso and caught the train back to Sestri Levante.

Monday 16th June 2014

Riomaggiore

A day trip to Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure a 30km or so journey. Portofino is ritzy and the closer we got the narrower the roads got. At one stage we spent a minute jiggling so a bus could pass us and other cars. Apart from the narrow road there were people walking on it and motorbikes parked on the side of it and both sides had walls so nowhere to go. When we got to the end we had trouble parking so drove back 3kms and parked about 1km from Santa Margherita. From there we enjoyed a really scenic walk along the water and then through the bush to the port of Portofino.

Had a simple lunch in Portofino (fine dining there requires a fat wallet) and watched a huge boat/motorised yacht reverse in and tie up. We were expecting George Clooney or someone famous to get off but whoever owned this was keeping quiet, just several security/boat crew to be seen washing down and polishing things.

At afternoon's end we took the boat to Santa Margherita Ligure for 6 euros and then a leisurely walk to the car to drive home.

Tuesday 17th June 2014

Driving to Lucca for one night also catching up with Sandy's sister Julie for dinner.