Day 33: La Spezia > Cinque Terre > La Spezia

I slept the sleep of the dead last night.

By the time we got to bed last night, I was exhausted. I’m finding the driving here is very tiring. There is quite a bit of cognitive overload driving a left-hand drive vehicle on the wrong side of the road and trying to ensure that you don’t make any silly mistakes.

Like looking right instead of left, and causing an accident.

And with the added stress of the Italian drivers driving so fast on the motorway, you feel as though all of your brain power has been used up by the end of the day.

MBW and I had a conversation the other day about whether we’d get a car again next time. Despite the challenges of the left-hand drive vehicle, the answer is absolutely yes. We will get a car again in a heartbeat.

The flexibility of being able to stop at little townships and make short detours is invaluable.

And finding all of those little boulangeries.

We woke to a rather gloomy day in La Spezia. It was overcast and cool, about 11 degrees.

I felt like I was at a bit of a loss this morning not making my daily trip down to the boulangerie.

But we had breakfast stuff available to us, so we had muesli and milk and coffee for breakfast. Perhaps not a traditional Italian breakfast, but good enough.

We’re not going to starve.

I made a tactical error again this morning. For the last week or so, I’ve been lugging jackets and jumpers and things around with me and never worn them, so today I decided to leave my jacket at home and just go with my hoodie.

We had decided that we were going to see the Cinque Terre today – a string of five very colorful, very scenic, and very pretty little townships built along the north-western Italian coastline.

There are various ways of seeing the Cinque Terre. I asked ChatGPT for its advice on the best way to see it. The recommendation was to take the ferry all the way from La Spezia to the end (Monterosso), and then take the train back again, stopping at every township.

While I acknowledge that MBW knows lots of stuff, ChatGPT knows lots of stuff too. ChatGPT told me that we would have gone through 150 tunnels yesterday from Nice to La Spezia.

MBW didn’t know that.

So, with the big decision having been made – ferry out, train back – the only thing remaining to be decided was how to get to the ferry.

MBW had done some research, but the results were inconclusive.

So we set out to find a bus that seemed like our most likely option. It was only a few minutes’ walk from our apartment, and as we turned the corner, there was the bus pulling in.

So we jumped on board with the expectation that we could tap our credit cards and pay for our journey.

Wrong.

You have to download an app and then pay for a ticket on the app.

MBW – the clever little chicken that she is – had already downloaded the app, so she just had to pay for a ticket. But I hadn’t downloaded the app yet, so by the time I downloaded the app, put in all of my registration information, then corrected things that weren’t correct like matching passwords, it was time to get off the bus.

So I never actually got around to buying a ticket.

My experience as a serial fare evader continues to grow.

It’s not exactly something that I’d put on my LinkedIn profile, but all the same, everyone has to be good at something.

In my defence, it’s pretty hard to type anything, let alone matching passwords, when the driver is driving so erratically that you’d have a smoother ride on a roller coaster.

We walked the remaining short distance down to the ferry terminal, and we were about 30 minutes early, so we just stood and waited.

That was the point at which I started to regret my decision not to wear my puffer jacket today. It was absolutely freezing.

It’s funny how when you’re in a foreign country, you tend to ignore all of the conversations around you because you don’t understand them. But then all of a sudden you hear something that you recognise. Aussies.

Standing behind us.

So we had a lovely chat with the couple, a bit older than us, from Sydney, who were also waiting to get on the ferry.

There was a French tour group that also got on the ferry with us, so the ferry was very packed.

But still, it was a lovely trip, and despite the fact that I was freezing, we got to see all of the towns that make up the Cinque Terre from the water.

The other Australian couple were going to catch the ferry back and stop in at some of the townships on the way. But we were coming back by train.

The five townships that make up the Cinque Terre are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. All very pretty, but yet all very similar.

By the time that we got into Monterosso, the clouds had rolled away and we were blessed with stunning blue skies.

Getting off the ferry was quite perilous. The seas were quite rough, and the walkway was on wheels to allow it to move with the boat’s movement, so it would rise and fall quite dramatically.

OK for a spritely young couple like us, but tricky for older people.

I think I mentioned earlier that these townships are built on the cliffs on the coast of north-western Italy. Because they’re on cliffs, there are a lot of steps and a lot of climbing to do.

And climbing makes you hot. I was having another costume crisis – this time wishing I was in shorts because I was so hot. I’m glad I didn’t bring that puffer jacket, only to carry it around all day 😀

It was a great day. Tiring, but great. This is one of those things that MBW has had on her bucket list for a very long time, so she can finally tick it off.

Because all of the townships of the Cinque Terre are on the ocean, seafood is their main commodity.

So we purchased a bowl of fried calamari and chips for lunch. Followed by gelato, of course.

By the time we had caught the train, hopped off at each township, and caught the train going to the next one, it was about 4:15 and we were getting tired. Honestly, while the townships are all very pretty, they all start to look the same after a while.

But my vote is for Monterosso, Vernazza and Corniglia as our favourites. They were so pretty.

We made the decision to head on home.

We got off the train at La Spezia and we asked Google Maps to take us to the nearest bus stop that would bring us back home again.

Crossing a road here in Italy is a bit of a dangerous sport. Not only do the drivers here drive erratically, but when you try to cross the road even on a zebra crossing, they swerve to actively avoid having to stop for you.

It’s a bit like Vietnam in a way. You try not to make eye contact with them and just walk out confidently. Even so, it’s still pretty perilous.

There were lots and lots of American tour groups at the Cinque Terre townships today. Their tour guide must carry some sort of a transmitting device and all of the tourists in the group have a receiving device with an earpiece, so that they can listen in.

They look like a bunch of very elderly secret service agents, all listening in on their earpieces.

We got back to our apartment at about 5:15 and dropped into the Co-op to get some things to supplement leftover pizza for dinner.

Tonight, we’re having gnocchi with some ricotta and walnut pesto sauce.

It seems like the right thing to do while we’re here in Italy.

For tomorrow, we have a half baked idea that we might try to get over to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. Word on the street is that parking is absolutely impossible in Pisa so we’re trying to avoid driving at all costs.

But not driving means taking the bus, and that could be a lengthy exercise. And probably stressful. And dangerous.

And I’m not sure if dying in a bus accident is covered in our travel insurance.

I’ll ask MBW what she thinks, but then I’ll ask ChatGPT for another opinion anyway.

My watch tells me I’ve done over 16,000 steps today and climbed 34 flights of stairs, so I’m feeling a little bit weary.

MBW’s keen to watch a movie about Tuscany on TV tonight. Hopefully, we can find something in English. Hopefully, I can stay awake.

Our Italian is improving. We now know how to say “I can’t speak Italian”.

That’s progress, at least.

Ciao

#Europe2025