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Published: June 26th 2017
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Geo: 43.7496, 7.43701
We boarded the SS Eurodam on Friday about 2-30pm and soon settled in to our cabin, 6141. This is on the starboard side and has a balcony and is very comfortable. This ship is huge, a 10 storey building but the length of two street blocks at least. There is plenty to explore.
On the first night Phil Hoffman Travel hosted a cocktail party for an hour as we left harbour. We said hello to several other travellers from Adelaide. Then we went to find the pub quiz. As most of you know we love quizzes. We were going to go it alone but we were invited by a lovely American lady, Tulli, to join her team and as the first question was an obscure US one we quickly agreed. This proved to be a winner as we came a very close second on the first night and achieved a perfect score the second night. We are now part of the team each night at 7pm and won again on the third night!
Our first stop was Livorno. We had booked a shore excursion to the Cinque Terre. This meant leaving at 7-30am but was well worth it. Unfortunately the day
was cold and overcast and as we left very rainy. This meant we could not use the ferries to travel between the 5 ports but instead had to go on the trains. However, we were still able to see much of the area. Our bus took us through Le Spezia which is a large Naval port with a large harbour. From there we were dropped at the first of the towns we were to visit, Manorola. We walked down the steep slope to the town . On the hillsides all around us were the terraces that make this place unique. All vines and produce are grown on terraces cut from the sides of the cliffs which slope down to the sea. An amazing sight and back breaking work for the farmers who tend them.
Manorolo is a quaint town with pretty houses, many two or three stories to compensate for the slope of the hills ending at the sea. We had about 30 minutes here to look around. We then caught the train to Vernazza which I thought was the prettiest of the places we saw. This had been inundated and much washed away during a flood in 2011 but they
have cleaned up and rebuilt. Our third stop was the largest of the 5, Monterosso. Here we were able to spend a couple of hours. We had a great meal at Ristorante D'Ely and then tried the local Limoncino and Cinque Terre wine. One interesting feature was a church dedicated to the fraternity who prayed for the dead. They helped widows especially bury their husbands. Inside the walls are decorated with smiling stone skeletons.
We returned to Le Spezia and then on the bus to the ship. The weather had improved so on the return trip I got a glimpse of the Leaning Tower and the Duomo in Pisa.
The next day we arrived in Monte Carlo. Fletcher had been there many times so we were not too fussed about what we saw. We did walk up the hill to the old town and the palace. We noticed that it was possible to take a tour of the Palace so we spent a pleasant hour admring the State apartments of the Prince of Monaco. Fletcher, of course will explain that he called in his old drinking mate Al Grimaldi. (He has actually had a drink with Prince Albert late one night at
the Berlin World Champs!)
An eventful couple of days.
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