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Friday 5th August
Arrived at Pisa airport lunchtime where Phil picked me up and then it was straight off to look at the leaning tower. I was surprised at how easy it was to park and also at how impressive the tower was. It has been beautifully restored and I am pleased we went to see it as it is better in real life than in photographs.
On to Lucca where we found a big car park/aire where it was safe to stay over night and leave Myrtle for the day.
Saturday 6th August
Lucca was interesting, it is a medieval walled city and you can walk or cycle all the way round on the walls under shady trees. We went up the tower with trees on top (Guinigi Tower) and ambled around the narrow streets eating ice creams.
Sunday 7th August
We headed up the coast and stayed overnight at the port in La Spezia, not somewhere we will go back to! Then on to Cinque Terre where I wanted to do the walk between the five villages. The villages are all next to the sea and are linked by a little railway and a footpath. We parked on the cliff and walked down into the first village Riomaggiore. Between the first two villages the path was flat, paved and was crowded with people and my heart sank. But then the next stretch of coast path had been closed so we took a diversion up into the hills. Rather strenuous but worth it for the views. The rest of the path was very much like the Cornish coast path, it was beautiful but lots of up and down! We finally arrived at the fifth village, Monterosso after six hours where Phil didn't hesitate to plunge into the sea in his underpants. I was very reluctant to strip down to my embarrassingly tatty underwear as there was a local swimming competition on and over 200 lithe, tanned, muscled, Lycra clad Italian men were standing around on the beach. We took the train back to Riomaggiore and spent the night up on the cliff top with stunning views.
Tuesday 9th August
The plan was to drive up the coast and find somewhere to stop by the sea. However, after crawling along through horrendous traffic and crowds for an hour we opted for plan B. Yes for the first time on this trip we took the motorway! We stayed overnight on an aire (more noisy trucks and no sleep) and continued all the way to Nice from where we could head north into the hills.
Wednesday 10th August
Arrived last night at Puget-Theniers, nice little aire next to the river where we sat and chilled and watched a little water snake watching us. Barbecue for tea and peace and quiet, bliss.
Today was a great day out. We went canoeing down the Var this morning, the water was a bit low so we had to do a lot of boulder dodging and only managed to capsize once. Phil and I were quite impressed that we both surfaced with our hats and sunglasses still in place.
This afternoon we went out on the motorbike and took a trip up the Gorges de Daluis and Gorges Supres du Cians. A lovely ride with stunning scenery, we especially liked the red rock, it reminded us of Colorado and Utah!

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Comments

[bessie trueman]

sight seeing
back on your adventure again, stunning photos hope weather is good to you. have you got your locks fitted and restocked your fridge. bye for now enjoy. Mum.