4 September 2011- La Spezia

Today we woke up at 9 am and saw a wall of rain and a sky full of grey. Not optimum if you’re looking to go village exploring along the Cinque Terre!

Given that it’s a Sunday, everything- and I mean practically everything is closed. The streets are deserted and save for a handful of cafes, the town square is quiet. Consequently, we settled for a wander through the Promenade (which is where all the boats disembark from to take tourists to the Cinque Terre) and the storm clouds and fog made for some pretty cool pictures.

[Everything is shut on a Sunday:]

[The Promenade:]

We then went to Zara (the only shop that was open) but as it’s in Australia now, the novelty’s worn off and I didn’t find anything particularly interesting to buy. I know it’s only part way through our trip, but my plan of only bringing four tshirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of jeans and a pair of travel pants, with the intention of buying up big while I’m here, hasn’t exactly been working to plan—I can buy the same sort of stuff back in Austalia, so am I going to weigh myself down with more of the same clothes? Everything is so heavy as it is, so I’m trying to keep it simple.

Needless to say, the four t -shirts are being rotated rapidly and I caved in when I saw a rack of colourful tops going to 7 Euros- bargain! Afterwards, we were both super hungry and as the clock ticked over to 2pm, we spotted a little restaurant with about four people in the front dining area. The waiter was a lovely Italian guy who eagerly practised his English. We started with a fresh salad—but unbeknownst to us the kitchen closes at 2:30 pm. As a result, we were offered a select list (of two choices) for the mains and rather than prolonging their lunch service, we decided to have some museli bars and go back to our room for a siesta.

[Fooling around in the street:]

[Lunch time and Man from Mars chews like a moooo cow:]

[Siesta time and we watch some gondola racing on tv:]

[Man from Mars goes crazy with his Iphone games:]

The sun came out while we were having lunch, but by the time our siesta was finished, the rain was pouring down again. By this time it was 6 pm, and we wandered the deserted streets in the torrential rain and hurricane winds, looking for something big and hearty to enjoy. Given our daytime efforts, we should have known better- was it naïve of us to truly believe that the night would bring the city alive? Anyway, it didn’t, and after 5 blocks of walking, only two gelato shops and two restaurants were spotted. We came upon the gelato before the restaurants and so, after slurping down two giant scoops of gelato, we took our seats in an angry-looking man’s restaurant- full of sugar and not all that hungry.

[Man from Mars is such a kid- messy gelato eating!]

Man from Mars had ravioli while I chose a Margherita pizza. Have you ever had the experience where the Aussie version of an Italian dish isn’t the same as an Italian version of an Italian dish? Well, in all my Margherita pizzas, I’ve never had one that was solely made of cheese (i.e. no basil and no tomato base)—so imagine how far my eyes popped when we were faced with a giant plate of melted cheese. Heavy as. We struggled through half of it before sliding across the cobble stones back to our hotel. Drenched and still pretty hungry, we ended up going back to the same pizza place we went to yesterday and wolfed down another pizza in our room. So good.

In the end, the whole day ended up being a bit all over the shop- a bit of a funny hotchpotch day where nothing went to plan and a large part of it was spent flapping about and changing our minds- but I guess in hindsight it was for the best. Man from Mars is still recovering from his (my) cold and it was slow going for reasons outside our control, which all in all, gave us both a chance to take it easy.

Hopefully, the weather will fine up tomorrow and we’ll be able to go village exploring!