I’ve just encountered the stupidest Internet setup
ever. We are staying at the Park Hotel
Suisse in Santa Margherita. You have to
go down to reception and get a new account and password every time your
computer goes to sleep or you shut down. I could see this happening if you were paying
for a block of time and forgot to logout, but damn it this is supposed to be free.
Arghhhhhhh!
According to our good friends Robert and Annette today was
going to be one the highlights of the tour. Our tour was to visit the five villages of Le Cinque
Terre and the UNSECO designation heritage site of Porto Venere.
We started off by driving an hour south to the main port of
La Spezia. Here we got on a boat to
cruise the northwest coast of Italy.
Pulling out of the harbour we saw Giorgio Armani’s yacht. We also saw Roman Abramovich’s yacht being
built. He is a Russian oil tycoon. It will have 6 swimming pools.
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| Giorgio Armani's yacht |
We also saw the headquarters for the Italian
Special Forces in La Spezia Bay.
Should Liam continue on his desired path to be a vet, he may have a reference contact in Italy. We saw
a sign for vet in La Spezia by the name of Dr. Siegel. I don’t know if he is a relative of Jonah's.
We then pulled into Portoverene. Portoverene is a colour medieval fishing
village. To protect the village from invasion
from the sea, it was designed so that the houses formed a second and third wall
around the village. The homes although
very narrow and tall are currently being used as apartments.
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| Portoverene Marina |
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| Church of St. Peter |
Porto Venere's flag is the Cross of St. George which they adopted from the Republic of Genoa. A local story maintains that England.was so impressed with the fighting abilities of the Genoa navy that entered into an agreement with Genoa to use the Cross of St. George on all its ships.
We then hopped back on the boat and briefly stopped at
the five villages of Cinque Terre. These villages had no rail or road access
until the 1920’s. All the towns are now
connected by train, but only a couple of the towns allow automobiles. Our final stop was at Monterosso. We had long leisurely lunch in a cafe overlooking the sea. This was followed by an afternoon of shopping.
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| Beach at Monterosso |
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| Monterosso |
We did visit a church in Monterosso. The Oratory of the Dead was unusual because it had many icons and statues dealing with death.
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| Oratory of the Dead |
Monterossa was almost destroyed by a flood last
October. This video shows the force of the flood in Vernazza. Fortunately they have made a
full recovery. Unfortunately though the walking trail between the villages has
been closed due to the continuing damage of landslides.
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| Montorosso |
The scenery was quite “spectacular” to quote our good friend
Rocky. The villages were colourful and
the coast line was awe inspiring. Would I call Cinque Terre one of the highlights of this trip? Probably not, but I did enjoy the relaxed pace and ambiance and would recommend it to any traveller to Italy.
Late in the afternoon we came back to Santa Margherita, by train. While walking to the restaurant for diner I saw a war
memorial to the fallen of the war of Liberation, 1943-1945. In other words they only recognize that Italy
fought in WWII on the side of Allies against Nazi Germany. They have forgotten about the Italian invasion
of Ethiopia, Libya, Yugoslavia and Greece, under Mussolini prior to 1943.
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