Italy
Road trip in Italy (Massa, Pisa, Cinque Terre and Benevento)

Road trip snacks and movies

We left the French Meditterranean and drove towards Italy along the coast.  The last big city to pass through was Monaco before we crossed through the tunnelled mountains.  Now we only just drove along the top of this famous city, but what a site it was.  Hotels, sky scrapers, beach and pink.  One minute we are in France and the next Italy with only a couple of hours under our belt. Living in Perth, Australia, you don't really get very far or a destination really after 3 hours let alone another country, so it was a bit of a novelty for us.  Immediately upon crossing over you see a vast difference from the lifestyle from the South of France into this hardworking countryside of terraced farms with hothouse market gardens.  Imagine the padi rice terraces in Bali, though these are large enclosed veggie gardens.  Using the land is always a smart thing to do in creating an income.. The homes were far from palatial or elaborate but rather barrack like, and needing some love.

This road trip in our green bus takes us through San Remo and down to Massa, which is on the coast and part of the Tuscany region.  It was not so much the town that we wanted to visit but establishing breaks from driving in between towns.

View from apartment terrace in Massa

 MASSA is a industrial town filled with yard after yard of marble slabs on pallets waiting to be shipped out and placed in your kitchen.  Upon arriving at our destination on the coast, we were greeted with private beach clubs lined up one after another, it is a locals summer playground with full service clubs. Many include a childrens play areas, tennis or ping pong, restaurants, bars and tiny little huts to store all your summer paraphnalia waiting for you each summer holiday season.  Here we were able to continue with our exercise on a much flatter terrain and not the cardiac hill of Extarri.  Tony challenged himself to get back up to his 10 km goal without pain...goal achieved.  Between visits to Pisa and Cinque Terre we managed to knock off quite a bit of home and world schooling.  The kids are happy to have 1 or 2 hours a day rather than a main stream school day....bribery included!


Day 2 - We did a day trip from Massa over to Pisa, approx a 20 minute drive and did the tourist thing as everyone does in Pisa.  Take pics and simulate your kids holding up this teetering magnificent structure.  Our 1st visit to Pisa was in 2001 and we understand that the tower has tilted a further 5cm since then.

Day 3 - We ventured into La Spezia with high hopes to board a ferry to take us to one of the stops in Cinque Terre.  Of ourse we were in no hurry and taking everything in stride.  After painfully listening to Annoying Annie taking us to a port for shipping lines, we decided to pull her battery and rely on the street signage to get us to our destination.  Once there, we realized there wasn't a parking spot to be had, after much sighing and trying to ascertain what the parking signs meant, we aborted the mission and resolved to try again the next day.

Day 4 - Up early and ready to tackle the parking and hopefully arrive before the ferry departs.  The website for the ferry schedule is not up to date and as it is dependant on the weather.  As it was, there were only 2 departures from La Spezia for the day due to poor weather conditions with stops only in Portovenere and the first village of Monterosso al Mare.  We found our park paid our coin to the meter and made the ferry with 10 mins to spare.  The sun was shining and the wind was up.  It all started off lovely with a slow cruise out of the port and on our way to our first stop of Portovenere.  Once out of the protection of the bay it started getting a little sloppy and waves were rolling the boat from port side to starboard side and not only that but bow to stern.  Great!  I am not the most fearless of individuals and lucky for me we were on the top deck and not enclosed as I fear my breakfast would have appeared as one gentlemans did.  I felt for him, as I knew very well it could have been me.  It is all in the power of the mind with seasickness, so I stayed positive for the journey not only for myself but also for Emma and Hamish as my fear would have made it unbearable.  Emma was fine, but Hamish was alreay with me with the movment of this vessel. He stayed very quiet throughout the trip and when his little hand slipped through mine ever so gently and remained there I knew I had to provide him the reassurance.  It was a moment in time where you know your children are still so vulnerable even though they are seeking that independance.  We got a birds eye view of the 5 villages from the water, as we were travelling from La Spezia we hit Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso where we were able to get off.  Vernazza was the only village where the captain thought it was a good idea for a photo opportunity, so with the waves crashing up against the rock faces and us some 10 metres from the dock, I thought to myself was it really necessary to put us at risk and the safety of us for a 'happy' snap.  I am sure amongst all those photographers, there was 1 or 2 more with the same thoughts as I.  Moving on from my inner ear imbalance, we had a very impressive view of the 5 villages and I believe the only way to see this is from the water.  Both Tony and I would like to return to hike through the 5 villages, we are told it takes about 5 hours in total.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch of seafood and fresh pasta pesto.  Both Emma and Hamish are extending their taste buds to sample the various variety of specialities provided in each place.  Well done kids!  We took the train back as both Emma and I opted for this considering the water was getting considerably rougher.  It was a good way to see how the train system worked before our Eurail Swiss/Austria journey.

We packed up again and left this marble yard for a vineyard...Tenuta Torre Gaia located nearby the hill town of Benevento.

 We stayed at a vineyard which was only getting back on its feet after being closed for 2 years due the the country's economic situation and only re-opened a year ago after it was purchased by 2 brothers,  the courts still hold the deed on the land after the foreclosure.  This was a lovely time with wine tours and great wines, swimming for the kids and outdoor play.  I couldn't pass up a trip to the Italian designer outlet, here we managed to get some formal wear for the boys to wear on the cruise.