Cinque Terre, Italy
I hadn't originally thought much if La Spezzia as a stop, I'd not heard of it but figured I would stay anyway. Ten I worked out that La Spezzia is the gateway to Cinque Terre. Then I found out what Cinque Terre is and that everyone raved about the place.
5 villages set along the Italian Coast linked by train, but originally would have been linked by donkey and walking tracks. Every town grew their needs including vineyards for the local wine and fishing from the sea. Apparently it became a bit popular and now the place seems mainly reliant on tourism, but in 2011 a huge downpour delivered 1/3 of their annual rainfall and a landslide all but wiped out one of the towns Vernazza. Since then a charity has been set up and people donate and/or volunteer to help rebuild the town and surrounding terraced vineyards and farmlands.
I had 2 nights in the middle town called Corniglia. It's the smallest of the 5 villages and perched right on top of the cliffs. There are a billionth steps up from the train station to the top where our hostel, and happily, there was a shuttle too. On the first evening, I explored the tiny little village and checked out the views from the lookouts and went with another Busabouter, Sarah, to the second village, Manarola, for dinner. It was Ferragosto, an Italian festival day, and we'd heard there were festivities in that town so we'd check it out. We had the local specialty, Trofie e pesto, which is pesto pasta and a pesto lasagne which was a bit odd when you're used to ragu. The trains were a bit odd and tended to have long breaks between services sometimes so we caught a train home before we saw any music and festivities, which was a shame. But we had a gelato near home which makes up for it.
The next morning we caught a train to the first town and had a look around and ran in to Luke and Emma in a cafe so they came with us for the day. Since Sarah and I had been to the second and third towns, we caught the train out to the fifth and biggest town, Montorosso. In comparison to the other towns we'd been too, this one was huge! We ended up having lunch in a little cafe in a lane way and wandered back to the far end of the town and beach to check out a huge statue of Neptune. It had been built in the 20s and originally held a restaurant on top but it was bombed in the Second World War and just the statue is left.
Due to a bit of another public transport fail, I managed to take us to the wrong town for a bit and then get us back to the right town. Once we were at the fourth town, Vernazza, we had another wander around and struggled to find the beach. Turns out you had to walk through a tunnel in the rock to get to it, which was pretty cool. One of the major things we noticed was the huge amounts of rubbish everywhere. It seems tourists and Europeans weren't brought up with the 'Do the Right Thing' education that Australian's were which is a huge shame. There were piles of scrap metal along the beach, but they might have washed up on shore as post landslide/flood. After a while hanging on the beach, I felt like I had sand or grit in my eye. We headed back to Corniglia and I rinsed out my eyes and we headed for dinner down from my hostel. We had the local wine and prosciutto with melon and I had spaghetti marinara with some of the freshest seafood I've had in a while. We finished off with Limoncello as Emma hadn't had any in Italy and the locals grew many many lemons so the limoncello was fresh and wonderful.
I woke the next morning to my eyes still being incredibly scratchy and decided it's allergies and promptly began taking whatever I had in stock to fit it. Not resolved but a bit better. A cruisey morning finding stamps and the heading to the station to catch a train back to La Spezzia to meet the Busabout bus and head on to Nice!