FourFirths: On the Road Again - Return to Riomaggiore

April 30, 2012

We set off this morning for Riomaggiore. It is our return trip, but this time we don’t have the Jenson family with us, so sad L

We decided to stop in Volterra on the way. I have to admit that it was a bit crowded with way too many tourists for me. When we drove in, the parking lot was labeled “Full”, but we ventured in anyway. After making ourselves dizzy driving the tight circular ramp round and round and down four levels, we actually found a spot. We are just so darned lucky J We walked to the top of the parking lot and into the main piazza, and decided it was time for a treat, and since it was cold, a hot drink and cornetti were in order. We now order “Latte Caldo con Ciaccolata” instead of hot chocolate and the kids love it. It doesn’t come with sugar, so we can add a little and it isn’t too sweet. Pretty good… This is the little place we stopped for our little indulgence…

Then we walked out to see the views. WOW… This is the kind of landscape we were driving through. There is just no way to describe the beauty of Italy in March and April. It is the last day of April, and I can see that it is just beginning, and I can’t wait to see what May brings. The most wonderful part of it all is the aromas that waft around the next bend as you are walking along. Lemons and oranges and so many different flowering trees, shrubs and bushes are all emitting different fragrances. It is a sensory wonderland here in spring.

We went to see this two thousand year old arch that during WWII the Germans wanted to blow up in order to stop the Allies from entering the city. The locals dug up all the pavers and filled in the arch with rocks, convincing the Germans that they didn’t need to blow it up. The townspeople did this all in one night… So glad that it still stands. There were huge tour groups all around us. I finally shot this when the last group moved just out of shot off to the left.

I haven’t tired of seeing the ancient Roman ruins either. What's interesting about these is that you can see the three levels of the stage: the lowest for the animals, the middle for the humans and the top level for the Gods.

It was nice to get out of the hoards of people and back on the beautiful roads.

And then, as we were driving along, look what we spotted…

We had been asking people online if they knew where a field of poppies could be because we wanted pictures, but we never found one. Then suddenly, on our way to Riomaggiore, there it was. So we just had to stop and grab a few pictures!

Then we hopped in the car to be on our way once more. No kidding, not two minutes later it started to pour down with rain…

and it rained (in La Spezia)...

and it rained...

and kept on raining...

Even when we got to the other side of the mountain (in the Cinque Terre)…

Funny thing is that it stopped raining just as we got to Riomaggiore and finished parking the car. There is a huge LONG walk down the hill into town from where we park the car. So we figured we had it made, it stopped raining just in time, how lucky are we??? Well, after weeks and weeks of this kind of luck, it was bound to happen. Yep, after we got the luggage out of the car and were headed down the hill, it started pouring down rain again… It is fair to say that we got completely soaked through. Even our underwear was wet enough to wring out… We just had to laugh.

So we checked in and hiked up the stairs to our room. Then we took off our wet things and put on some nice warm clothes, and opened our windows to have a look. We were shocked to see that it was really nice out. This is David on the balcony…

This is looking down from our deck…

Everyone wanted to go for a walk and check things out, so we put on our rain jackets just in case. This is the front door to the building… 59 steps up to the apartment.

We took a walk around to the beach…

And spent some time skipping rocks…

It is a really nice walk around the rocks to get there…

This is looking at the harbor from the bottom. Our apartment is just up to the left…

Danika looks exhausted…

But gelato is a great afternoon snack pick me up J

We took a walk through the side alleys to get home…

And loved seeing the locals playing cards.

We went down to the rocks on the other side of the harbor from our apartment…

Our place is in the tall skinny orange building with green shutters and only one window per floor. We are staying in the one with the balcony with the white window…The harbor wall is in the bottom right of the picture.