This was a beautiful unspoilt little village at the entrance to the Cinque de Terre UNESCO protected park on the Ligurian Sea - directly across the large bay from Monaco, but on the Italian Riveria. It was extremely high on an escarpment that overlooked the sea on one side and La Spezia on the other, and of all the places to choose to collect the hire car, and then to park it overnight - it had to be Campiglia. So many blind curves going up the mountain that you had to drive down honking the horn at every corner! The main fear is that we would meet the local bus on the one way corners! Well done Marcelle - yes we trust you and we were all very quiet. Lucky Marcelle insisted in getting her bag down to car the night before departure,"parking lights on" so was able to divert a delayed start in the morning.
But we took it very slowly and calmly, and survived to tell the tale! We enjoyed our days at the very pretty towns of Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare and San Marguerita. But the paths on the Cinque were closed due to a rock fall, so we just did some sight seeing around the towns. We actually were staying close to some really good paths (6k's to Montereggioni north and 5 ks to Portovenere south, all UNESCO paths).Val took a long walk down a few thousand steps on one day that the rest of us were snoozing or out and about in the town.
Piccolu Blu was a very modern and comfortable family unit with great views, and the local food rooms were very genuine liguruan food - lots of fish and anchovies,lovely fresh pastries and biscuits.Our hosts were very helpful in all respects.Basically we were too collectively pooped to consider any serious walking. The weather was variable, but not yet summer.Drizzle here and there.
Off to Tuscany and Unbria tomorrow for a few days drive the car, before Rome and finally home.
See you soon!
4ofus
