My plan today was to wake up early, then beat all the other tourists to La Spezia and Cinque Terra…woke about 8:30…(how ott!) and skipped back onto the roads…Considering that people were still arriving to eat at this restaurant/hotel at 23:00 I guess 9:00 can still be considered early on a sunday…
if anyone cares here’s the hotel I’m at…
http://www.paracucchilocanda.it/eng/
anyways step outside and am sweating already…
make my way to la spezia (somehow…), drive a bit, park, walk a bit. go down to Harbour and it’s quite nice actually. People are fishing and playing with their dogs (large breed hairy dogs…can’t you give them a haircut…they’re probably uncomfortable). There are about 50 old people sitting in the shade under the palm trees along the water, so I grab a coke and go join them…Listen and watch old italian people act old and italian, then go visit the tourist office…
got directions to Cinque Terra (I guess you are supposed to roll your r’s for 42 seconds when you say terra and you’re Italian), but ended up not taking them…I can only buy a parking ticket for 2 hours at a time so I decided I don’t want to look for another spot…
that’s brilliant the way I talked about Cinque Terra, but it has nothing to do with anything since I didn’t go there…anyways it’s on my to do list for next time…lovely place. Google it and look at pics…incredible…
Next I decided to sweat some more…
here’s my italian travel tip for today…always bring twice as many clothes as you think you’ll need cuz you’ll just sweat through them all and have to shower 2-3 times a day…
…maybe that’s the point behind the 2 hour lunch breaks and closing of all stores…
…can someone send me some clean socks and underwear…j/k I will have to either do laundry or go shopping this week I think…
actually as long as you sit in the shade and don’t move it’s not that hot…there’s a semi constant breeze so far. I’m sure I could get used to this weather, but it hasn’t happened yet…so I’m going to complain about it 🙂
have I mentioned old men and speedos??? Not gonna!!! note to self…don’t get old.
I forgot to charge my camera before I left and don’t have the charger…this annoys me…I only have half a battery left…
bought another 2 hour car park ticket and go for a pizza…mmmmmmm. Good pizza…
Funny thing is I ordered from one guy…we spoke in english and I gave him money and he left to get help…a girl comes back looking at me suspiciously…i gave her a 50 cuz it’s all i had on me, and she glares at me and has to go next door for change or something…I manage my best grazi! and go outside to wait…
she brings pizza and the dude must have told her I was an english speaker and she was suddenly smily and super nice to me…and even attempted some english.
this isn’t the first time this happened today…must be some false pre-conceived notions about us native english speakers 😉
they have .66L bottles of beer here…are they trying to outdo the Germans? why not just round it up to an even liter…
back at room now for a shower and nap and air conditioning. Will go to some irish pub tonight for the footy…
got this quote from the intl herald trib at the airport yesterday…it was an old english guy re: football: “22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end the germans win”
Good quote, but I think I’m cheering for spain. Must be the Liverpool connection…and they’re way more fun to watch…
I’m listening to Interpol right now…it’s really growing on me quite a lot…at first I thought they had 3 great songs, but it’s actually a really good album…I don’t know the name of the album, but it is an album 😉