Buon Giorno [I learned the correct spelling] from La Spezia
Sat 4 Sep 10 0 °F
Saturday, September 04, 2010 11:58 AM
We have been so fortunate on this trip, one amazing place after another.
Today we are anchored off of La Spezia, the jumping off point for Florence and Pisa. Since all of us have spent time in Florence and Pisa, we decided to take a tour of some local towns, what a joy. We took a bus about 20 minutes to the town of Le Rici [or Lerici, I am not sure]. A very cute town on the bay. There is an old castle [named after St George] and today there was a big market going on. A real gem of a town. The bay is known as the "bay of poets" because of all the big names that spent time here [incl: Byron, Shelley, Hemingway, Woolf, ... (others I can't recall)]. I can see why this area would be very attractive for writing [although it would be very easy to get distracted too].
We took a ferry across the bay, past the 2nd largest Italian Naval base, to Porto Venere [named after Venus]. This place reminds you of Porto Fino, but not as showy. People come here for long weekend get always. In the picture, you can see the multi-colored 'town houses' [they had a different name]. These were only accessible from the back and acted as a wall barrier to pirates or invaders.
We loved this little town!
Inside the walls, were shops and restaurants, a fortress and a Genoan church. I think this might be another place that you could stay for several days and enjoy it. Note: there are not any real sandy beaches, people from other parts of Italy called the Ligurians "lizards'" because you see them propped up on stones sunning themselves].
We talked to other people who had walked around La Spezia and described it as a very nice town.
The weather is still cooperating, the temp was about 78 and very few clouds.
Ciao Bella!
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Denis Greening (Travel)
Blog: http://dgreening.travellerspoint.com/ <http://dgreening.travellerspoint.com/>
