Italy the story so far

We set off the next day to the portinfino region to a place called San Rocco. After checking the TomTom we realised that we were in for a 4 hour drive unless we took the toll which would halve the journey. We had been reluctant previously to use tolls, mainly to save money but also we wanted to make sure we actually saw as much as we could and motorways can be very anonymous. However the toll in this case would almost pay for itself in extra diesel and after the last couple of days driving through the small Italian towns I couldn’t stomach another 4 hours of fighting the traffic. The toll road was a nice relief and even offered some decent views. We ran into troubles when we tried to exit the toll road only for our ticket to get rejected at the automatic toll booth. The assistance over the telecom was of little assistance rambling in Italian which is worse than our French. After a couple of minute’s confusion the barrier opened and we claimed victory as we thought we had worn down the Italian toll booth attendant to letting us ride the toll for free. However the machine produced a ticket to us of 80 Euros which was for essentially a lost ticket. After a quick email to Autostrada later that day the situation was resolved and I was allowed to pay the 13 Euros for the actually toll road. Lesson learnt was to press the English button before inserting the ticket into the machine!

We walked a few miles to a place called Punta Chippa which was a good undiscovered rocky outcrop. We carried our snorkelling gear (Fins and all) down what was a very much downhill hike which only meant one thing on our return and my god we underestimated how high we would have to climb back up! Punta Chippa was a very nice little hideaway however – a few locals sunbathing and worryingly no one in the water. After some surveying of the sea and the area we felt it was safe enough to get in. As I was gearing up we both witnesses what till this day we can’t decide was a Dolphin or a Tuna explode out of the water after some Sardines a couple of meters where I was about to jump in. This put me slightly on edge for no good reason as I would have given an arm to have been in the water with the go pro filming to witness it. The water was warm but I will wetsuited up as I get cold fairly quickly snorkelling. While there was no Coral or tropical fish there were hundreds of Sardines and some other fish to keep us entertained.

The next day we went to the town of Santa Margherita Ligure  to catch a boat to some of the other areas of the marine park not accessible by walking. We tagged along with a diving group and after the staff could see we were well prepared with our own gear we were left to our own devices. The captain of the boat spoke good English and kindly told us more about the area, we also discovered he had also been at Punta Chippa the day before when we were there. We snorkelled for a good 45 minutes. The water was much choppier than Punta but was still good. A few bigger fish came to say hello. Once the divers had finished we were taken to snorkel over the statue of Jesus which was sunken 15 feet underwater. The visibility allowed us to just see the top of the statue and with a few duck dives you could see a little more. We spent the rest of the day exploring the town and ate out.

Our next venture was to spend the next couple of days at Cinque Terre which translates as the 5 Terraces or 5 Lands. This was 5 remote village carved into the rockface. The lack of accessibility to the area made it unique and less tampered with however the tourists were there in their thousands. Especially the Americans which we haven’t seen much of were there by the bucket fall. The villages were lovely though with the range of colours of the buildings it was one of the great wonders of Italy. We gained access by train and explored 4 out of the 5 villages on day one enjoying lunchtime Pizzas which kept us full for the rest of the day. We did another killer walk between 2 of the villages which according to the guidebook was for novice hikers which made us feel very much like Novices. We decided to spend a 2^nd day at Cinque Terre but we wanted to get onto the water so we decided to drag the kayak across town and onto the train. This gave us a completely tourist free perspective of the villages and to our amazement we were able to Kayak the whole 8 miles across the sea from the first to last village. We didn’t get in the water much through fear of not being able to get back into the kayak without flooding it. We did however meet a jellyfish which we were able to capture a video of. We arrived at the last village to be greeted by a bored lifeguard who said we couldn’t dock at his private beach. I told him it’s too late and that we have now arrived and I got out despite his lame attempts to turn the kayak back in the sea. He retreated with his tail between his legs as we picked up our kayak and joined the rest of our poor lot who can’t afford to pay for their private beach!.

We headed to Pisa the next day to provide some assistance to a structurally unsound building. We were on our bikes most of the day as the town is very accommodating to its 2 wheeled friends. We enjoyed ducking and diving through the streets trying to see as much as we could. We enjoyed yet another Foccacia which had quickly become our Italian version of the Baguettes we were eating in France. 

Exhausted from a full on 1^st week in Italy we have now driven inland to a Free Camperstop just below an medieval town called Certaldo. The town was actually a little gem of find and we explored a couple of Museums and took some awesome pictures. We spent the rest of our time here chilling out, catching up with this blog, getting some clothes washed and reorganising Pierre! Next stop is Florence.