Day 12: September 5, 1999
Lerici, Italy

Castle in Lerici

Today we woke to a gorgeous, sunny day. Such a shame that we hadn't walked around town yesterday and done the Cinque Terre walk today. Ah well. We slept later today, for the first time in a while. This time we had a light breakfast and then headed into town. We walked along the streets, heading toward the castle and down to the rocks and along the boats. Walendo went back to the room to take care of business while I wandered around a little more. I bought myself a men's wallet from a street vendor, even bargaining down the price.

View from Lerici castle

We met back up again and walked up more steps to the castle, and even at its foot there was a wonderful view. After a few pictures, we went into the castle, which was a paleontology museum. We weren't really interested in the dinosaur stuff but we did like looking at the castle itself. Up at the top, the roof was open and it had a wonderful 360 degree view of the area, looking out to Portovenere and down the other side of the coast. We sat for a while, and then headed on our way.

Lerici and boats

We walked along the town and headed for the next town, San Tereno (?). It was a hot, sunny Sunday and tons of Italian tourists were out on the beaches sunning themselves. A few of the women were even topless. Many of the men wear those silly briefs bathing suits, even some with big pot bellies. It looks terrible. We walked along the other town, which didn't take long, and Walendo wanted to get some pizza for lunch. We walked back and found a restaurant that advertised pizza. It was empty, but we decided to go in anyway. They told us to sit at a table just next to the one at the window, saying the other was reserved. Seemed silly. We ordered pizza but the waitress said we could only have pizza in the evening. Doh. We'd already eaten the bread they put down, so we couldn't leave. I got what we thought was shrimp cocktail and Walendo got a seafood salad and some penne. My cocktail turned out to have two big prawns but then a bunch of shrimp in a heavy mayonnaise-based sauce, so I just had to two prawns. Walendo liked his meal, but he really wanted pizza, so it was a bit of a disappointment. During the time we were there, the restaurant completely filled up with Italians who were eating tremendous amounts of food. Strange how so many stay thin, though the older people are often heavier. Walendo figured lunch must be the main meal, which his travel book confirmed, but even so, it's a lot of food.

Walendo taking a rest after a strenuous walk

Balconies in Lerici

We walked some more and got some gelato, again not as good as that first place but good enough. We thought we would walk along the coast to La Spezia and maybe Portovenere, but it turned out you couldn't walk along the coast. We didn't want to walk on all the grungy city streets we'd driven on in the bus, so we headed back to Lerici. Back in town, we stopped at a bench in a little park and I took some nice shots of a pretty building with decks with flowers and all. It came out pretty unfocused at the top, but I include it anyway just to show how nice it coulda been. I also snuck in a picture or two of Walendo. We also saw a sweet-looking German Shepherd following a couple that was petting it, so we didn't get a chance to pet it. We missed Libby.

Dog seen in Lerici

On the way back to the room, I bought a few hair clips to keep my hair back without putting it up. When we got to the room, they told us they'd moved our stuff to another room. When Walendo had gone back, they told him they were expecting us to check out, but when Walendo said no, they said it was okay, we could stay. It turned out they needed our room for people who were staying 5 days, so they put us in the room 2 floors above. They had moved all our stuff, which was amazingly nice of them.

Ellen lounging on balcony of Doria Park Hotel

(The housekeeper took us to our new room and assured us she'd moved everything, and indeed she had. We want to tip her to thank her.) This new room has the same view, but higher, and a huge deck, really a patio. I ended up sitting out in the sun while Walendo took pictures of the view. I nodded off in the sun for a while, and then came in to find Walendo snoozing away. I had slept all I wanted to, so I sat down with the Clio while he continued to nap, and that takes us up to date. (He's lying next to me as I type, snoring contentedly.) Oh, just before he went back to sleep, we considered taking a drive to Portovenere, to which Walendo said, "Whatever you're gonna do, it's not worth the trouble to figure out how to do it." Things do seem unnecessarily difficult to figure out at times. :-)

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