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Today we had a big day in front of us, we had to get from Sorrento up to La Spezia by train. We had to leave our hotel in Sorrento at 530am, as we checked out the man gave us 'breakfast' to take with us as we'd miss the b/fast included with the hotel which was a really nice touch and kept us going for the day.
After catching the local train from Sorrento to Naples (1hr) we then had to change trains and catch the main one from Naples to La Spezia which was about 6hrs. When we arrived in LaSpezia we had to get a taxi from there to where we were to pick up the hire car which was only a couple of minutes away by taxi but there was no way we were walking with our bags etc!
So we got the keys to our car - a blue little Fiat Punto (a real gutsy 1.3ltr, haha) we had to figure out how to get from there to Levanto which is the town just north of Cinque Terre. We decided to go the coastal mountain way which was a little longer but definately worth it as there was some amazing views down to the villages and out to the vineyards and out the sea. It was a really windy, very narrow road but wasnt too many cars around which was good for dad to get use to driving on the wrong side of the car and wrong side of the road! At least he is use to driving a left hand drive car, however not use to a manual and being on the wrong side.. With only one little 'almost going on the wrong side when turning a corner, but quickly corrected due to a trusty navigator in the passenger seat' it was a pretty easy drive and dad did well around all the tight corners with cars flying around on the other side... and lets just say Italians arent all that big to sticking to their side of the road! We had maps printed out of how to get to our hotel etc but the way was pretty well signed and we made it to our hotel without them which was good.
We checked into our hotel which was a really renovated modern looking (inside) building that seemed to be run by a French couple so wasnt too traditional. It had a nice bar and seating area in the front and our room was on the ground floor and opened up onto a little grassy area with deck chairs. We were just a couple of minutes walk down an alley way past a Parco Pubblico (public park, hehe) to the main part of town which was really pretty with little cobblestone streets etc, a big park in the middle and a prominade along the 'beach'. I use the term 'beach' loosely as although it was technically a beach with people sunbaking and playing etc... it was certainly nothing like the ones we have in Australia! The sand was rocking and black and just in front of the waters edge it was all roped off with a tractor in front moving the 'sand' from one end to the other, yet about 1 metre in front of that people were decked out on their towels with books etc enjoying a day at the beach... very relaxing with a tractor going back and forward in front of you and you cant even get to the water as its roped off... not to mention it was super cold!
I was very excited to find at dinner that night that there was Pesto pasta on the menu! it was the first place since being in Italy that had a pesto dish so naturally thats what we had aswell as trying the local Cinque Terre red wine.
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