Happy Birthday to Me :)
Sunday 15th of June and we spent the first few hours talking to the kids on Skype, catching up on Laurens trip to Cambodia and organising our next few nights of accommodation. We hadn't had internet for a few days so had nothing organised for when we left Monterosso. Once organised we got a lift from our host up the hill behind Monterosso to the start of a walking trail. The trail took us along the top of the mountain ridge and provided brilliant views of Monterosso. In fact we could see all along The Cinque Terre and pick out each of the five towns we had visited previously. One of the best things about this walk was that the trail would cross the ridge so that we had views of Levanto on the other side along with a few other little villages scattered throughout the nearby hills and valleys. The walk took an hour and a half and finished at an old derelict church overlooking Monterosso and the ocean.
From here we continued on a different path down to Levanto, another hour and a half of rough track and hills and valleys. Levanto is a much bigger town than others nearby and we walked through a small market place where stalls were selling fruit, cheese, meats and other goodies, around a town square, and through to the train station. We caught the train back to Monterosso before having dinner at a nice seafood restaurant we had picked out the day before.
Monday and it was time to leave. We drove for 3 1/2 hours to Monaco and had a look around Monte Carlo, mainly the harbour, casino area and we did a lap of the Grand Prix track. As soon as we reached Monaco you could see from the buildings and the cars that there is a lot of money around and in the harbour there were countless multi million dollar yachts.
After Monte Carlo we continued down to coast to Nice, Antibes and Cannes. For each of these towns we drove around a little to get a bit of a feel for them. We would have liked to have had a closer look at Antibes in particular but unfortunately still had about 3 hours or more to our accommodation so needed to keep moving.
The final part of the day was spent driving over a mountain range, through a thunder storm, with heavy rain and close by lightning before arriving in 'Apt' in the Provence district of Southern France around 8:00pm - having stopped at a supermarket for some supplies. We have a room with kitchenette so cooked dinner for ourselves tonight.
Levanto
From here we continued on a different path down to Levanto, another hour and a half of rough track and hills and valleys. Levanto is a much bigger town than others nearby and we walked through a small market place where stalls were selling fruit, cheese, meats and other goodies, around a town square, and through to the train station. We caught the train back to Monterosso before having dinner at a nice seafood restaurant we had picked out the day before.
Monday and it was time to leave. We drove for 3 1/2 hours to Monaco and had a look around Monte Carlo, mainly the harbour, casino area and we did a lap of the Grand Prix track. As soon as we reached Monaco you could see from the buildings and the cars that there is a lot of money around and in the harbour there were countless multi million dollar yachts.
After Monte Carlo we continued down to coast to Nice, Antibes and Cannes. For each of these towns we drove around a little to get a bit of a feel for them. We would have liked to have had a closer look at Antibes in particular but unfortunately still had about 3 hours or more to our accommodation so needed to keep moving.
The final part of the day was spent driving over a mountain range, through a thunder storm, with heavy rain and close by lightning before arriving in 'Apt' in the Provence district of Southern France around 8:00pm - having stopped at a supermarket for some supplies. We have a room with kitchenette so cooked dinner for ourselves tonight.
Comments
Post a Comment