Firenze in the a.m. - drive to Cinque Terra in the p.m.

June 27.09 – Morning trip into Firenze - drive to Cinque Terra

This would be the only day of our trip where we are all out the door before 7:30am!! Mom had us all prepped to wake early and get down to the Accademia Gallery by 8:00am to make sure we would see the original David. Although, the town was only busy with streetcleaners washing down the cobblestones and brushing away last nights party remains, there was a small line up of people exactly where we were going. Luckily we were about 20th in the line with no reservations and found ourselves inside by 8:20am. This turned out to be great timing because by 9am all of the tours arrived and the gallery was quickly filling up. We were able to lay eyes on the David with only a few others around. The David lives up to everyone’s praise of him and more. I can only imagine when he was living in the square for everyone to see everyday at their leisure.

Mom took Brendan to see more beautiful statues while Geoff climbed up the Duomo tower for 8euros and Meg and I people watched out in the Duomo square until we all reconvened. Next stop was the market. Geoff and Bren went back to the campsite to prepare for take off and the girls descended on the local market. Every ‘souk’ has their specialities and this one’s was leather! There were also the familiar pashmina scarves that I’ve seen all over the Middle East and China and of course t-shirts. We bought some belts and bags while mom cleaned up with a leather jacket in the last 15minutes.

We walked back in sunshine, but thunder clouds were forming overhead as they’ve started to do everyday now. We drove on the autostrada East to Pisa and then North along the coast to La Spezia where we turned off to seek out a campsite in Portovenere on the coast.
We didn’t find a campground here but instead a very cute seaside town. We turned around and headed for Cinque Terra on the small high road looking out over the ocean. Beautiful highway drive in the early evening. We pulled off and found an odd looking tram car with one seat on it and 3 metal compartments for putting something in. It was sitting on a track that we could see went all the way down the steep hillside. We concluded that it must be for collecting grapes and bringing them up to flat ground. One person would have to be on this ‘car’ driving it up and down the mountain. Later on we saw a picture of exactly this in a magazine.

We had a great birds-eye view of all the 5 towns we were going to visit the next day. Eventually got to Levanto where we knew there was a campground. By luck, we drove straight to it following signs along the beach. Checked in on Saturday night at 7pm with one spot left!! So lucky, this place is packed with families, some really set up for the season with drying racks out, satellites set up and even a TV. We took a walk down to the water and the boardwalk was packed with people, kids, and dogs. Even a vendor selling some jewelry. Bracelets with freshwater pearls and shells for 20euros! I am so spoiled living in Shanghai that I don’t think I can ever buy pearls or most jewelry again anywhere else.