Fred & Julia: Cinque-terre and Asti

Bonjourno

We have just been to visit an amazing part of the coastline called cinque-terre (meaning "5 cliffs") We stayed at a place called La spezia and trained north on the coast to the five villages dotted along the steep rocky coast. These were only able to be reched by sea up until the 1960s but now have roads and trains.

They are linked by mountain paths around the cliffs, and the villagers have terraced the steep rocky slopes to grow grapes and olives on.

We walked between the first two villages, trained between the next two, when Fred walked the last two while Julia found the train a a lot more handy and comfortable. The swim at the beach at the end of the walk was well deserved, after walking in the 32 deg heat, abut lucky for us it was a bit overcast, so not too bad.

This picture is taken on the first section of the walk, called Dell l'amore ( love path). The walls are covered in graffiti of love messages, and it is encouraged to add your message to it

Beautiful views of the cliffs and rocky coves and quaint fishing villages, where you have your dinghy pulled up outside your front door rather than a car.

Next stop was a place called Portofino which is called the Riviera of Italy, so the coffee goes up from 1euro to 4 euro, just to make it nicer for the rich and famous who live there! Beautiful houses and Boats tied up at the marina. For us it was a nice swim to cool off at the beach, take a bus trip down to the marina, ferry ride back to the city, then back on the train to Asti in the north of Italy

Today we had a tour of a small local winery by the farmer who could not speak a word of English, so we were glad to have a tour guide to translate.
The countryside in the north is gorgeous with rolling hills and vineyards, dotted with little villages

Local bus stop with grape vine for shade

It was a very funny visit and we ended up in his lounge room for the tasting at the end

Here's a couple of pics from the cellar under the farmhouse. They save up bottles from good quality grape years, and from the years of special occasions ( birth of children etc) .