Cinque Terre, more pickpockets & the Leaning Tower of Pisa - Sunday October 13

We travelled to Cinque Terre today by train.  This is a series of cliff side towns that are connected by train and there are no roads between them.  For years their only connection was the sea by boat. 

The last or furthest town is a nice beach town with a small beach with beach side cafes etc.  The next village we reached by train is a cliff side with craggy rocks and steep hills with built up homes on these craggy cliffs.   From here we took the ferry.    It was beautiful to be on the Mediterranean and to view these cliff side towns from the water.  The ferry took us from town four to town two (we missed town three) and we had lunch here outside with take away, as a picnic.  I had fresh take away calamari and the some of the girls had fresh cod and chips.  After lunch we got back on the train.  Some pickpocket girls made it crowded at the entrance area of the train at the doors, so that they could slow the crowd getting  up onto the train and feel us around the waists they were pretty quick but we clued in very quickly and got by them and they disappeared into other cars in the train quickly.  These were teenage girls.  We quickly checked our bags and everything was fine.  We were quite angry and when we got to the next town, we told the Carbineri and they said "yes it is a problem" and did not do anything about it more.  At the last town we had run out of time to look around and we took the train back to La Spezia and got on our tour bus. 

From here we went to Pisa and it was quite a surprising place.  Beside the tower there is a walled area, with a huge church and then the leaning tower .  Campo Miracolo is flat and beautiful.  We did not have time to get into the church but a couple on the tour did and they said it was the most beautiful church they have seen on this trip.  But we were fooling around with taking photos of us with the tower and ran out of time and then it started to rain.  We had to move on and catch our train to get back to our bus.  It is too bad but we did have a good look around the tower but no time to climb it.  Getting off the train our tour friends  just ahead of us had to deal with a couple who were supposedly getting off the bus while we were getting on and trying to reach into purses while they were "trying" to get off the bus.  One of the men on our tour called out watch for your purses.  They know we are tourists and tourists have cash and cameras and credit cards. I thought we had left this all behind but I guess not.

For supper we went out for supper in Viareggio and had our first pizza of the trip and it was delicious with thin thin crusts and eggplant, cheeses and fresh tomatoes.  We had three different kinds of pizza and each was very tasty.  We had to wash this all down with some local wine.  You know here water is almost as expensive as a half liter of wine

and all restaurants charge for water.  So you make a choice and wine it is.

So a great day in seeing one of the world's most famous tourist sites and running into pickpockets here and there too.  One has to be so careful here....

Tomorrow it is Bologna for the day and then we head to Venice!!!!  We have seen so much and had so many sweet moments.  I saw a Eurasian Colour Dove today at the beach town.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!!!


Barb & Debbie