And you can fill in the rest of that sentence! We’ll supply the pictures.
And here we are in Venice, with gondolas, gondolas….
Slow food, fast bikes, leaning towers and climbing cliffs
Since our mechanical misadventures when we first arrived in Italy, we have finally been able to start exploring.
We headed up the coast and inland to a lovely Agri-turismo farm.
The view from the farm
Agri-turismo is a system of accredited farm-stay holidays. With some you can help out around the place, others require less investment from you. Often home produced and cooked food is on offer. It is a great way for small scale farmers – often promoting organic farming – to make some extra money, and for us to get a better insight into what it takes to feed us all.
We camped at Ca’ du Chittu in Carro, Liguria. When we arrived we were greeted like old friends by husband and wife team Ennio and Donatella and their son Mattia.
The main house, which also has rooms to rent
The gable end of the stable block, now lovely rental masionettes
Although they hadn’t yet opened their camping ground for the season, they let us pitch next to the house and then use the indoor facilities.
Nice spot for a spot of camping
Camping is among the fruit trees, which were full of lovely blossom when we were there
The finishing touches to the new stable block
Beautifully decorated and very inviting rentals in the former stable block
Even the gas point is treated as though it is special!
We also availed ourselves of Donatella’s home cooking and were delighted to find that the family are followers of the Slow Food movement. Slow Food is all about growing quality, without chemicals and with attention to the whole growing, harvesting and distribution cycle, not just the profit from the end product.
Slow food proponents, including making their own honey
Slow food cooking – here making gnocci with beetroot
Our four course dinner was a zero-kilometer meal, having all been raised, plucked, picked and harvested from their own land. Bellisimo!
While we were there, we managed to hook up with fellow travellers Pete and Frances – friends of Geoff’s who have been riding their motorbike from Australia for the last eighteen months, through Asia and the Pacific.
Pete & Frances with Geoff & Sara
It was great to swap stories and experiences over another home-cooked feast.
Swapping travel stories over dinner
Carro is close to Cinque Terre and many of you had urged us to go there. It is a series of five coastal towns, clinging to the rocky cliffs that run from the Apennine mountain range and drop straight into the sea.
Vernazza
It doesn’t seem like the best place to build, but we are glad they did!
Corniglia – the only one of the Cinque Terre towns that doesn’t run down to the sea
Riomaggiore – one of the Cinque Terre towns
Cars are banned in Cinque Terre – but they would be pointless anyway in these steeply stepped and terraced towns.
The image doesn’t do justice to the incline!
A train runs along the coast and through the middle of all five, but the local ferry is the nicest way to see the best of the scenery.
Say what you see signage
The local Cinque Terre ferry has to come right into the rocky shore
Admiring the views from water
Looking back along the Cinque Terre coastline from the local ferry
Boats line the route to the ferry that runs between the five towns
When we arrived in Cinque Terre it was bathed in sunshine and glowing with Mediterranean colours.
Colourful Vernazza
Cinque Terre kitty
Riomaggoire and the Cinque Terre coastline
It is hard to imagine that a devastating landslide swamped the towns, killing eleven people, only three years ago.
The mudslide of 2011 filled the streets, claimed lives and still haunts the pretty town
The famously precarious coastal walk is still closed as a result.
Not feeling the love – the coastal walk from Riomaggiore is still closed after the mudslide of 2011
Part of the coastal walk of Cinque Terre
But locals seem defiant, and after generations battled just to carve a life out of these rocks, it’s not surprising they are determined to rebuild and go on.
Parasols and rowing boats fill the main square
Mural at Riomaggoire showing the hard labour required to build the towns in the cliffs
From coastal paths and rural idylls, we hit the road again and headed to Bologna, a classy place with old world charm, mile upon mile of porticoed avenues and some lovely laid back piazzas.
Bologna is a very elegant city
There are 40km of collonades in Bologna
Neptune always seems to get good fountains
Italy – romance, religion and endless talk
Bologna is also home of the Ducati motorbike. So of course, we promenaded the factory floor as well.
Nothing stops the famous red bike
If you work for Ducati, you get a 35% discount on your bike. Your bike gets its own parking spot out front.
Reserved for employees’ Ducatis – not for employees of Ducati!
If you don’t work for Ducati and you don’t have one of their motorbikes, you get to peer through the railings.
Hankering……
I’ve got my bike out front…
The latest model is a Diavel – a beast of a bike, but not a Monster (Google this joke if you don’t get it!) that looks good in red and black. Father Christmas, take note.
Like us, you may well have thought that there is only one leaning tower of note in Italy. But like us, you would be wrong. The symbol of Bologna is not one, but two leaning towers and they have an excellent angle to their dangle.
The leaning towers of Bologna
The base of one of the leaning towers of Bologna
Now you can really see the Bologna lean
While Bologna might have numerical supremacy, Pisa still holds the crooked crown of leaning towers. The tower began to keel within three years of the start of construction and before they had barely got four stories up.
How they managed to do one building so straight and so totally cock-up the other……
It is amazing that the builders who produced such solid beauty in the cathedral could make such a hash of the tower.
The Piazzi dei Miracoli with its perfect lawns
It rained a lot while we were in Pisa
They stood in the rain, we had hot chocolate and macaroons and took photos through the window
Raining happiness in Pisa!
Many corrections have been attempted and now, although it is clearly off kilter still, it has been declared to be safe for the next few hundred years.
Still more than 4metres off centre after years of remedial work
Of course it would be a tourist tragedy if they fixed the tilt entirely. Where would our comedy photos come from then?
Leaning Tower photo-ops look pretty funny when they aren’t yours
Leaning Tower photo-ops, part two
Leaning Tower photo-ops, still leaning
Leaning Tower photo-ops, the Nimmo cut
Broken Charlie
One minute we were laughing about our day in Pisa, the next moment a loud bang and lurch had Charlie’s back end virtually on the tarmac and us going nowhere.
Our little car has conquered the highest mountain passes in Morocco, but a simple bend in the road in Italy was all it took to snap part of the suspension. It didn’t look good.
Midnight nightmare – a broken car in a strange town
Here’s the technical bit – the knife edge, or suspension end piece, has snapped in half.
Down at heel – Charlie’s rear end is virtually on the road
Geoff getting the car jack from under the bonnet
Geoff gets under a jacked-up Charlie to see the damage
This little thing is all it has taken to stop us in our tracks.
This is the offending item
It might sound bad, but if bad is going to happen, it couldn’t have been better. We weren’t on a snowy mountain road in Morocco. We weren’t three days away from our visas for Morocco running out. We weren’t somewhere where parts cannot be delivered, or mechanics will just make up a number and add two zeros because we are tourists. We weren’t hurt and Charlie is not terminally damaged. But there is more.
Our overnight in Livorno may be turning into a slightly longer stay, but Italy is already weaving its magic.
We broke down at midnight, outside a pizzeria that was just closing. Despite the lateness of the hour, our lack of Italian and their lack of English, our combined mime routines meant they called us a taxi, wrote a note to put on the car so it would not get towed and promised to watch over Charlie and all our gear.
The owners of Villa Panicucci, the lovely B&B in Montenero in the hills above Livorno in which we are staying, also could not have been more helpful.
Gianfranco and Betty Messina had already stayed up until 2am the night before because our ferry was horribly delayed from Morocco. News of our car nightmare got them organising a place to stay for us that night, as they were fully booked. They put us in their grandmother’s cottage up the road, until we could return to the B&B the next night. They drove us to the train station so we could get to Pisa to pick up a hire care. Last night they were having friends over for dinner and Geoff was introduced to one of guests who spoke fluent English and offered to go to the garage with Geoff and act as translator.
Turns out that not only is he nice man who is generous with his time and linguistic skills, he is also Carlo Falcone – a top Italian classic car racer, owner of the Antigua Yacht Club Marina, father of America’s Cup winner Shannon, and fresh from the San Remo rally where he and his Porsche came second. First thing Monday morning Carlo drove his Shelby GT500 Mustang down to where Charlie was parked, and as he stepped out of the most powerful production V8 car in the world, he took one look at all 600ccs of Charlie Charleston and declared him a beautiful car in his favourite colours!
We think Charlie will be well taken care of at the local garage. Take a moment to imagine the look on the face of the mechanic, when an Italian racing car hero marched into his shop at 08.30 on a Monday morning, to act as translator for an Aussie dude with a broken 2CV. It was a picture!
On Sunday, before all of that excitement, we went to Lucca, a nearby ancient walled city. We would not have gone if we had not been stranded here. We discovered that it is the birthplace of Puccini and very pretty.
The house of Pucinni’s birth
The ancient eliptical piazza
Pretty Lucca
But there is more!
As we tucked into a most delicious lunch of freshly made ravioli, risotto and scallopini in the main piazza, a salsa dance troupe appeared and put on an impromptu show.
Impromptu dancing in the Piazza
Later, strolling back to our hire care, we spotted a performance of arias from Madam Butterfly was on, for one day only, starting at 17.00. It was 16.50 and they had two tickets left. We couldn’t believe that pure chance would have us listening to Madam Butterfly in the concert hall of Puccini’s home town!
The stage is set
Driving back to Montenero, we stopped to check on Charlie and eat pizza with his guardians at Pizzeria Rosticceria.
Keeping Charlie’s position on GPS
As well as their own small, dish-baked pizzas with whatever topping you want, we had the local speciality ‘torta de ceci’, a savoury pancake made from chickpea flour, and ‘il ponce’– a delicious local coffee liqueur with rum, sugar and lemon, said to have been invented to warm the cockles of stranded sailors when the weather was too bad for sailing. It is said that Il Ponce is ‘capable of comforting the soul and helping in difficult moments”. How appropriate for us! The restaurant staff greeted us with open arms and promised again to keep looking out for the car until we got it to the garage. If you are ever in Livorno go to this pizzeria on Via de Monternero 28. They are charming, smiling and generous people and their pizzas are delicious!
So what better place to be waiting for Charlie to be repaired.
The view from our B&B in Montenero, overlooking Livorno
Our unexpected home from home in Montenero, Livorno
Lazy daisy days in Livorno
The very orange bees in the garden
One of the long-toed friendly geckos
All of this human warmth and good fortune has come from one small broken piece of metal. So although we wouldn’t wish any more trouble on poor old Charlie, we count ourselves very lucky indeed. Grazia mille to all of those who have helped us in these last few days and if this is what Italy is like, then we are going to like it a lot!
