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It was very hard to say goodbye to Manuel. He hugged and gave us Italian kisses on both cheeks. Lorenzo carried our suitcases down the stairs for us when we left to catch our train. (I had sent a box of stuff home by slow boat, and gave away my 2nd suitcase so I'd have no more near-fainting spells from carrying luggage!)

We dawdled on the way to the train station, really loving Cinque Terre and feeling sad to leave it behind.







We needed to take the local choo choo to La Spezia and and we decided to go early to have a look around the town before our train reservations to Florence in the afternoon. Rick Steve ignores this little town, and we cannot figure out why. It is too close to 'reality' instead of the fanciful Cinque Terre, perhaps, but we were enchanted with the 'real Italy' of it.

It was a Saturday, and we found ourselves in a NON-tourist town with people strolling on Saturday morning with their kids and dogs on wide plazas which were closed off to traffic. We enjoyed this off-the-tourist-path town very much.















The buildings here and in Santa Margarita have this Liberty Style House painting in common from about 1900. Before that people distinguished their houses with pastel paint and distinctive door and window frames. Then they got fancy and painted their entire exteriors with false balconies, weapons, saints, women and what all.






I finally grabbed a shot of gelato. Their ice cream is the BEST!






We caught our train to Florence with no problem whatsoever!

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