Coasting along

It was good to get away from the non-sound proofed peeling veneer of the hotel in Alessandria. Air conditioning and sound proofing (and indeed, stylish decoration) comes at a 3* price in Italy, and we weren't in the mood for paying for it. James went to the cathedral before we left, whilst I tried to find a new pair of shorts. I've always had a fairly small waist size. However in the large department store in the town, the smallest size of shorts were a 44 inch waist!

James came out of the cathedral complaining that it was all very lovely and all that, but he couldn't cope with the loud banging from the renovations - I had been lucky, the night before, as the workmen had just finished, leaving me to look round in peace.

We set off East and South through little villages towards Bosco, avoiding the large roads for a change. As we were passing through Bosco we looked back to see a remarkably large building, possibly a church, which definitely needed investigating. The sign on the door suggested we go round the side and find the old lady with the key. So we did. A few minutes later, we heard loud clunking noises as the numerous bolts were pulled back. Judging from the echo, it had to be a big building, though we still had no idea whatsoever whether it was a church, a monastery, an ecclesiastical zoo for all we knew!

As the door drew back, it became clear that this was one of Italy's hidden treasures: this was the 16th century church of a monastery founded by Pio V, who was originally from the village. The old lady (exactly the sort of old lady you would expect to find lovingly looking after a chuch in the middle of nowhere), upon realising that given enough time I could understand a certain amount of Italian, took enormous pride in giving me a personal guided tour, whilst James pottered around taking photos. She was a veritable fount of information, telling me all sorts of things about the paintings, each of the numerous antichapels and about how they moved the altars around over the centuries because they didn't like the design... the Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen of monks perhaps - they even put a feature wall behind the altar...

Signing her visitors book, we bade the lady farewell and continued on to Gavi. For some reason we were both finding the going extremely hard, but after a hearty lunch, we set out on the climb to the top of the Passo della Bocchetta. It was about 32 degrees and this was a seriously tough climb. Indeed, as James exclaimed at the top, it was possibly even harder than the alps themselves, despite being just 700m or so to the top. The view from the top, however, was possibly the best so far: it was such a clear day that we could see all the way to Genova and to the sea beyond - at least 25 km.

The downhill was fast and furious and within about 45 minutes we were in the city. Thanks to Italian sign-posting we had an unexpected foray onto the autostrada at one point, but the police soon told us where to get off: imagine riding into London on a bike over the Hammersmith flyover...

In the end, we rode straight through Genoa since there appeared to be only 4* hotels there. Further along the coast however, we found an adequate, but rather overpriced, 2*. Warned by the hotel owner to watch the prices carefully, we went in search of supper, which was procured from a lovely restaurant overlooking the crashing waves. Afterwards, out of desire for an ice cream, we stumbled on an Italian institution: the gelateria we went to, turned out to be the evening meeting point for most of the local residents. Groups of teenagers, mothers meeting up with young children and the more venerable members of the population all gathered at this central point to eat gelati and sit on cushions on the pavement cunningly provided by the shop. There was one child, about 3, who was making a concerted effort to destroy a vending machine with its pram. But noone cared - everyone was having a jolly evening with their friends, apparently in complete security.


The following morning we stopped in a bar for breakfast. I am excited to announce that I have found Osama Bin Laden. He was sitting next to me in the cafe, eating a croissant and reading the newspaper. I even have a photo to prove it. (p.s. for any CIA people reading this... it wasn't actually Osama Bin Laden, merely someone who resembled him. Osama is not an Italian, and so there is no need for you to rush off an bomb Genova.)

The coast road was familiar to me from my trip in April 2002, from Rome to Santiago de Compostela: a wonderfully beautiful but hilly road, as it followed the very steep valleys running down to the sea, each with its own lovely little resort town. "Le cinque terre" is one of the most beautiful regions of Italy, with sheer rocky cliffs, forests, and deep blue-green seas. From Sestri Levanti, where we had lunch, we began the climb to the Passo del Bracco. I remembered this pass from last time as being rather difficult as there is no shade and at times it is very steep. As last time, it was a scorching day, but we made good time, as we're getting rather better at hill climbing now.

The descent took us towards La Spezia. There were very few hotels, and the one's that did exist were full. However, about 8 km west of La Spezia, we did find one in a lay-by next to a fuel station. A slightly overpriced room was compensated for by very cheap food. We slept well until the local cockerell did its thing for an hour from about 4am.

We set of fairly early (er... 9am) and covered the short 10km to La Spezia where we stopped for breakfast. Finding an Internet cafe, we looked for hotels in Lucca and Pisa. There was nothing available for booking online, but we did find some 2* and 1* which provided phone numbers. What they failed to tell us was that the code had changed so none of the numbers worked. We would have to chance it once again, but as we were getting closer to Tuscany, hotels would become harder to come by.

It was never going to be a difficult day of cycling along the coast. And it was made even easier by the fact that there was a convenient trailing wind. The road from Massa to Viareggio along the coast could not have been more packed full of hotels and tourists if they tried. When one could glimpse the the sea, it was beautiful, but seeing past the chalets was unusual. The flat riding certainly made a change, but it was rather dull. We had lunch in a resort restaurant, and then made haste to Pisa to catch the TIC before it shut.

Would we make it? Well, of course we would. Despite our fears that the Tourist Infor Centre would shut at 6, it actually stayed open till about 9pm. Arriving in the Piazza del Duomo, we made appropriate oohing and aahing noises at the tower and its edificial friends. We got a list of correct phone numbers from the TIC and within minutes, had struck gold. Or so we thought.

The 1*, excellently priced, Hotel Gronchi was suspiciously close to the cathedral to justify its low price. But on arrival, and finding our room to be fairly pleasant, though sparse, and the bathroom to be functional but 40 yards down the corridor, we were at a loss to find anything wrong with it. However, it was James who first noticed both the snoring from next door, clearly audible as though it was being piped through the wall by loud speaker, and also the fact that the beds were not entilely stable, or in fact, beds. Indeed, when it came to sleep later that night, it was quite a skill not to fall off the humpback bridge effect mattress. They squeaked too. And as James put it, were about as supportive as the Titanic.

We went to the cathedral in the evening, which I shall elaborate upon/rant about at a later time and then grabbed a bite to eat, for which I'm certain we were charged double, as the small fizzy orange beverage from the Coca-cola company could not possibly have cost £2.80.

Internet time running out. Bye.