Europe14: Day 3 - Exploring Lerici

The morning started with a 7am CET wake up and a cool, solo walk along the boardwalk to get back to the car parking lot (about half a mile walk).  It was a beautiful walk in the peaceful morning.  There was no wind, so the gulf was crystal blue-green and the air was crisp and clear allowing me to see the barrier island clearly.  The rising sun over the hillside and, further back, Alpi Apuane, left a golden sparkle on everything around the waterfront.  At that moment, I can see why the poets, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, stayed here for extended periods to draw inspiration.

The morning walk wasn't just for the ascetic value.  The night before when we arrive, the parking lot attendant had already left for the day and we could only buy short-term tickets to cover us until 8am today.  The first mission of the morning was to find where to buy the week-long parking passes.

I arrived back at my car a little before 8am, after the inspirational walk along the gulf.  Car was safe and had no tickets.  However, finding where to buy the weekly parking pass was the next adventure.  The signs around the automated teller were not all that helpful (even after translating them).  I did remember seeing a little info hut at the entrance to the parking lot at the lot entrance.  A short walk up a steep hill and I found the info booth, but the attended doesn't arrive until 8:30.  Being the impatient American, I decided to walk down to the other information booth at the bottom of the lot to see if they had passes.  So, I trucked it back down the hill. Alas, they were closed.

What to do now?  Well, there was a hotel nearby, the Hotel Florida.  "Great!" I think, English speaking reception can probably tell me how to get a parking pass.  Well friends, the reception at Hotel Florida doesn't speak very good English.  About all I got out of them is they couldn't give me a pass unless I was staying there.  So it is about 8:30 by this point, so I head back to the car and decide to drive back to the top of the parking lot hill and waited on the attendant to arrive. A short while later, the attendant arrive and I was the proud owner of a two week (they were out of 1 week) parking passes for Lerici.   Mission accomplished.

On my scenic stroll back to little house (Il Fondetto),I got a text from Sara requesting that I bring back coffee and some pastries for the kids (who were still asleep).  Scratching my head a little, I thought, "to go coffee in Italy?"  So I stopped in a little coffee shop by day, bar by night at the boardwalk to find the requested coffee to-go.

After waiting for a few locals to complete their orders (loving the lack of tourist), I made my request for lattes to go to the 30-something barista.  He thought for a minute, then told me to wait and disappeared around the corner.  A few minutes later, he returned with a plastic Solo-like cup and said, "this ok?"  Snickering a little, I said, "sure" and he made up the lattes.  A few minutes later, with two very hot coffees in plastic cups and with two donuts under each arm, I made my way up the hill to the house.  Coffees to go: mission complete.

The kids were up once I made it to the house, a little sleepy, but getting their morning started.  Donuts were a welcome sight and perked them up.  We quickly finished up the coffees and made our way down the hill. 

To get our blood moving for the days activities, we started out exploring the center of Lerici and Garibaldi square. Most of the shops were along a few narrow streets right off the boardwalk by the Gulf.  Like many small Italian towns, it is good that they don't allow cars down the narrow streets.  Beach paraphernalia, small local clothing stores, toy stores and restaurants were the typical things you would see down each street we traveled.

Next stop was the Castello di Lerici (Castle Lerici), the prominent castle overlooking the gulf area, and Lerici's most iconic feature.  The start o the walk was though a tunnel under the castle to which lead to the other side of the sea cliff the castle is perched on.  The tunnel was lined with art attached to the walls which were from a local art project here the artist painted adaptations of famous paintings, but set in the local area.  For example, there was and adaptation of Van Gogh's "Stary Night", but with Lerici hillside and barrier islands in the scene.  Most of them were quite well done, preserving the style of the original work.

The path up to the castle somewhat like a goat trail up the side of a hill, but with some paved in some parts.  It started out by going behind a cliff-side restaurant at the end of the tunnel.  After about 200 ft of elevation gain through switchbacks and stairs, we arrived at the castle. 

Arriving at the castle courtyard, we were greeted with  an amazing view of the gulf and the seaside on the other side of the castle. Of course, I completely bored the family taking pictures of the view.  The castle itself is pretty neat, having several different architectural styles as you go up the walls, as different periods added there part to the construction.   We walked along the edge of the castle courtyard, checking it out, but did not go into the castle itself, as it is a Dinosaur museum now.

Full of castle views  and beautiful scenes, it was time to go for a late lunch.  We strolled down the narrow winding streets from the castle to the Garibaldi Square, the main square in Lerici at the terminus of the boardwalk.    We settled on the La Mano di Fatima restaurant for lunch for some nice Italian food (ie: pizzas for the kids).  After lunch the kids played in the square chasing pigeons as Sara and I finished up our lunch.  It was a very nice, relaxing feeling.

Now stuffed, we all headed back to the little house for some down time.  Some napped, some played games on their phones, some tried to get the WiFi working.  A lazy afternoon at the beautiful little house was just what we needed.

The day ended with another stroll into town to find our favorite Italian food: Gelato.  Back down to Garibaldi plaza to the best gelato shop in town, Gelateria Acrobaleno.  The owner of the shop was serving us and noticed my Portland Timbers shirt.  That started a conversation where we learned that he was a international sales rep for Nike in the 80's, and got to come to Portland during that time for a big international sales conference.   Really nice guy, who we affectionately call "tall guy" as he is probably 6'5" or taller. The gelato was also quite awesome, which included his own local favor called "Lerici", which has pine nuts and other things from the area in it. This became our go-to gelato stop for the rest of our town in Lerici.

And thus, the 3rd day came to a close.