This morning we caught a ferry from La Spezia to see the collection of 5 town along the rocky coast called Cinque Terre. It’s apparently the done thing to walk between the towns as there is no connecting road, although there is a train line through the towns, and you can get to a couple by road. These walks vary from 1-3 hours and theoretically possible to do in 5 hours, but not at this time of year with hot days and blazing sun. There were hundreds and hundreds of tourists catching the boats as the trains were on strike today. 
We decided to go to the furthest and largest first, Monterosso, and then stop at a couple on the way back. All of the towns are large tourist attractions and provide accommodation, and are popular with mainly Italian and French tourists although there were others there as well, including some Australians.
Anyway we had a swim at Monterosso in the small area available to the public (ie. where you haven’t hired umbrellas and deck chairs). The water was very clear, a little cool but perfect on a hot day. Not many others were swimming though – mostly baking on the pebbly beach. A big thing here appears to be lemons, and they and the juice were in sale everywhere.After a lunch of pizza slices (Italian equivalent of fish n chips), we queued up with hundreds of others to catch the boat to Porto Venere, reputedly the most beautiful of the towns. It was nice, but the swimming wasn’t as good (Frances had to go in again) and very crowded. After a coffee we again queued in the blazing sun with hundreds of others to catch a boat back to La Spezia. The boat company wasn’t coping very well with the crowds, and although they added more boats to deal with the train strike, the timetable and boat destinations was a bit like a lottery.
We both felt that Lago Maggiore and its islands was as comparatively beautiful, but less over promoted. We were relieved to get back to the hotel and have some time to rest and prepare for the passeggiata.
Tomorrow he head off around the Mediterranean coast to Marseille where we’ll meet up with the family of Zoe Martin who stayed with us for six weeks, 2 years ago.
