The other general observation I believe is key to a harmonius holiday anywhere: do not moan about tourists or prices because: a) you are a tourist yourself, therefore b) expect to pay over the odds. When you then feast for 5 euros because you stumbled across a bar that does an early evening aperitivo deal, full of locals, it's an added bonus.
I had the most extraordinary things happening to me, too many really to recap in just one post, if you can't be bothered reading this then just check out the slide show on picasa. I try my best to be succinct (me?) and reduce the whole experience into a few highlights divided into five chunks mirroring the locations that I based myself in during those 8 days: Cinque terre, Genova, Nice and Marseille, and one part dedicated to the memorable arrival as follows:
1. Arrival (Pisa)
The most noteworthy thing was the heat, from the moment of touch down at Pisa airport at 7.35 pm on Wednesday 6 August. I didn't think I'd last for 8 days in those kind of temperatures (it was still +32 at that hour of the evening) but strangely one gets used to it, and by the time I reached Marseille I was cycling, taking un-airconditioned local trains and not feeling in any way restricted by the hot weather.
The incident that has to be recorded here sums up the most eventful 15 minutes of the year thus far: I had an ambitious plan to catch the 8.06 pm train from central Pisa to La Spezia, given that at 7.45 pm I was still waiting for my luggage in the arrivals hall, I didn't think I'd make it.
I jumped into a taxi at 7.52 pm, untypically for Italy the traffic was unproblematic so I reached the station at 8.00 pm. Untypically still, there was no queue at the ticket office, so when I was rushing up the stairs awkwardly with my luggage towards the platform with about a minute and a half to spare, I had no intention to turn around when I heard someone shouting "signora, signora". When I reached the platform I could still hear the persistent voice behind me so I turned around and saw a chubby man with an impressive moustache roughly in his late 50's hopping up the stairs and waving his arm in the air. Hang on, is that my purse he is clutching in his hand? He was huffing and puffing and speaking with great speed in Italian to two ladies witnessing the bizarre event, whilst handing my purse back to me. Undoubtedly he was explaining how he saw a pickpocket at work in the tunnel under the platforms and his heroic confrontation of the thief (I indeed spotted a suspicious looking teenage girl in the tunnel but I was too much in a hurry to clock that my shoulder bag was unzipped and my purse in full view after having just bought the train ticket, and also I heard some commotion behind me but again I was undeterred from my mission to catch the train).
The strange man with a moustache saved my holiday, the train pulled in, and all I could say was "grazie, grazie" and hurry on to the train. The purse still contained all my bank and visa cards, my driving licence, NI card, a substantial amount of euros (enough to last me for 8 days).
My faith in the human race is restored.
2. Cinque terre
Sun, sea, cliffs, tiny ports, formaggio and vino. Cinque terre probably could be entered into the Oxford dictionary of English to describe the word "pictoresque".The most famous inhabitant of the (very) small town of Manarola was the lemon tree right across the road from our B&B. Groups of visitors stopped outside for a photo opportunity of the said member of local flora.
Cinque terre was the main venue of the honeymoon, so one of the first things my friend announced as we met at La Spezia station went something like this: "fear not, the sheets have been changed this morning, but us girls will have to do with one big sheet to sleep with, despite my repeated requests for two single sheets for the double bed that we would share".
As Nicola would say, worse things happen at sea.
Va bene!
3. Genova
We stayed in the most delightful B&B in the heart of the old town. It was a cute converted attic apartment in an ancient building consisting of 4 double rooms, a lovely spacious kitchen and a quirky roof terrace accessed through the kitchen window onto a narrow ledge, past the drain pipes and up a narrow flight of steps onto the most spectacular little sun trap in the entire city of Genova. I urge you to check out the pictures in picasa to see it for yourselves, it was incredible. The building itself didn't have a lift (but one was going to be installed, I witnessed the public notice of works downstairs next to the entrance) which made the experience of dragging your luggage up to the 5th floor with the temperature raising by about 5 degrees celsius after each flight of steps, well, quite an effort. It was all worth it though.
Genova could be described as having bags of gritty appeal, the old town with its narrow streets, the port, the prostitutes.... it's a working city in more ways than one. For high culture, via Garibaldi is a Unesco listed street with palaces built by the Italian aristocracy in the Genoese heyday, around the 16th century (pictured).
On Sunday 10 August the honeymoon officially ended and my friend returned chez elle, and I continued on to France by train.
4. Nice
Palm trees, pretty pastels and frilly french balconies en masse. NB the re-assuring queue outside a boulangerie (pictured). Dining al fresco in Vieux Nice is not to be missed, I had the lushest fried sardines known to mankind there. Enjoying their meal in the table next to me was an unlikely couple (I thought: a classy lady with a toyboy) who turned out in fact to be mother and son, the latter doing his training in the kitchen of a Parisian 3 Michelin star restaurant, the former visiting him all the way from Brasil. There was something about the way they shared a cigarette after the starter that made me think otherwise. Anyway, no wonder I couldn't figure out what language they spoke, it sounded nothing like the Portuguese I heard in Portugal last October.It was a funny co-incidence that the mother and son were doing almost the exact same journey I was, only in reverse order: from Paris they had headed South to Marseille, from there along the corniche to Nice where out paths crossed, and were going to continue to Italy! On their recommendation I resolved to visit Cassis (just East of Marseille) and in return I gave them the number of the delightful B&B in Genova described above.
5. Marseille
In a word, Marseille is massive.
The whole experience of Marseille was rather dominated by my stay in the iconic Unite d'Habitation (Hotel le Corbusier, rooftop pictured), not only because it is such a mould-breaking building, but also because it is well off the beaten track so I found myself having to travel miles to get to the vieux port and the other touristy parts of town.The touristy thing to do in Marseille is to visit Cassis (a tiny fishing town turned into a bit of a middle-class day trip destination), where you drink A.O.C Cassis ("blanc de blancs") on the beach, and catch a boat to visit les Calanques (tick).
However, Marseille couldn't really be described as touristy. The Marseillais have their very own Arndale centre (le centre commercial Bourse), and the city is more or less covered in graffiti. The metro is very retro indeed, and as with all other public forms of transport, it stops around 9 pm (this I found out the hard way, typically, and still find it incredible given that their dining habits are the same as everyone else's in the Med, ie late). On the bright side, you can access public transport bicycles, but you need your credit card to do this which I didn't have with me the first night...
Anyway, the Marseillais are wonderful, they speak French to you no matter how badly you speak French back to them (a refreshing change since in Nice, they all spoke English back to me as soon as I said "bonjour"). Also, they are very friendly and approachable (perhaps with the exception of the quey-side cafes where posh ladies with big jewellery and small dogs can be found in abundance), I was a bit paranoid first as random people would greet me in the street for no apparent reason. On the last night, I owe my fantastic bike ride along the corniche J.F. Kennedy to la plage du Prado to a friendly local who (seeing me struggle with the task) helped me operate the state of the art system to get on my bike.
The most bizarre element of the entire holiday was Hotel Le Corbusier/Unite d'Habitation, in its' entirety. It's like an ode to modernity and people who live there "live the utopia". Visiting the famous rooftop one gloriuos morning I spotted some folks dressed in old-fashioned white t-shirts doing their 1950's style weight lifting and other healthy exercises. In addition, no formal signing-in was required at the reception, I just told them my name and they took me to my room. I could have been anyone. To add to the strangeness, a different man at the reception when I was "checking out" (ie handing back my key and 138 euros in cash) advised me that Finnish people are asian. He assured me that he has several books on the topic and that this really is the case. Maybe he's right?
The height of weirdness was the nocturnal visit from some unidentified French guy into my room at approximately 12.30 am the first night: I was in bed, asleep, and woke up to the sound of keys rattling against the outer door which lead into this shared foyer between my room and next door. Right, I thought, the neighbour has arrived back from late dinner. Only that the rattling of the keys in the second door sounded far too loud. Before I could really think properly, the door opened and a man walked into the room, rested his shopping bags on the floor and flicked all the lights on. "Pardon, je suis trompe!" he exclaimed, seeing me gawking at him from between the sheets, grabbed his shopping bags, turned on his heels and made his swift way out.
Thankfully, he swithed the lights off again before he left the room so I didn't have to get out of bed.
The end.
