We left the hotel and its surly breakfast staff around 9am and caught a bus to the train station, using my pidgeon Italian to get directions to the bus stop.
We had about an hour to wait for the train, however it was travelling straight through to Monterosso without us having to change. The trip was straightforeward except that we had forgotten to stamp our tickets and got fined €5. Barely a day in Italy and already we're criminals!
Once we arrived we made our way to the Hotel Marina. The hotel is really nice, in the old town and a stones throw from everything.
After dropping our bags we wandered around the town looking for somewhere to eat. It's pretty crowded and although our first choice was full we found another place a few doors up that looked nice. I had some really nice peccorino with honey and walnuta followed by troffie pasta with pesto (Liguria is where pesto was invented) and Alicea had a seafood platter that looked as though it had been tipped out of a fisherman's net.
From there we wandered around the town a little more before retiring to the hotel for a siesta. We've a busy few days coming up so we thought we'd get a rest while we could.
Steve SMS'd us to tell us held arrived and to arrange to meet up for dinner.
Around 7pm we met up with Steve and went for a drink. While we were there a huge thunderstorm hit the town and the rain poured down. We then went to a restaurant where we "mushroomed out" by ordering just about every mushroom course on the menu! The waitress brought out a large basket of fresh porcini to show us what we would be having!
Once we had finished, we retired to our respective hotels, Alicea and I to prepare for our walk tomorrow, Steve to prepare for his "duvet day"!
Regards,
Gary Nicklin
Please excuse the short message - it was sent from a Blackberry handheld.
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