Our travel location within the Cinque Terra resides on the Ligurian Sea which is a body of water that is part of the larger Mediterranean Sea. Liguria is one of the Regions of a unified Italy south and west of the Italian Alps. The mountain ranges that hug the coast drop down precipitously to the warm waters below and serve as the destination point for so many Italians during their vacation month of August. The Region's coastline includes the Cinque Terra and La Spezia on the south up through and beyond Genoa to the north. It is much larger than I realized and extends up north and west to the border of France. Quite frankly there is enough in the Region to keep a visitor occupied for weeks or months.
Today, August 2, we kick our visit to the "FiveTown" region into high gear by setting sail on the Ligorian Sea. Skip Harsy has made the arrangements for the 7 of us to board a 65' sailing vessel and cruise down south the the harbor of La Spezia and disembark for lunch in the gorgeous seaside town of Portovere. Once again, sun-tanned bathers stretch out their towels on the rocks to expose their bodies to the baking rays of the sun. It is hard to tell if there is widespread concern over the damaging effects of the sun's rays since, frankly, there is such widespread exposure of their bodies with relatively scant attention to bathing suits. Pontevere sits on the very tip of the "Bay of Poets" (La Spezia) where Shelley and Keats used the beautiful, natural sites of this area to parse some of their more beautiful poetry.
Within this post I will try to include some pictures of our 10hour sailing adventure south to La Spezia and then back north along the coastline past Manarola to a secluded beach that included nude sunbathers. While we didn't drop anchor too close to the bathers we did have the opportunity to swim off the back of the boat in the beautiful blue waters that were sufficiently salty that buoyancy was hardly a problem. We were 30' above the sea floor and, yet, we could see the bottom along with the fish that swam by our feet. It was quite idyllic!
Because the blog doesn't allow for very big photos I will simply use a second post to include some of the many beautiful pictures I took along the way. No nude sunbathing pictures will be included!
Location:Manarola
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