Porto Venere Wednesday, February 5, 2020
La Spezia is a bustling ship building town. We marveled at seeing the Italian shipbuilding company,
Fincantieri, that had built so many of the cruise ships that we sailed on. The La Spezia seaside is taken up with large factory buildings and the Navy shipyard. There is a small walking waterside park that is lovely just west of the shipbuilding extravaganza. We passed through this working man’s town and followed the twisting, turning road through several Italian villages.
The pastel colored homes were spectacular with the sun sinking lower into the sky.
The roads that we have been traveling are quite a narrow mass of twists and turns. We crawl up and down the hillsides with the Italian motorcycles and cars buzzing by us. Italians like to use their horns and hands to express themselves....sounds a lot like our very own New Yorkers.
Larry and I drove over to La Spezia this afternoon with our destination being Porto Venere, a point across the Golfo dei Posti that leads out to the Mediterranean. We could spot it from the shores of Lerici.
We passed Santa Maria dell’Assunta, a black and white striped stone traditional style church in downtown La Spezia.... a striking comparison to the Baroque style churches that dominate Italy. It was restored in 1954 after the air raids of WWII.
The view back toward Lerici shows the high peaks of granite mountains that protects this area from the cold winters. We read that this area has very temperate winters due to the mountains blocking the cold northern winds. The locals who are out and about are bundled up like they are in the deep north, even though the temperatures are in the 60’s.
We arrived back in Lerici just in time to catch the sun setting over Porto Venere and....
Castillo di San Giorgio....
Porto Venere, passage to the Mediterranean
Porto Venere, tucked into lush foliage
Once a seaside fishing village, now a quaint little tourist destination.
So cool to see it lit up in the night sky
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