We picked up Pat and Christine in Lavagne. They are coming on board for a few days as we head to Pisa. We motored a few hours South to Portovendre and it was very scenic as we passed along by Cinque Terre (the 5 lands). There are 5 or so villages in the are that till recently were only accessible by boat or on foot. Mountainous cliffs falling (literally) into the sea with small villages and houses dotted amongst the landscape. A few years ago quite a few homes and lives were lost due to landslides. Now the Italian government has a scheme whereby they will give you land there so long as you work the land to restore it to its natural state, including building terraces, replacing the stone walls to prevent further deterioration of the land. Good idea!
To the South of Cinque Terre is Portovendre. A fairly narrow entrance to La Spezia bay between the mainland and the island brings you to a huge and very well protected bay. Finally somewhere to drop the anchor along this coast! We dropped the anchor just opposite Portovendre and let Balrog have a swim to cool down. Unfortunately as he always likes to clean the ocean, he bought back a big jelly like glob of oil and managed to get it all over himself, and Sephina. An hour or 2 later most of it was scrubbed off and after a quick yummy tart from Jenijane, we dinghied over to take a look around. Portovendre is a bit like Portofino, but a little nicer I though (less exclusive)
We wandered around the remains of the old castles, forts and churches, visited Byron’s Grotto where Lord Byron was reputed to relax, swim and meditated as he loved Portovendre. Legend has it he swam from here to the other side of La Spezia bay regularly (about 2 miles). Another legend is he would swim it after a few wines in the Taverna when he felt like visiting some girlfriends on the other side of the bay!
After a nice night at anchor we headed further into the bay to La Grazie, another protected anchorage, and dropped anchor for a night. We had a wander around but the town was really sleepy. Didn't manage to find a supermarket or restaurant so we returned to Sephina for some Chef Jenijane fair (much nicer than a restaurant anyway)
Off toward Pisa the next day as we were leaving the bay we were asked to wait while the navy did some practice firing. We floated around for 20 mins till they gave us the go ahead. As we proceeded South we noticed the Navy ship following us. As it drew closer they contacted us on VHF and asked us to adjust our course as we were in the middle of the area they wanted to shoot their torpedo’s...we thought it would be a good idea to oblige !
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