Levanto continued

After hiking through the five towns of Cinque-Terre, we decided to spend the next day doing some hiking around Levanto, as there are many trails that loop up into the mountains around the town. After about an hour of fruitlessly searching for the trailhead, we gave up and decided to spend some time in the town instead. Jodie bought a new bathing suit and decided to test it out on the beach, and I decided to do some riding up in the hills surrounding the town. It was really fantastic riding - incredible climbing on a narrow but deserted road. In nearly no time I was way up above Levanto and able to get some great views of the area. The picture to the left shows the road snaking up among the olive trees:

There were many small towns in the area and I entered a few of them, but did not stay too long. I was only a few km out of the main tourist town but nonetheless I felt very out of place. In one case I rode into the town squareto find everyone go silent and look curiously at me... Not unfriendly, just surprised, kind of like the time I forgot I was in Tim Hortons and accidently ordered a venti half-caf skinny frapacino.
















Anyway, the riding was great. This is what Jodie saw which I guess is not too bad either.



We had planned to move onto Florence the next day to start riding in Tuscany, but Italy's train workers had other plans, starting a two-day strike that morning. This was quite a tough blow for us as it meant we would have to spend two days in Levanto with nothing to do except determine which area of the beach was the sandiest and which cafe had the best banana gelato (Fashion Cafe, right on the water, in case you are interested). Somehow we pulled through this challenge. I went riding again, this time heading up up up over the mountains towards the cinque-terre region. The cycling was even better this time with great views (although a bit cloudy).