We are continuing to be more cognizant of the remaining days of our stay at Bogliasco. Today is Friday, and we are leaving next Thursday morning......less than a week. The initial luxury of time that we began with is slowly adjusting into the recognition that all good things pass along. This is all the more reason to try to enhance what we enjoy in order to absorb the experience as much as possible. The challenge that we confront is whether to just sit, relax, walk through the gardens, paint a while, sit on the roof terrace......totally 'de-stress' - or whether to take advantage of the explorations that are almost endless into the towns and landscapes of the Ligurian coast. I suppose we are trying to have it both ways, which sometimes packs a bit too much into our available days.
Every morning starts with opening the shutters and checking out the day........sun, sea, birds, trees, temperature and a deep breath!
A real necessity is the espresso/caffe machine in the pantry!
In any case, today was supposed to be the best weather of the weekend, so we decided to plan two trips. In the morning we did the 'yoga-like' rest your mind thing......and around noontime we jumped in the car and headed down to Sestri Levante for lunch. Sestri Levante is a beautiful seaside resort town about 40 miles to the south, on the edge of Cinque Terre. It is, however, quite accessible from Bogliasco on the Autostrada, so it only took us 35 minutes to get there.
The second part of the day was scheduled for a trip to San Rocco with Robin and Margie.......but we will describe that later.
First, Sestri Levante-
About 10 years ago we visited our friends Noel and Clara, who were living in Florence for a year. We rented a car and drove to see Cinque Terre and stayed in Sestri Levante. Below is a picture we just saw on the internet of a view from the hotel we stayed at!
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| the bold and simple architecture of bath houses |
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| the more 'western' and busier beach |
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| the quieter beach on the 'Bay of Silenzio' - but today it is the more crowded beach! |
After an hour or so of walking through the city streets we decided we needed to grab lunch before it go too late. After looking at lots of cafes and trattoria choices, we decided to go back to the main beach and try Segesta. Segesta was a restaurant/beach club that we had once grabbed a late afternoon coffee at.......and wanted to go back and try the food.
It turned out to be a fantastic experience. The club seemed like it had been recently renovated and was quite beautiful. The outdoor patios were covered with white canvas sailcloth shades which were also integrated with a forest of wisteria vines. There was some wonderful light jazz playing in the background.
The food was perfect........a panini and a bowl of the creamy filling that they put into burrata mozzarella, topped with sun-dried cherry tomatoes and basil (and not to forget the Ligurian rosato!)
We left Sestri Levante after lunch and made it back to Bogliasco by around 3:30.......time for a short rest, and then back down to the car with Robin and Margie to head out to San Rocco and Bar Dei Marguetti! This place pops up in our blogs over the years (and earlier on this trip) so we won't elaborate much here, other than it is unique and wonderful. We had been there with Robin three years ago and he wanted to take Margie.....a nice trip for all of us to do together.
One of the fun experiences heading out to the bar was encountering a turtle on the hiking path. It was headed towards the 'drop-off' edge of the trail so we encouraged it back to the other side. A few minutes later a young boy and his mom came along.......and the short story version is that the boy ended up taking the turtle home (they lived up the hill about 150 steps!). Later on he brought it back to the bar to show it off !
