Day Forty-Five - Manarola

Today was a day of resting and re-grouping. We didn’t wake up until eight thirty and we had no food except for a few teabags and coffee sachets. We ventured out at nine o’clock to find yesterday’s closed little grocery store in the main street was open. We managed to buy our essential items of milk, cereal, bread, butter etc and decipher some of the Italian words along the way. This is where we were going to rely on Brian for assistance.
Yesterday’s tourists were gone and there was a calmness over the town. The morning was overcast, very windy with the occasional shower and we spent the time doing jobs and finding our way around the little town. We found the washing machine in our apartment didn’t work or maybe the electrical point doesn’t work so we couldn’t do any washing. We reported the faulty machine to our friendly agent when we walked down the steep lane and back into the main street. We got the instructions to the ATM which was well hidden near the tunnel to the railway station and got some much needed Euros. We located the only WiFi in town at the Manarola Information Centre near the railway station. We needed to email the managers of the apartment in Rome and notify our time of arrival this Saturday. Before doing this we had to find the online train timetable to find a suitable train to go from Manarola to Rome. This will take about four and a half hours. We found we can’t buy the tickets at Manarola but only from La Spezia so we may go back there later sometime during the week to book our train tickets for Saturday.
We had a take-away lunch of tasty pizza and spent the afternoon relaxing. We haven’t done this very much on this holiday and we enjoyed it. Later in the afternoon the electricity tripped. We had lights but no power and the circuit breaker wouldn’t re-engage. We had to ring our agent to notify them of the problem. They came around straight away and after much turning on and off of switches the problem seems resolved. However, it has worked in our favour as an electrician is coming around tomorrow morning and the washing machine will be checked as well.
As we are only two instead of three the agent has reduced the cost to two people so that is very kind of them. I think the electrical problems may have helped here!
We spent an hour strolling around the outskirts of the town overlooking the sea. It was quite wild today in contrast to yesterday’s calm. Dinner was at Il Porticciolo in the main street near the harbour. We were given a table that was reserved for Brian. So he is here in spirit! I had lemon marinated anchovies which were delicious and we both had a tasty seafood risotto. Tomorrow we meet up with our friends Rod and Helen who are also travelling in Italy.
Photos: Manarola from the distance; The coastline near Manarola; Henk walking down a wet main street; Rocks on the roof to hold the it down!