February 23-25, 2007 Italian Riviera and The Leaning Tower of Pisa

We stayed in a town called Ceriale, which is near Genova on the Italian Riviera, while we were in Italy for the weekend. Italy was so beautiful, just like I've pictured it for so many decades. The Mediterranean has picturesque tropical mountains rising and falling all along the sea. The mountain tops are dotted with pastel colored houses that hold a birds eye view of the blue-green water below. The sand hugs the mountain's base in a curving pattern that continues on as far as the eye can see. We followed the highway as it curved in and out close to the sea. Darcy was driving pretty fast trying to keep up with the Italian drivers around us.

Our campground was named Camping Baccicia and it proved to be very inexpensive. Our chalet was cozy and thankfully it had a fridge. We brought our own food and only had to eat a meal out once during the weekend. Darcy and I had our own room and the kids had a room with two bunk beds. Even though the swimming pool wasn't open yet we could open up our bathroom window and look out onto it. In the high season they shuttle guests to the campground's own private beach on the Mediterranean Sea. We checked out the area as we were leaving and it was truly gorgeous. I'd love to go back in the summer, but we have so many other places to see in Europe.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was so cool! If you walk up to the base it's actually sunken down quite a ways and is surrounded by pink marble. The top has a bell tower with 7 bells perfectly tuned to the seven notes of a musical scale. It was smaller then I expected. There are 6 tiers below the bell tower that resemble the layers on a wedding cake. I took pictures in color, sepia, and black and white. I carried my zoom around all day, but I forgot to take a zoomed in picture, oops!

It didn't rain the whole time we were at the tower and then as we were walking back to the car it started to come down in a huge down pour. Man were we lucky!

On the way back to our chalet we stopped at this pizzeria that was high up on the mountain top in a town called Carrera. There was a man singing in Italian and playing the keyboard, it sounded very nice. We all had our own pizza's made thin with fresh cut toppings. It was very yummy. Darcy and I had a nice glass of Rosso Casa Vino with our supper. Luckily we had the translator (that the wonderful girls at work bought for me as a going away gift) with us, which helped us to communicate with the waitress.

We also used the translator when we were pumping gas to make sure it was unleaded!

We visited the Mediterranean Sea twice because the kids had so much fun the first time. It was so beautiful. The boardwalk was lined with palm trees and birds of paradise plants that were already in bloom! The kids hunted for shells, visited an injured seagull by the sea, ran through the waves, and raced on the beach. I took dozens of pictures ... of course ... and didn't think to meditate. I didn't want to miss taking a picture of anything, ha, ha.

On the way home we drove through a town in Italy called Como. It's right before the Swiss border and has a lake called Lake Como (Lago di Como) running through it. It's a resort town and definitely worth going back to this summer. The mountains come right up to the lake and the beaches are white. Luckily it's only a few hours from Bregenz. When we got to the Swiss Alps we hit a snow storm. What a contrast to Italy's beautiful 15 above weather.

It took us 5 hours to drive from our doorstep to the campground. Everything is so accessible here. This trip was short but very sweet. Well our next trip is to Paris in April for our 15 year anniversary and then onto England this summer.

Lisa Allen
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