The coast with the most

I’d always assumed that the famous leaning tower of Pisa was once straight and that it had gained its unusual tilt over centuries of subsidence. Turns out that it was just a dodgy building job and has been an almighty cock up all its life. One thing is for sure though: it’s one of those landmarks where it is better to be outside looking up at it, than up it looking out. That little gem of wisdom cost Claire and I 18 euros each in entrance fees. You see, aside from the arduous climb up the stairs seeming a bit steeper in places and ever-so-slightly easier in others, all you get at the top is a view of the rest of Pisa which, apart from the neighbouring cathedral, is pretty dull. There are a few bells up there (it is, after all, a bell tower) and some annoying tourists, whose sole job is to get in the way of every single photograph you want to take, but otherwise there’s not much going on. The best views are to be had down on the ground and they are actually best viewed with the tower behind you – that way you get to see lots of people posing for photographs where they pretend to either lean against or prop up the tower. Viewed without the tower, it looks like a group of escaped mental patients taking part in a some sort of wacky yoga class. Even better still is watching relationships fall apart before your very eyes as increasingly frustrated men try desperately to explain perspective to their even more exasperated wives and girlfriends.

Taking the main road out of Pisa, we became increasingly aware of what can only be described as half-dressed women, loitering in laybys, waving at cars. These prostitutes (for that is what they were) were presumably trying to lure men into their particular layby for a bit of light relief, but what we struggled to understand is why any man would want to take part in such a transaction next to what was a very long, slow-moving stream of rush-hour traffic. Especially given the high likelihood of someone they knew being sat in that traffic. One woman was obviously doing it to pay for a new skirt or some trousers because her’s were nowhere to be seen…

The coastline on this side of Italy was really beautiful and a world apart from the depressing desolation we’d witnessed on the east coast. We’d read that one of the highlights of this particular bit of coast was an area called Cinque Terre (pronounced chink-wee terror). Although translating literally as Five Lands, it actually refers to five villages, of varying levels of prettiness, that are accessible only by boat or train. Or that was what we were led to believe. We got a train to the furthest village, Riomaggiore, to find that it was quite nice and consisted of a collection of colourful houses built into the cliffs overlooking a little natural harbour. Just like the tower at Pisa, it was quaint if seen from afar but not quite as stunning once you were in it. More galling was the sight of some cars that had miraculously managed to drive to the village along roads that shouldn’t exist. Maybe the rail company started the myth about them being inaccessible to increase ticket sales.

As we stopped off at each of the villages on the way back to where we’d been talked into parking (an hour away by train) each successive settlement became slightly more disappointing with increasingly large numbers of ‘magic’ cars. On the plus side, it proved to be a good workout and, given the number of steep paths and long sets of steps we had to ascend, I can only assume that the locals must have the biggest calf muscles in Italy.

Getting on and off the trains was a bit of a task too because Italians don’t have any notion of queueing and certainly don’t want to wait for you to get off the train before they start getting on. Add to this mix a herd or two of hapless elderly tourists on a day trip from their cruise ship, being led around by a disinterested tour guide, and chaos soon ensues. In amongst this maelstrom were a couple of teenage girls who seemed intent on getting in everybody’s way… until we realised that was exactly what they were doing, distracting people, bumping into them and attempting to pick their pockets. A guard came along so we told him what we had seen and pointed the culprits out to him but he was a very long way from caring, even a little bit, and seemed much more concerned with telling us we had the wrong tickets.

It was Claire’s birthday last week so it was decided that we should treat ourselves to a hotel in order to celebrate appropriately. Rather randomly (by looking at a map to see what was nearby) we chose a little town called Santa Margherita Ligure and a proper old riviera establishment called the Grand Hotel Miramare. The service was beyond impeccable and they simply couldn’t do enough for us – though when the concierge offered to park our car, his heart must have sank when he saw what we’d given him the keys to. Due to its height, our van wouldn’t fit into their car park so they found a special place for it on a bit of the promenade, right on the seafront outside the hotel, which meant that any guests who’d paid for a sea view now also got a lovely view of our little yellow van. It became a bit of a celebrity while it was there and we spotted several passers by taking photos of it – though I’m not sure whether that was because they liked it or were maybe going to report it.

About half an hour walk or, in our case, a ten minute boat ride along the coast is the small fishing village of Portofino. It is a lovely little village but the operative word in that sentence is little – we’d seen the whole place by lunchtime – which is why it surprised us that it is famous as a being a celebrity haunt. From Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to Jay-Z and Beyonce, from Clark Gable to Michael Douglas, Steven Spielberg, J-Lo, Rod Stewart and Rihanna – this little village draws them all. The old fishing harbour is now full of ridiculously luxurious sci-fi super yachts and the streets off the harbour – of which there are approximately two – are crammed with high-end stores (Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci etc) as if somebody accidentally misplaced a shopping mall. It’s like taking Bond Street and transplanting it into Port Isaac. Only with better weather.