The hike and the night after

We did the hike up the mountain – turns out the elevation we hiked to is about 2700 ft above sea level – Gabriele said it is about 3000 steps and some of the steps were quite a reach and some were crumbling and not level. But we made it along with Henry and Gillian from Portland and Joanna from Switzerland and Stefan from Germany – all much younger than us…

The hike was incredible in many ways – incredibly steep, incredibly narrow and also incredibly beautiful. I have only two iPhone pictures on the way up – so the rest will have to wait for us to get back.

We got back about six and headed down into town to find a restaurant for dinner. We chose Trattoria il Porticciolo and ate on the patio.

 

and this time decided we had to try pesto, besides anchovies one of the things this area is known for. I got special local pasta with pesto – and Bill got seafood ravioli with mussels, clams, and other shellfish with ravioli.

 We met another young Austalian couple who were in the last two weeks of 3 months of traveling. They are teachers and took off their summer to travel.

A little later in came Gillian and Henry

 

Just after dessert

a couple from the UK told us there was a 24 hour train strike so it was unclear if we would get to Florence the next day. Went back to La Toretta but Gabriele had not heard anything on the news but he would check in the morning so we took advantage of the hot tub and then went to bed.