Getting to Mare Ligure, part 2

In the previous post, I described the mistakes I made in making arrangements to travel the Italian regionale trains.  All I wanted to do was experience the "real" Italy, put my feet into the Mediterranean Sea, and enjoy some together-time with my wife.  I indeed accomplished all those goals, but ...

Before going on, I must digress for a moment to help set the context of what happened when we reached Vada.  In the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, there's a scene where Tevye is waiting at the train station with his daughter, Hodel.  She's on her way to Siberia to join her husband, Perchik, who was arrested in a protest.  The train station seems to be in the middle of nowhere.  It's one small building surrounded by countryside.  It's a lonely, removed-from-everywhere station.

I've just described my first impression of the train station at Vada.

From my research on Google prior to the trip, I knew the station was outside of town.  What I didn't appreciate until experiencing the reality of it first-hand was how far the station was outside of town.  But my immediate concern in Vada was getting the tickets for our return to Florence.  Once they were in hand, I could deal with getting to the beach.

My wife and I got off the train at the Vada station, along with perhaps two others.  We needed to respond to 'nature's call' so the first order of business was to find the toilets.  Success.  Feeling much relieved physically, I went to to door of the station to get our tickets.

Problem.  The door was locked.  OK, I thought, the door on the left is what I have to use.  Locked.  Hmmm...  Where are the other people who got off here?  Gone.  In the time it took us to use the facilities, the other people disappeared.

So maybe I have to go around to the other side of the building and enter there.  We walked around to the front of the building, but those doors were also locked.  The whole building looked deserted.  I was really starting to feel the Tevye experience!

My wife and I looked at one another and determined the only thing to do was walk into town and hope there's someone there who can help us.  We set off on the only road leading away from the station (really glad that there wasn't a choice to be made there!) and towards the town.

In retrospect, I really blew it by not taking any pictures of our walk.  The contrast of this road with most of our walking experiences in Italy was amazing!  Florence was crowded, noisy, sometimes hot, and one constantly faced the possibility of being run down by scooters, motorcycles, and small cars.  The road to Vada was quiet, tree-lined, and instead of four-and-five story buildings surrounding us, we were surrounded by gardens, sheep and goat herds, an olive tree grove and small vineyard.  It was so beautiful and relaxing!

At a bend in the road, a signpost indicated several destinations of interest in Vada.  One sign said "informazioni turistiche" with an address.  That's hopeful!  A tourist information office ought to be able to tell us how to get our return tickets! So we followed the signs into town.  


Coming into town, we walked into a round-about.  These are intersections that rather than forming an "x" or "t" become an "o" with roads shooting off from it in several directions.  The round-about had a signpost and the informazioni turistiche sign was still there with an arrow pointing the way.  But when we got to the next signpost, the informazioni turistiche didn't appear.  Uh-oh.  We must have taken the wrong street from the round-about.


We could either retrace our steps and try again, or forge ahead but with a different destination in mind.  I really wanted to see the beach and walk in the water.  The signpost showed "white sand beach" spiaggia di sabbia bianca, was three km away.  OK, let's go there, I suggested.  My wife agreed, and off we went.

The spiaggia di sabbia bianca signs were more easily followed because they skirted the edge of town, and I began to recognize some of the area from photos I'd viewed online before coming.  Yes, there were the Roman pine trees - beautiful trees with trunks that shot up 20-30 feet before branching out.  They provided a welcome break from the sun beating down on us as we trudged along.


Finally, we arrived at the promised beach.  A few cars were in the parking area, and a campground with several trailers and the Italian version of RVs was next door.  We walked around a building that appeared to be a store/restaurant and successo!, there's the sea!!


I wanted to find an uncrowded beach, and that's exactly what we discovered.  I was amazed.  It's a very warm day, perfect for hitting the water.  But there were perhaps a dozen people along a stretch of beach that was easily a mile long!  Clearly, there were times that this beach must be much busier, because we saw hundreds of umbrella stands and beach chairs folded away in anticipation of crowds.  But they weren't there that day, much to my pleasure.

The Mare Ligure is a subset of the Mediterreanean that extends from halfway up the Italian "boot" towards the coast of France to the northwest.  Unlike most ocean beaches, the Vada beach was not sandy from crushed seashells but rather from crushed rock.  As we walked along the beach, I found several small stones to take home, but nary a seashell.  The water itself was a gorgeous deep blue, and the perfect temperature to wade along.

We walked the stretch of beach towards the north until it reached a bend where the pine forest extended down almost into the water.  The sun was hovering in the west, and the breeze off the sea was quite pleasant.  We took some photos to mark the occasion, but then our tummies started rumbling.  We walked back up to the building hoping to enjoy a nice sea-side dinner.  Alas, the "restaurant" portion was not open, and the only food available was the snack variety.  Not what we wanted, so I just bought some water and we decided to head into town.  

As we walked back towards Vada, I discovered that we had walked to the furthest beach.  In effect, I made a triangle - 3 km from the train station to the beach, and then 3 km from the beach into town.  Only now, my feet were wet from the sea, and I'd already walked across Pisa.  

Note to self: don't wear footwear for a 20-minute beach excursion when also walking through city and country for six or more hours!  My sock-less feet in canvas shoes were beginning to blister!


More to come in part 3!