Mom in town!

Amazing shape for someone that broke her hip a few months ago!

Tellaro!

The last time we went to Florence, I noticed some beautiful hill towns to the West of the autoroute, near Carrara.  I looked it up a bit later and discovered that there were a whole mess'o cool looking places along the peninsula.  Among those was a picturesque town at the end of a one way road called Tellaro.  A little Homelidays searching revealed a place to stay, and so Jon, Sue and the whole fam loaded up the Dragon Wagon for a short vacation.

There was another nice, but much larger town called Lerici right down the road where we found a nice cafe right across the street from the water, with a very friendly owner

There was a market, too!

And at the junction to Tellaro, there was an Olive Oil press, where we bought some excellent olive oil and were given a small tour of the press and ancillery equipment

In the corner of the bay is la Spezia, a famous Italian port where many of the mega yachts are built.  You can even catch glimpses of them as you are driving along the SP331.

We visited Portovenere together:

And I did a little riding in the immediate area, traingin for the dreaded Etape du Tour, but also taking in some nice towns, like Montemarcello, Ameglia, Cafaggio  and Arcola.

And of course, we had some amazing meals:

Some of my favorites are simple dishes like this tomato and octopus sandwich

And a new discovery for me was the whole wheat croissant.  Moist and delicious (and sometimes filled with honey!)