Italy Day 3: Splashing in the Mediterranean Sea
[This HAPPENED on 04 August 2014, but was written 29 SEPTEMBER 2014. Yeah.]
Our destination on this lovely Monday was the small Mediterranean beach-town of Varazze. The plan was to at least stick our toes into the water, but preferably spend the day at the beach. The drive there took a little over an hour on the awesome highway-system. Bizarrely, the road was littered with tunnels of varying lengths. I vaguely recall someone counting over thirty of them on the way back! (39 images total)
Bjarki enjoying life in front of the TV in the early morning. I think his favorite show was Peppa Pig.
Emma’s mastered pointing at things she wants. We look forward to her becoming more verbal!
We’d mostly packed the night before, so we managed to leave early. This made me gleefully happy!
Fancy buildings up on a hill.
So. Many. Tunnels! It felt like were were driving along a very long fjord, but there was no water.
Getting closer to the ocean. The clouds looked a little ominous, but the weather forecast had looked pretty good, so we forged on.
Look at that big blue wet thing!
Oh yes! Sandy beaches, baby!
We decided to splurge some time and money on eating lunch at a restaurant by the ocean.
The food was excellent! How do Italians make such good pasta?
Emma using a fork. She seems much more intent on using utensils than her siblings did at a younger age. Yay for copying the big peeps?
Dancing around in front of a small church by the restaurant.
Emma got fiercely protective of her stroller, and would scream loudly at Bjarki any time he tried to bum a ride.
The whole beach was segmented into little areas with deck-chairs and sunbrellas. You had to pay the company that ran that particular segment quite a bit of money to rent a spot for the day.
Emma was her usual fearless self, and wanted to go in the water! Now!
The beach was unusual in that a) the sand was very coarse, and b) there was a very sudden and severe increase in depth as soon as cleared the waves. It was good though in that the waves for strong yet fun, and the kids didn’t dare go out very far.
Keeping watch over the kids.
The ominous clouds kept being ominous inland, but left us alone until much later in the day.
Can you spot the Icelander?
Emma playing in the coarse sand.
Classic. All that’s missing are the salespeople offering random stuff to any and all that glanced their way.
Finnur managed to put both himself and Emma to sleep. Impressive!!
We left the beach around 5 pm, with ice cream in hand, and started looking for a place to eat an early dinner.
Houses overlooking the ocean.
Strolling men.
Italian cars are TINY!
Entering a shopping street.
Narrow streets are fun.
We found a small playground, and hung out there for a short while.
Emma in non-Iceland-approved clothes.
Looking inland.
More houses. At this point we started walking back towards the cars because it was becoming apparent that no self-respecting Italian restaurant opens until 7 pm, and it wasn’t ever 6 pm yet!
Public death notices?
Tunnels, tunnels, everywhere! Finnur ran a role-playing game of sorts on the way back, with me in charge of the dice. It certainly made the trip fly by!
Heading inland again.
The “fjord” we drove along.
Our plan to eat an early dinner in Varazze was thwarted by the Italian custom of not opening restaurants until 7 pm. We therefore stopped in the village next to ours, Castello di Annone, to hunt down food.
More random buildings. Google Street View has more images, of course!
The only restaurant we found was basically a Chinese-Italian take-away! The food was very cheap (3-4 EUR per plate), and tasted good overall. Of course, we mostly ordered blind because none of us speaks Italian, and the server knew next to no English, but everybody got something to eat, so that was a great end to a fun day!