[Itinerary Page]The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
May 25 - Pisa/Fiumaretta
Since we were footloose today, the big question was to figure out where we wanted to spend the night. Our first thought was Pisa. We wanted to see the tower anyway and it was only an hour or so away, so off we went. Pisa is another big city but we managed to find the Piazza di Mercoli where the tower is. It was the predictable tourist jam with stalls and hawkers peddling all the typical junk. Up close, the tower was really pretty cool. I remember pictures of it from my childhood so it was special to actually see it in person. I think it is a terrific example of how a "mistake" can become a marketing bonanza! What would Pisa (and its tourist industry) be without it?
OK, we've done the tower. Now what? Since we were within striking distance of the ocean, we thought the Med might be a good place to find a spot for the night ... but it was also a zoo! We crawled along the beach road forever (it reminded us of Florida) until we finally ran out of people. At that point we were over 30 miles north of Pisa in a little town called Fiumaretta, outside of Ameglia a little south of La Spezia. (Got all that?) We sort of ran out of road about the same time we ran out of patience for crawling along in the car and wound up at a little albergo (hotel) on the water with a small restaurant. The rooms are small and the bathrooms are smaller, but the people were nice, the place was clean and the price was right!
Turns out that we were the dinner rush, so it was not as much about what we wanted to eat as it was what they had on hand that they could cook. Despite the limited choice, we had a pleasant meal on the terrace and a nice chat with Monica (desk clerk/waitress/owner), the granddaughter of the woman who started the place 40 years ago.
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