Tirrenia

Tirrenia is a small, busy, beautiful beach town near Pisa. There was no direct train to the town, so we took a train to Livorno, just a bit south of the beach. This train appeared to drop us off in the middle of podunk nowhere!  I was seriously half expecting to see sage brush blow by in the wind. We had to then find a way from the train to the hotel. This part of every city we visited usually turned out to be the most adventurous, since there just wasn’t enough time pre-trip to plan every detail of transportation.

So we’re in podunk Livorno and looking for a public transit bus that will take us to Tirrenia. Public transportation in any city takes a bit to get used to, so having to do it in half an hour always took longer. After wandering around in front of the semi-deserted train station, not getting any help from the maps since Tirrenia is just outside the city limits, someone finally directs us to a bus. The bus driver was helpful, but I think he was either a little annoyed, or amused at me trying to get our just-a-little-too-big stroller down the bus aisle. So after finally getting to our seats, it literally drove us about 100 yards before we had to switch to another bus.

When we got to the other bus stop, there was an older Italian man sitting on the stoop of a business and he asks me something in Italian. I say “I’m sorry, no Italiano.”  He gestures, ahhhh, but then keeps talking. We gesture and banter back and forth, “No Italiano”, “Aaahh” laugh. He pulls out his bus ticket and we figure out that he is just making sure we have our tickets!  So cute. Then 2 minutes later, this little old lady literally does the same thing and just keeps smiling at Skye and saying “Ciao, Bella” and trying to ask us something and I say No Italiano and she laughs and just keeps going on in Italian. Our second bus shows up and we realize it is a different bus company and we need new tickets, but the bus driver couldn’t have cared less. The bus was seriously 100 degrees, not exaggerating, so it only took about 3 minutes before Skye started screaming and the old lady was yelling to the bus driver to turn on the AC and he’s saying it’s broken and he is braking all over the place so I’m trying to keep my balance with Skye crying and the old lady and the bus driver yelling. Of course we also had no idea which bus stop to get off at since we were lucky to even get on the right bus in the right place. There was only one main one-way street near the beach so the hotel was easy to spot. Phew, we get off and deeply exhaled and when we inhaled, the smell of the Mediterranean greeted our noses. Ahh, time to relax.

We checked into our beach-front hotel. The room was pretty basic except that it had a balcony, looking straight out to the enticing water. I planned a little late in the season, so it wouldn’t have been my first choice and was a little more money than I wanted to spend, but I did want to be right on the beach since I knew we’d be so tired from Rome. We changed and went to grab a bite to eat at a little restaurant. Can’t beat lobster ravioli’s and asparagus sauce with another fantastic bruschetta. After dinner, it was about 6p so we went to the beach. It was totally deserted and fabulous. There were no rocks or seaweed anywhere. The sun was setting through a slightly overcast sky. We took off our shoes and stepped into the delectable water. Perfect. Warm. Gentle waves. Perfect. Skye didn’t agree with her first experience with the big water, but that changed the next day. We played for a bit until we headed off to put the little one to bed.

The following day we had another great continental breakfast on the veranda of the hotel. After that, the day was filled with swimming in that glorious water, playing in the sand with Skye, swimming in the pool, and again swimming with Skye in the water, and I’m glad to say that she loved it, after our failed attempt at swimming in Budapest, and her disagreement with it the evening before, we were a little worried that whe wouldn’t take to the water, but she did, even when she was shivering, she seems to really enjoy it. When she went down for a nap, Benjam got a takeout pizza and some Corona’s and we sat on our balcony enjoying the view and the quiet. It’s those little times that you remember. Then we went back into the water and played for a bit before eating at a family run Italian restaurant, where there house was literally attached to the back of the restaurant. Good stuff.

The following day, things took a turn for the worse when we left Tirrenia. We left the stunning Mediterranean beach and spent the next two days on long, hot trains. If I would have know what was coming, we would have just stayed at the beach for 2 more days and then went straight to Salzburg.