it was july 27 2008

the hot italian summer...

we returned to cinque terre again to walk the same path, in the opposite direction in pursuit of the free beach sign we had seen the day before. there had been a sign pointing down, off the beaten path to a free beach and so we decided what a way to spend our day. oh how naive we were. it all started as we descended what was essentially a cliff side, down an overgrown man made trail leading us precariously and steeply down, down, down. we finally reached the bottom and saw a sign this time for a "naturalist" beach. so apparently naturalist means nudist. so yes we went to a nudist beach, but were totally comfortable. the beach was located in a small cove so it was less crowded than another one we had seen. most of our time was spent(no not gawking at the nakedness...) but rather sitting in the shallow water and sifting through the pebbles as the water moved in its comforting backwards and forwards rhythm.

 our day was cut short as the rumble of thunder hinted at something less than enjoyable at the beach...a thunderstorm. so we made our way to leave only to find ourselves trapped. there was no way we were going to scale the cliffside climb, exiting the way we came. our only other option was to follow the other people making a quick escape. this is where we actually get scammed in our trip. there was tunnel way that appeared to be the way out, only an old man stood as it's guard. at first he did not notice us as we tried to sneak by, but we were not quick enough and soon found ourselves paying him to walk thru what we discovered was an abandoned subway tunnel complete with spookiness. poorly lit to begin with, the ground was cold, dank, dark, it smelled of mold, water(or what we hope was water) dripped down the sides and our only comfort was the shining light at the end of the tunnel. since i am here to write about it one can only assume that we did in fact make it out alive.