Things are happening so fast these days. Arrivals and departures, processing memories and looking on to the next half of our adventure. I will have to write about Essaouira soon before it is all a dream. I am finding it hard to put it all into words. I am still struck by the strength of the women we met. Entrepreneurial, creative, beautiful and always busy. Our dear Fatouma, who guided us through a trip to the country to see her sisters and provided instruction and back cleansing at the Hammam, the creative Hammam worker who also doubled as a henna artist, the women working in, and for, the argon oil co-op, the endless gathering done every day at the souks....... Our future is in their hands.
Now, we experience a completely different and breathtakingly beautiful land. On Tuesday, we left our friends and began the journey under Mont Blanc and onwards to Italy. We missed skiing when we arrived in the alps again. The sun was mostly out and the peaks were fantastic. We had to stop and do a little breather in the snow. Then the tunnels began...... Once through the Mont Blanc Tunnel, I figured we would have a clear view of our trip through Italy, wrong! Tunnel after tunnel appeared as we travelled along the autoroute.
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| view of Monterosso from the cliff top graveyard |
We would get a quick glimpse, of peach and yellow clusters of houses literally hanging from the mountains, before we plunged into another tunnel. Finally down the hills we had a very fast (only minimum speeds were posted) trip on the flats. We arrived in Genova, oh the ocean, oh more tunnels....missed the entire city and couldn't leave the autoroute. Finally, we arrive at our destination, Monterosso al Mare, on the edge of the Cinque Terre UNESCO site. Perilous roads up and down the cliffs, many had experienced partial washouts and were down to single lanes (we thought they were already single lanes!!!) So worth it, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
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The Giant on Monterosso!
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| Monterosso Al Mare |
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