The key challenge for our blog writing is to find a seamless way to accommodate the work effort into the flow of the day. We love having the documentation, but we also need to keep the process from being invasive or burdensome. We typically do this by a 'quick start' in the morning before breakfast and a 'close out' in the evening before bed time calls. Today, we have sidetracked the process a bit......nothing in the morning and now (10:30 PM) feeling more like hitting the sack than describing our day.
But......it is probably worth 15 minutes to get started. Work can be finished in the morning! We just came up from a long and relaxing evening downstairs (great drinks, dinner and more drinks) with some fun discussion and storytelling. Just to be clear, the alcohol is intentionally limited here, so we have a disguised kind of rationing from the kitchen. Everyone is well behaved. Tonight, however, more scotch and grappa appeared from the upstairs bedrooms!
The weather forecast was early clouds changing to full sun around noontime. We went down to breakfast a bit early at 8:30 and found the sun already making an appearance. We were eating a bit early in order to be ready to head out to Framura, about an hour south of here, for lunch at 1:00. More about this in a minute.
We were able to have most of our breakfast........just the two of us, which was very nice.
Later on the balance of the gang showed up. It actually turned out that Jeff, Blair, and Tey ate about 20 minutes before us in order to take the early morning train to Chiavari.
DAY #15 IN A ROW WITH SUNSHINE!!!
Hope we don't get a washout in England!
Still working on the morning glories.....
Up to the tower!
There is a chalkboard in the kitchen pantry that let's everyone make a note about what meals they will be (or not) having for each day. It gives a good sense of what folks are up to. We are headed out for lunch today in Framura but will be back for dinner.
Somewhere in here we will tell a bit more about the drive to Framura. This is the third time we have made the trip and it remains one of our favorite places in Italy.......due to its incredibly remote location, its beautiful setting and the amazing food at the L'Agave restaurant. For those who have read the blog before, you will have seen several versions of this experience!
To get here you have to drive for miles done a series of hairpin turns, arriving at a remote parking lot in a tunnel built into the mountain. From there you walk down to the small harbor.......and then back up a 3-story elevator to the restaurant which is built into the side of a cliff. The tough story today was that the elevator was not working and we had to hike up the stairs. Below is the first part of the hike down to the water.
You can see the elevator.......not working.......with the stair alternate alongside. The crazy thing is that we just walked down from that height a quarter of a mile away and you can not get from one place to the other. You can see L'Agave'further down on the cliff.
We finally made it up the stairs and arrived just in time for our 1:00 reservation. We walked in (not too crowded) and the Owner said.....'I remember you, you have been here before, yes?' It was somewhat special to us that he remembered us.......who knows why!
We had a great waitress and a totally memorable experience........probably in the top 10! The food was just exquisite. How do they get such great chefs to come out here?
There will be a 'definite' excess of pictures here......hard not to take more than are needed.
Oops, forgot this guy! met him while swimming!
