Arrived San Remo

Train verona to Milan went ok. Bit squashy with dodgy knee. New security measures at milan railway mean that you can only get onto the platform if you have a ticket. The train layout on the Internet when I booked was not the train that I got on. Still, I had a seat and got here. There were some interesting people to talk to. A family of mother, her father in law and her 3 children aged 12, 9 and 6 shared the same box as me. She was Italian born to an English mother and Italian father. I was sitting next to the 12 year old whose English was quite good, courtesy of his grandmother.  I occasionally helped with some of the puzzles he was doing. His mother and father spent their honeymoon in Australia.

As arranged, the proprietor of this apartment met me at the station with her daughter whose English was better than hers. My Italian is better than her English.  Anyway, she drove me to the apartment , showed me how things worked, then suggested they walk down with me to the main part of town. As we past the little bar a few buildings away she introduced me to the proprietor and said he made very good coffee. We walked around chatting about all sorts of thing.  They told me of their 3 preferred gelato places and some to avoid.

I sorted myself out a bit, then decided I needed to walk back over the streets she had shown me. There are a few main streets but the rest are a tangled Web of laneways, some covered by the buildings either side,  laneways that are all steps, little piazzas, bigger piazzas, all  cascading down the side of a hill.

First off though I put a load of washing on, well, for me a load is 2 sets of clothing and while that was going I went and had a coffee. Excellent  , with very friendly barman.

How is this for a balanced diet : 6 am coffee and croissant at railway, 11.30 3/4 of large focaccia bought at railway station in the morning,  4pm coffee, 5pm gelato (eaten fairly quickly because it is very hot and it was runny and drippy ), 5.40 aperol spritz which came with some chips, and a couple pieces crostini with chopped tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes,  6.30 rest of focacia. Negligible water in the morning, gallons in the afternoon.

Tomorrow I might buy a better map or then again maybe I might not. It would do me good to try and be comfortable not knowing exactly where I am, and there is always maps.me (an excellent offline map, thanks S)

I am feeling almost better. I need to be -there are lots of stairs here.

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