First, a word about hobo camping. It isn't regular camping, nor is it stealth camping; stealth is secondary to a balls-to-the-wall nonchalance about where exactly you camp - whether it's in proximity to heavily or even moderately trafficked roads, on private property, in city limits...and so it is with this terrace campsite. As we wake up, we realize for the first time the monumental hobosity of our chosen campsite. We are next to a road - and not just any road, but The Major Road through these parts. Granted, these parts happen to be mountainous and so not really conducive to roads of any real size, but there it is anyways. We are behind a pile of olive branches that looks to have been made within the last two days - this land is used, and frequently so. We are underneath a fig tree whose plump juicy figs we pick shortly after packing up...
...but sometimes these gestures, crude though they seem in retrospect, are necessary. What is a fig? To the owners of this tree, just one among many that they might eat with a breakfast at the table or at the end of the day (perhaps accompanied by a nighttime espresso, the surefire remedy for our unfortunate though natural tendency to sleep) - but for us, it is a significant component of a meagre breakfast that might be just enough to get us over this mountain. For we start our day by continuing the long uphill; we are roughly halfway finished when a scooter passes us, slows to a halt, and doubles back...at first we suspect mischief, but the riders instead point to their rear storage and yell "Brioche con crema! Buenissimo! Buenissimo!" They then pull up alongside our path, open the hatch, and pass us a creme-filled croissant as we pass by. Since a breakfast of dry granola and two fresh figs is not exactly equal to the metabolic demands of hardened cyclists, we devour it with reckless abandon...
...this is a day of hills - uphills, downhills, hills by the coast, hills slightly inland, hills through passes, hills through towns...hills. This process is interminable. It started with that large hill - though we climbed it without much effort, it was then followed by another, and another, and...at one point, we try to head down to the coast and take some coastal roads marked on our map. Unfortunately, our venture is unsuccessful; this route is dotted with long tunnels, and the first such tunnel is very clearly marked with a sign prohibiting passage by bicycle. We try anyways, but shy away when we see the entrance - it maintains alternate circulation by means of a traffic light at each end, which means that we would have to keep pace with the cars to avoid being run over by opposing vehicles once the light switches.
This bit of news means we must instead take the high route over the pass, which at 600 m elevation is roughly as high up as some of our morning ascents during the Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain - so we are, of course, perfectly able to do this; but it is nonetheless hard work, and we grunt our way slowly up the steeper parts. As we near the top, there are wild blackberries growing on vines. A perfect snack! We pull over, cautiously rub some on our skin, taste a small part of the berry - in these circumstances, it is prudent to make sure first - before digging in, grabbing bunches off the vine. We then continue up and are soon at the pass, our progress buoyed by the influx of natural sugars...
...and the road drops into a village, after which there is one more serious climb before the road at last levels off and slowly winds down through the river valleys into La Spezia. Once there, we stop to ask for a supermarket - but this is no longer as simple as it was in Spain or France, for our mastery of foreign languages does not extend to Italian. In broken psuedo-Italian, we inquire in a bookshop; the lady at the desk points us in the general direction, but we are unable to grasp the finer points of her instructions...so we head up that way a few blocks, look around, satisfy ourselves that we are not going to find this thing on our own, and ask again - some man, seeing that we appear quite lost, asks us if we are looking for the station - I respond that we are looking for a supermercatto, and he gives us further directions. We start off in what we think is the direction he indicated - but this is apparently incorrect, for he grabs us again and leads us through La Spezia to the nearby Dí per Dí.
Food! We have started to cook the next day's lunch at dinner, a task made easier by the preponderance of pasta in Italia. Pasta cooks faster than rice or lentils; with fresh rather than dry pasta, such as is available in most of the supermarkets here, it is even faster...and it is still relatively cheap to boot. This time, however, we have a good deal of couscous purchased earlier on, so we decide to spring for some butter - the first time we've used butter on our trip! - and cook a delicious meal up the road by our campsite of couscous with pearl onions and whole mushrooms cooked in butter and balsamic...
...and the campsite. We head out by Lerici, passing through a town where the residents inform us that no, we may not set our tent in the park next to their apartment buildings; we are all set to slog out to the end of the peninsula when we spot a steep road heading up past some housing with what looks to be an empty field at the end...and it is! We cook our couscous in the parking lot opposite; several people notice, but no one seems to care. After all, what would you do when confronted with two haggard-looking cyclists cooking a gourmet meal and exchanging banter about tech geek stuff in a foreign language...in your parking lot? Next time this happens, we counsel you to be kind to them - for they may be in our situation...
...time for sleep. The ground here is passably soft, the tent far enough back to evade the worst of the penetrating streetlamp light - goodnight!