A Walk in the Clouds

Above the clouds in the White Mountains
Transported to Middle Earth
I hope I don't run into any Orcs

Send in the clouds

The trip from Venice to Cinque Terre took longer than the one from Montreal to Venice. Due to rain, one of the train tunnels had flooded. We ended up sitting on a train (the last one of a three train journey) for over four hours, with next to no information about what was going on. The Italians on the train looked apologetically at the tourists and lamented how travel was a tragedy in Italy. As the train finally got moving, I asked the woman across from me how long it took to get to Riomaggiore, my final destination. Her eyes got wide and she slapped her forehead. "Riomaggiore!? It's only 10 minutes away!" Ugh. Then, the train failed to stop at Riomaggiore, and instead went to the next town of Manarola. I had to walk 20 minutes carrying all my camera gear on my back and dragging my suitcase behind me.

The next day, impossibly big, fluffy, gorgeous clouds rolled over the Ligurian Sea and all of that was forgotten.

Little fluffy clouds

The first part of my vacation was spent in Les Landes in the Aquitaine region of France. It's along the Bay of Biscay, very close to the Spanish border. The town I stayed in is a surfer's paradise. I never really associated surfing with France. It makes perfect sense of course. It's along the Atlantic coast where there are waves galore. But somehow, surfing seems so um, un-French to me. So it was wonderful to see a side of France that I didn't know existed ... a very casual, beachy surfer culture, completely unlike what I imagine the more famous, meditteranean beaches along the Cote d'Azur to be like.

And the clouds, when they came out, were to die for.