A Quick Escape to Forte dei Marmi

Woken by the crowing of the Sissiruga, and off we go! Off we go, well, not exactly, since it takes us a good hour and a half to escape the morning madness of Milan's ring roads... The Autostrada del Sole, on the other hand, is as free as Tek and his women! The Cisa road isn't busy, but there are loads of little men resurfacing it or building immense bridges for the repair of this old artery! (who are they? surgeons?)

The hotel is nice, run by an extended Neapolitan family, clean, well decorated, with lots of candles and very nice ethnic pieces! The room is big, with a little entrance hall..., the TV, the cold-air machine and lots of creams and shampoo in the bathroom. We'll be the only ones having dinner (half board)... even though the hotel is almost full: what do the others do all the time?

We head straight to the beach to relax, sleep and... sunbathe! Sunscreen all over..., after all, what sun can there be in May? Nothing.... unless you fall asleep and stay in the scorching sun from 11.00 to 16.00... Never fallen asleep in the sun on the beach in my life!!! We really were... tired!

Cooked and toasted, with skin so taut that not even Loren could ever get it from a plastic surgeon... we head towards the centre, walking a bit like a prawn (the colour was there..) but not backwards! The city is quiet, we are the only tourists who have come to get some sun! And the others? Germans, Russians, Dutch, English...

The next day on the beach the show is on! In order... a Dutchman who, with his wife, builds 7 pyramids in a row, each higher than the last! And if that were all... the wife brushing the pyramids to remove the superfluous grains of sand... and him measuring the heights and distances of the pyramids with a tape measure... And then? Then lots of photos... from almost obscene positions! WHO KNOWS!!! maybe he's famous!! (the camera didn't suggest it...) A MADMAN! Obviously just 2 minutes after they left... along comes a nice little kid who throws himself forward with open arms and destroys everything!

A friendly English family with two children lovingly builds a fantastic sand wall, with towers and toy soldiers for a super defence that not even Aristotle could have devised with the U.S. arsenal at his disposal. And after all that hard work... a well-deserved rest with a dip in the water... etc.. And who comes along next? On the horizon a tall man, designer windbreaker, designer all-weather trousers, designer earthquake-proof shoes, designer laces that turn into C4 when needed, X-ray sunglasses, ultraviolet, gamma, beta and all the other letters of the Greek alphabet, a giant watch on his wrist with a built-in mobile phone, radio, television, dishwasher and a mother-in-law cooking lunch... And his friendly dog, a Rottweiler with its teeth still bloody.... Snapping here and there and telling everyone where to go...

especially after it dropped a world-class dump on one of the towers of the wall! The toy soldiers flee in panic, the towers collapse... the enemy is at the gates and conquers the fortress! The children stand incredulous at so much CRAP and raise a white flag on their father's pole who meanwhile was getting frisky with his blonde wife... VICTORY for the idiot's dog! idiot because, seeing the scene of HIS dog, he doesn't even deign to show a sign of dismay or regret, while continuing to smile like a fool....

And last but no stranger... the Sunday marathon runner, even though it was Saturday! He's only missing the winter tracksuit and then running on the dry sand, in running shoes (hopefully), under the scorching one o'clock sun... he nearly collapses from fatigue and fluid loss... with his tongue hanging out the way not even the idiot's dog could have managed!

Sunday is the day of the holiday market, where stalls with strictly counterfeit goods go wild! The prices are quite high, but people don't get discouraged, or rather they do, but against the stalls, shoving and elbowing each other to sift through the clothes piled up in a jumble! Did she take it? They ask the neighbours who are holding the garments... It's what I was looking for...

Besides clothes and shoes... lots of cashmere and a few Burberry in the accessories!

Some info: milan-forte dei marmi

route: leaving Milan, A1 towards Bologna (150km), before Parma exit for the Cisa (Parma-La Spezia, 100km), at the Genoa-Livorno junction choose... Livorno; exit at Versilia (20 km) and follow for Forte dei Marmi. After 3 km you are at the Forte in the centre. Duration from 2h 30' to 3h 30'

tolls: 16 € outbound and 16.5 € return.

Bye,

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