Friday 2nd June

After a good night’s sleep we killed time until the scheduled arrival time in Livorno of 2pm.

Much to my surprise, given that I had read that this ferry can, on occasions, be very late, we arrived in Livorno on time. The pilot and the captain managed a very tricky looking manoeuvre by rotating the huge ferry, on its axis, by 270º in a very confined space in order to reverse the vessel into the assigned unloading ramp.

We were all ushered down to our vehicles and it was at this point the madness, which had me in hysterics, started. First, before the ferry doors had been opened, one Italian car decided it could gain a second or two by jumping from one queue to another.

Then I looked around the car deck. We’ve been on many ferries in our lives and I’m pretty sure on all of them the vehicle face the same direction, to enable a smooth disembarkation. Not on a ship loaded in Sicily. Cars were nose to nose and tail to tail. With no crew really taking charge of the situation chaos ensued as cars tried to do three point turns on the car deck in order to face in the right direction. Furthermore the usual queue indiscipline was in evidence, with cars jostling to change lanes to inch ahead of others, slowing the whole process down.

Fortunately we were facing in the correct direction so no need for a 20 point turn in Basil and we disembarked relatively straightforwardly.

We were off the ship by 2.45 so rather than camp near Livorno we decided to put some miles on the clock. It was motorway virtually the whole way for a three hour journey to Castell’Arquato. Frustration ensued as we tried several times to find our overnight stop, eventually squeezing onto a car park adjacent to the village.

Castell’Arquato really lives up to its designation of one of Italy’s most beautiful towns. If anything it is overly pretty. It’s almost as if it was a Disney film set. A total contrast to the villages we have been visiting in Southern Italy and Sicily.

Clearly large amounts of money have been spent renovating every single building in the village and despite a search on Google I can’t really find out why or by whom. The old doors had been varnished and the building walls all freshly pointed. There was nor real sign of inhabitants and I suspect most of it is holiday accommodation.

Sarah and I sat on the main square and had a beer and a plate of local cheese to finish the day.