Tour de Paris

We had two days in Paris and for anyone that has visited Paris, they know that it really isn’t enough time. There's plenty to see and do and is one of the greatest cities in the world just to sit and watch the world go by. It’s got one of the best public transport systems too so getting around is very easy. Despite this we chose to go on ‘Mike’s Fat Tire Bike Tour’. It’s actually Reed, not Mike, that leads you around on bikes to see the major sites around the city. Let me tell you, riding a bike on busy Paris streets, on the wrong side of the road, in a large group – quite an experience. Reed, was brilliant and just told us to smile and wave as we were abused by passing motorists (or those that had to slam on their brakes to miss us and yelled nasty French words at us) Yep, quite fun.

Our bike tour included the Eiffel Tower, the Military Museum Peace monument, the Louvre, the Kissing Bridge (for the Sex in the City fans, that’s where Carrie and Big kiss in Paris), Arc d’Triumph and much more. Along with the riding, there were many stories as well. After the tour, we headed over to Napoleon’s Tomb and then to the Eiffel Tower to actually climb the tower. You have a choice of walking the first two levels of the tower then taking the elevator the rest of the way up, or just taking the elevator up. If you think that the first two levels refers to two flights of stairs, you’re very mistaken, it was more like a couple of buildings high. We chose to climb the first two levels which gave us a good opportunity to stop and enjoy the sights along the way. At each main level they had clever displays of what it was like for the workers to work on the tower and little video documentaries of the building of the tower and different colours. The views from the top were beautiful, it’s a shame the day was overcast (of course it was, we were visiting). The symmetry of the city is superb, very well thought out and one of the nicest views to see. If you are going to the Eiffel Tower, I recommend the hot chocolate on Deck 1, it may be ridiculously expensive but it’s the best one I’ve ever had!

After our Eiffel Tower visit, a stroll along the River Seine grabbed our interest and we booked a cruise for the evening. Of course, evening doesn’t come until after 9.30ish in Paris, which is great for doing a lot of sight seeing during the daylight hours. The cruise was nice and very informative, although would have been much nicer had it not rained! The Eiffel Tower was again the show stopper when it lit up for a few minutes on the hour sparkling with sparkler effect lights (although seeing the original Statue of Liberty and the Cathedral of Notre Dame light up was awesome too).


Day 2 presented us with more overcast weather but that didn’t stop us heading off to the Arc d’Triumph. Must say this was a real highlight. Did you know that the first soldiers to walk beneath the Arc were in fact German! The Arc is huge and the traffic around it unlike anything else in the world 15 streets leading into the one round about. All insurance policies are null and void for cars once they enter and while in the round about of the Arc. An accident every 8 minutes apparently, for motorists, the best approach seemed to be, close your eyes and gun it! Unfortunately, while we were up there waiting for a prang we saw not one. Not even a horn blast in anger. Not fair! They must have been on their best driving behaviour for us. Anyway, we walked down the Champs Elysees and saw the preparations for the final stage of the Tour de France. Dad Cavallin is a massive fan of the Tour so it was pretty cool to be able to say that we were walking along part of the track.

Our next stop was St Chappelle’s – our Busabout guide highly recommended seeing it and while it was beautiful to see all the stain glass but the waiting time, cost and the set up (cheap and nasty tourist floors on the ground floor of the church) left us feeling a little ripped off, particularly due to the first floor being under restoration as well so for us it certainly wasn’t worth the wait (40 minutes) and the over the top security to get in. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Next we went to Cathedral of Notre Dame – wow, breath taking and even more incredible with the choir practicing while we were there. There’s nothing quite like a full choir in a massive cathedral and organ accompaniment. I was left in awe how they built such magnificent structures in the day.

Of course no visit to Paris is complete without going to the Louvre Museum and seeing the Mona Lisa. The Louvre seems never ending, you could literally spend a week in there and still not see everything. In the 2 hours we were there we did manage to see Venus de Milo, the French crown jewels and of course the Mona Lisa – heavily guarded and probably not the real thing. It’s true that the eyes seem to follow you around the room, and it was magnificent in its restored glory!

They say Paris is the city for lovers and I must say that I have never seen so many couples openly pashing each other, everywhere, public transport, monuments, café’s, it seemed to be everywhere you looked. But when in Paris we thought we would do our own bit of romantic thing on our last night and went to the supermarket to buy up food for dinner – fresh produce and fresh baguettes to have a feast with wine on the Sacre Coeur. Our intention was to eat then stroll around see the Sacre Coeur and then we were in a good position to see the Eiffel Tower light up in the evening. We weren’t too far from our hotel to then stroll home. Well that was the intention. However someone brought along clumsy Lina, not only did he bring her along, but gave her a knife to cut our baguette. The first part of the meal was lovely but the knife cut through Lina’s little finger while preparing a baguette. I little deeper than a paper cut, it went almost down to the tendon. The rest of the night was spent in the emergency section of the Paris hospital (finding emergency was an adventure in itself), which luckily enough was within walking distance. Four hours with non communicative French people and people having fights on the streets and threatening to leave because they are so drunk getting treated before you and what appeared to be the trainee doctor telling you they many need to operate and then wasn’t confident doing the stitch, we were a little over Paris. A pretty impressive bandage on the hand for one stitch though.

It’s fair to say that the knife never made it back into Lina’s hands for the rest of the trip and that Paris is definitely a city worth going back to!

Kolsch & Apfel Korn

Day 45 and we woke to beautiful sunshine in Bamberg, which of course was an indication that we would be leaving soon. Our next stop after an early train ride (nothing like the nightmare in Egypt, in fact quite the opposite), was Koln (pronounced Cologne).

There is a lot of history attached with Koln. Its location in the far west of Germany made it an ideal target for allied bombers in WWII. This resulted in the city being 90% destroyed and subsequently rebuilt, so it lacks a lot of the character that most European cities offer. Then again, living there is probably a lot easier as far as infrastructure is concerned.

Arriving on a Sunday, we were amazed at how quiet the streets were, they really were deserted. Much of the city was closed – presumably so families could spend time together.


In beer terms, Koln has its own unique style called Kolsch beer. An ale that is so light in body and soft and fruity in flavour it is easily confused with a lager. Not that those characteristics are unique but Koln is the only place in the world where you can buy it direct from the breweries. That’s because it’s the place on Earth where a true Kolsch is made. Strangely, it’s served in 200ml glasses but the service was excellent at all places. The waiters are on to the empties like a seagull on a hot chip. It’s not something that appealed to me since it “tastes like beer” but as Steve happily sampled a dozen or so brands of Kolsch at each place we went to, I soon discovered Apfel Korn – or Apple Schnapps. YUMMO! The staff did look twice when I was ordering it at 11am, but then – why not, what else did we need to do that day?


We did take in some sightseeing, there was the most beautiful Cathedral, although more impressive on the outside than it was inside. We took the walk up the 590 steps to the top for a view of the city.

Another thing we have noticed in that part of the world is that the sun doesn’t go down until about 10pm, we are so far north, its incredible how much you can do in a day – its great.

On the beer front, Steve tried quite a few Kolsch’s – the stand outs were Fruh and Domkolsch but the rest weren’t so good. Considering it’s the home of Kolsch, I guess the rest are good but the genuine examples of the style aren’t anything to rave about. He reckons the ones made by his brewing mates are more drinkable. The others included Reissdorf, Peters, Gilden, Gaffel and Sion. Yep, quite a few – for those non beer drinkers – remember Apfel Korn!!! Oh and a word of advice about Sion – don’t order the pork knuckle – they boil it instead of grilling it. A crime in anyone’s language.

On day 2 it was thundering and raining, we were caught in a bit of a spell of unseasonable rainy weather right across northern Europe. We decided to take advantage and do a little shopping during the day to avoid it.

All in all, Koln was ok but not a city we would return to. In fact, we would recommend to people to stay an extra couple of days in Bamberg.

S&L

Franconian Hospitality

We woke up early the next day - in the same clothes as last night - nice! We had a train to catch so we could catch another train and connect to yet another train so we could get to a tiny hamlet in rural Germany named Bamberg that has been there since the 13th century. Good times. Now don't be surprised if you haven't heard of Bamberg - it's a beer thing.

So feeling as hungover as a sailor on shore leave we trundled off with our ever increasingly heavy packs (I'm sure someone hid a few bricks in there overnight).
The train ride was a chance to catch up on a bit of sleep but that didn't happen. It's very picturesque countryside and we had to keep an eye on station names to make sure we got off at the right stop.

After about 7 hours and 3 trains we arrived in Bamberg and set off in search of a room for the night. Apparently, the centre of town where the Visitors' Centre is a 15 minute bus ride and a 15 minute walk away from the train station - pack is feeling heavier. On the bus we got chatting to an older German woman who was very helpful and led us most of the way to where we needed to go. For the record she was the tallest woman I've ever met - damn near 6' 6"!
Somehow lunch stayed where it belongs (in Lina's tummy)

Our traveller's luck was definitely on. We arrived at the Visitors' Centre and were sorting out our accomodation when in walked the lunchtime rush. I hope none of them needed accomodation because the girl told us we got the last double room in all of Bamberg. And of course it was at the top of the steepest hill in town. Our packs by this stage were feeling like concrete.

Lucky for us there was a bus that could get us to the top of the hill. Did I tell you how much I love buses? After trying to read our VERY dodgey map and wandering sort of in the right direction we were saved - the local postie - he'll know where it is! We were thrilled to hear our hotel is just at the bottom of the alley we're standing next to. Nice room too - a bit more expensive than what we were used to but we had an awesome view of the castle from our balcony.

A couple of hours later we woke up ready to go investigating. Of course by now the clouds had come in and the rain with it. Not to worry - we came to expect rain now - after all it was bloody summer! Luckily our hotel was pricey enough to have complimentary brollies.

Now most of you will be saying "where the hell is Bamberg and what is its significance?". Bamberg a town in the province of Franconia in the north of what used to be known as Bavaria. With me so far? The immediate region around Bamberg is also home to around 200 breweries :) Kappiche? The town itself has 14 brauhauses/brauries all of whom serve only their own beers. Its also the home of rauchbier (or smoked beer) and the Weyermann Malting Co. which exports their products all over the world. Home brewers like Weyermann.

We spent the afternoon checking out the main commercial area in the old part of town. This is the area that dates back to the 13th century and is built on the banks of the River Regnitz. In fact the town hall is built halfway across the main bridge spanning the river - those crazy Germans! It even has a row of houses named Little Venice because of the resemblance to the architecture and their close proximatey to the river. It would be even more scenic if those clouds would blow away.

The local stores are full of antiques and locally hand crafted items. It really was like going back into a piece of history, the cobblestone streets were gorgeous and Lina soon learnt why Europeans always wear flat shoes. Of particular note in the antique stores are the hand carved wooden figurines and the settings. There's quite a few souvenier stores there too which we were a little surprised to see. The place is relatively difficult to get to unless you have your own transport that we wouldn't have thought tourism was a major drawcard for the region. At least the Japanese haven't heard of it yet but they wouldn't know a good beer if it leapt off the shelf and yelled "Bonsai" at them.

Speaking of good beer we spent a little time at a brauhaus called Schlenkerla. Anyone who knows about beers of the world would have heard of this place. It's been there for just over 600 years and serves one and only one beer - Rauchbier. It is served from a 50L wooden cask using a tap that is hammered into place and poured using gravity. Very old school. Schlenkerla is also one of two breweries in the region that smoke their own malt and they won't sell it to anyone. Good on 'em!
We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon wandering around the establishment and sitting outside in their biergarten drinking "liquid ham hocks". You've got to try the beer to understand. The rain started to fall again so we made our way inside only to be told there were no seats. It was now Friday evening so thinking about it we should have made a move inside sooner (who knows what day of the week it is when you are travelling). We were eventually seated at the one of the old raw timber benches where we met Dieter and Marianna. Dieter is a retired gent about 60 odd who speaks very good English and Marianna is his wife who seemed to understand a fair bit but wasn't confident enough to speak much English. Still - it was better than our German! It turns out that Marianna loves to cook and Dieta loves to eat. Sound familiar? We spent the evening with them and shared a meal and a several litres of rauchbier, (it gets even better by the litre) well it does for those of us that could look at beer after the previous night. It was getting late so we called it a night but not before Dieter offered to pick us up the next day and take us to one of the original biergartens 15km into the surrounding forest. Cool.

The next day we decided to go on the brewery trail so we headed off to the Visitors' Centre via the local cathedral and adjoining rose garden. On the way we picked up a big decorative beer stein and stopped off at Schlenkerla again just to get a few photos. No beer this time :( Since it was only 10am the place was pretty empty and that was perfect for wandering around taking photos of the brauhaus and sneaking into a few places we probably shouldn't have been. We even got chatting with Matthiaus Trum a likeable bloke about our age who it turns out is the 6th generation of Trums to be brewmaster there. We probably could have stayed a lot longer but we had many other places to visit so off we went.

At the Visitors' Centre we found out there are two trails you can do. One on the east bank - that's the side with Schlenkerla and another brauhaus around the corner from our hotel; and one on the west bank. They both have 7 brauhauses each so we went the west trail as we'd already been to Schlenkerla and planned on finishing near the hotel anyway. We paid our 20 euro and received a backpack, a 250ml printed glass and a book of vouchers for free beer! Woohoo!

Along the way we ran into a trio of poms who are members of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale). We saw them a few times along the route as we were all going in the direction and shared a couple of beers with them. About the 4th or 5th brewery was closed and the sign out the front said they would open again at 4.30pm. How could we read German so well? We couldn't! A couple were coming out of a nearby building and asked if we needed help (we must've looked like tourists?). Not only did they translate for us, they asked where we were headed next. Turns out our next stop was about 1km away so they told us to hop in the back of their Volvo and they drove us to the front door.

We met up with Dieter and Marianna later in the afternoon and drove into the forest and arrived at Kreuzbergkeller. The idea behind places like this is back in the day the beer that was brewed in the surrounding breweries was stored for a maturation period over the winter in the ice caves in the surrounding hills. This is known as "lagering" (that's German for storing - hence the beer type "lager"). In the Autumn the beer would then be transported back to town for the locals. Some bright spark then thought instead of bringing the beer to the people, let's have them come to the beer. So a few benches and serving facilities later saw the birth of the bierkeller (or beer cellar).

On our visit, the weather kept many people away so it was very quiet. It made for an idealic setting though with seating for hundreds - wooden benches of course - and the wind rustling through the massive trees that would have provided shade if it was sunny enough. A very pleasant way to spend a few hours. After a meal it was time to say goodbye, so Dieter and Marianna dropped us off at our hotel and we made our way to our last stop where we ran into the poms again. They were green with envy when we told them where we had been and shown them the photos. We turned in reasonably early as we had to catch a train to Koln in the morning.

Visiting Bamberg was a real highlight for us both. Not just for the amazing beer scene and the town itself but for the people we met there (and in Munich). Before travelling to Germany, Lina and I expected the German people to be abrupt, stand-offish and short. We couldn't have been more wrong. Those in general that we met along the way, and a few in particular, showed that they're in fact very warm, helpful and always ready with a smile or a laugh. That revelation has been one of the most pleasing and rewarding things about the entire trip.
As Dieter said "You can't beat Franconian hospitality."

We only serve full Lina's here... and she was!

We saw a bit more of Switzerland with our stop in Lucerne and then on to Lichtenstein for a driving break. The Lichtenstein passport stamp is really cool, apparently, so the government set up a booth in the middle of town where you can pay 2 swiss francs and get your passport stamped. We thought it was a bit cheesy but the Busabout guide was raving about how cool the stamp was so we got it but when we looked at in our passports it was a real let down... quite plain really. We asked the lady in the booth and she told us they changed it 2 weeks beforehand but they still have the booth to take your money :)

Next stop Munich, Germany. Apart from Athens, our hostel (two subway rides and a bit of a walk later) tops the list as the worst. We had to pay an additional 4 euro each per night for being over 26 years old and our shared room was a bunk bed that we had to make ourselves with the linen that we eventually found downstairs in the basement. Note to cook: cinnamon and scrambled eggs is NOT a recipe.

Other than our accommodation, Munich has turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. Our first day we spent on a free walking tour of the city. An excellent tour where the Irish tour guide, Leif (but living in Munich for 7 years) was very knowledgeable. It turns out he set up his own tours in Cork, Ireland in a previous life and he gave us heaps of info about Ireland which has since proven to be very useful. The tour was one of the best we've been on, full of info and many places of interest. We ended up in a biergarten in the Chinese gardens - what a fantastic atmosphere. An oompah band playing in the bandstand, chestnut trees providing ample shade and so much beer. The walk there was interesting too. We passed over a bridge that below it an artificial wave has been created by the careful placement of an underwater wall across a fast running river. Plenty of surfers taking their turns with varying degrees of skill. Around the corner from that we saw some of the local kids jumping in the river and riding the current about a kilometre. Much of Munich was rebuilt in the 60's due to the damage from war. We had our first taste of a biergarten in the Chinese gardens - what a fantastic atmosphere. All the tables are lined up so that often people are sitting together that don't know each other at the time of arrival and by the time you leave, its like you are old friends. During the soccer world cup, this garden sat up to 6,000 people, to imagine it would be incredible.

Next day we had an early climb to the top of the old St Peters Cathedral for some very nice views from the top. We wandered through the market and found a stall that sells a traditional German food - pork knuckle - Yummo!! So bad for you but if you're ever in Germany you've got to have a least one (per day).

Since we were in one of the beer capitals of the world we thought it would be remiss of us not to sample as much of the local produce as possible. So went to a few of the more notable brauhauses. Firstly a quick stop at Andechs for a Doppelbock, bloody beautiful if a tiny bit sweet, and a Dunkelweiss. Then a bit of trip out to Paulaner for 5 200ml samples of their range. Well worth the train ride and walk. Lina was very happy at this stage :) Back into Munich proper to Augustiner, one of the more popular halls but surprisingly not the great beer that was touted by a few locals. Next was off to Weisses Brauhaus for a meal (pork knuckle) and some Aventinus Weizenstarkbier and a couple of Weizeneisbocks. This happens to be one of the worlds great beers in my opinion so you can imagine how happy I was to see it on the menu. It's also one of the world's strongest beers at 12% so after a couple of these you can imagine we were both feeling fine.

Our final stop was the Hofbrauhaus which is also the place where Hilter launched his political career. You can still make out the schwatikas on the ceiling but are mostly covered up. A bit of a shame they have had to do this when you consider they were in the Hofbrauhaus first and Hitler "adopted" the design for his own purposes. We managed to wade through this very packed hall and found a spot near a couple of polite Americans and got chatting with the 10 pommy guys behind us. An old guy took our order and told Lina in a very matter of fact German drill sergeant voice that they only serve full litres here. None of those woosey half litre glasses here! And so began the wrist straining adventure of Lina's first muss. (Pronounced "moos" where the "oo" is as in "book"). They finally kicked us out at midnight and somehow we made it home. An awesome day and night and damn what a hangover for one of us! Can you guess which one could barely function the next day??

Next stop... on to Bamberg

S&L

PS we are actually back in Australia now but over the next few weeks (months?) we'll be continuing the blog and I'll finally have time to put some photos up.

Grade 5 Ice Bath

From Nice we travelled to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. We were greeted with nice sunny days of about 30 degrees celsius, blue sky, green grass, flowing waterfalls and snow topped mountains. It truly was an incredible site, we must have filled a memory card just of the picture postcard scenery.

Our first day we decided to do some walking and hiking, first to Tremmelbache Falls. It snowed overnight just on the mountains, so it was even more pictureesque. It was a 40 minute walk to get to the falls. Tremmelbache Falls are 10 natural falls within the mountains. The force of the water was incredible, you could hardly hear yourself talk through the sound of them. Next we took a cable car up to a town called Grutschalp. We walked a bit around and got some more amazing photo's - views were even better from this distance. We then hiked down, it was a very steep gradient and about 2km's in distance, it was difficult but you always feel so much better of the achievement when you look up and see how far you have come.


A lot of extreme sports are done in Lauterbrunnen as it's just the perfect place for it and we chose to do some white water rafting on our second day there. Due to the glacier melt and the rain from a few days ago, the rivers were really high. The water was about 2 degrees so we were given full wetsuits to wear. You know its going to be a good ride when the guides are looking out the window really excited saying, its so high and check out the rough patches, its going to be a good ride today. The guides were excellent (and rather nicely built and good looking might I add) and we learnt soon that as long as we listen to them, we shouldn't be falling out the boat. Our trip was a little more exciting as we had an experienced guide and a trainee, the trainee taking the reins most of the time and didn't quite manouver the boat away from the really high rapids, meant we had a great soaking and more turbulent waves than normal, we LOVED it!!! We had a few Grade 5 rapids which are the highest they allow rafting to go through and really was exciting! While down the river at a safer place, the guide asked if we wanted to swim the rapids, so in we went to the very refreshing water and swam along the boat - just a fantastic experience. And the bonus, they took heaps of photo's we didn't even know about and gave them to us on a disk to take away!!!

While there we also saw lots of paragliders, skydivers and some base jumpers. We saw the first base jumper who had a flying suit on and almost made it across the valley before pulling his shute about 15m above the ground. We stood there to watch the others jumping for about 15 mins, trying to spot them as they fall which is much quicker than you realise. They are adrenline junkies, no other word to describe these crazy guys but great to see! We had a few of them in the bar later that night with a video of their jumps and it was surprising to see all the preparation they do before actually jumping. Not a bad idea considering though.

You can't visit Switzerland without a mention of the chocolate. Swiss chocolate is great, and of course it's so cheap there. Our last night, we sat at the reception of our hostel/camping ground with the Limoncello cooling in the river (yep it was that cold) eating good swiss chocolate. Can't complain about life!!!!

Cheers

L&S

Who dropped their wallet?

Day 34 of our travels took us from Italy to France, arriving in Nice about 5.30ish. We initially planned to stay in Nice for five days, however first impressions are lasting and the amount of roadworks really detracted from the city. Nice is more of a place to base yourself if going to Monaco, St Tropez or if the weather is good the seaside beach. The hot weather we had been having diminished and we had overcast days and some rain.

Our plans were to travel from Nice to Barcelona however after spending three hours on the internet and then a couple of phone calls we changed our plans to go from Nice (cutting it down to two days in Nice) to Switzerland. Apparently there was a festival in Barcelona and we could find absolutely NO accommodation within 30 kms to the city. We have since found out accommodation is aways booked in Barcelona because there is always some festival on and bookings need to be made way in advance.

We had two days in Nice and spent one day walking the city and went to the harbour and to the old castle where we saw some nice views of the city and wondered through the old town on our way back. The old town has some really nice character and is the nicest part of Nice, nice little restaurants and markets in the town square.

Our second day in Nice we travelled by train to Monaco. Its amazing the people you meet on your travels. On the train we met an older English couple who were going to Monaco for the day. They were on a cruise ship docked in Nice and have been living in Spain for over 20 years. Very interesting story but the thing that amazed us more than anything is they couldn't speak a word of Spanish. Apparently this place has so many poms living there that there is no need to learn the language of the country of where they are now living!

Monaco is an interesting city, 30,000 people, no unemployment or taxes and one police officer for every 16 people.

Once we got there we headed for the palace, lots of steps to get there, to see the changing of the guard ceremony, it had no sooner finished than the sky opened up and a huge downpour came down, the only places benefitting were the tourist shops were everyone retreated to, to get out of the rain. It cleared after about 15 minutes (and it ended up being a nice afternoon). The grand prix had been raced in Monaco about a fortnight before and it was really cool to take a tour that went along most of the track. Steve got a great picture of the start/finish line that still has the tyre marks on it. But the most incredible thing about Monaco was the cars and boats in the harbour. The wealth was incredible. We spent than an hour walking along the harbour looking at the massive yachts, the biggest of which was 136ft - about half the length of Greg Norman's "Aussie Rules" - but still impressive. Just about all of these boats had crew polishing everything on them and one had a guard that was around 7ft and built like the proverbial brick shit-house just standing by the car (V12 Mercedes) while it was running. We assume it was so the air-conditioner would cool the car down for whichever poor bugger it was waiting for. We didn't get too close to that boat - the guard looked hungry!!


We then went to the Monaco casino. We walked into the foyer but not into the casino because there was a charge to get in and lets face it, our credit cards probably didn't have enough limit on them for a bet :-) We did sit across from the casino and just people watch. We saw Ferrari after Ferrari after Bentley after Mercedes - every sort of expensive car just lining up around the place. I never thought I would see a place where the number of Ferrari's were like they were the common family car!!!! We witnessed the most expensive traffic jam too - we think someone must have dropped their wallet crossing the street and blocked the road.

Lina and Steve

Cinque Terre

We had an early start to get back to the campground and catch the bus from Florence to go to Cinque Terre. On our way we had a photo shoot stop at the leaning tower of Pisa. There really isn't much else to do at Pisa other than seeing the tower. The tower is now reinforced and you can no longer climb on it but it was great to see. Its much larger than I expected and upon seeing the foundations you really can see how much it does lean. Sitting under the tree and watching the number of people taking photo's to hold it up, push it down, karate chop it, along with other stuff was an amusing way to spend the time we had here!!

It was then back to the bus and on the way to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a coastal town in Italy which is made up of 5 small villages each with their own individuality and walking paths have been set up to walk between them - 12 km in all. We arrived late morning which allowed us plenty of time to head to the first village, Riomaggiore for lunch at a bit of a walk/hike. We loaded up on carbohydrates (nice pasta) then headed up toward a track that would take us to a church at the top of a hill for what we expected would be pretty great coastal views. I'll just set the scene a bit, it was a hot day, about 35 degrees celsius and about what felt like 80% humidity and we decide to hike a mountain.... The very helpful staff at the information offices (not) explained that the paths are all very well signposted and you wouldn't have any problems finding the track, I asked in what I thought was my good Italian if they are posted with green signs (that we had seen on the way to the path) Yes was the reply. For anyone that visits, I'll just let you know that they are the red and white signs that you find painted on rocks every so often, oh and maybe an arrow, that doesn't tell you where its taking you. For the record we did make it to the top of the hill to the church for some very nice views and a nice breeze under the tree, but I gotta say, it was hard work. After making it down we decided to walk the first part of the walking trail from the first village of Riogmaggiore to Monarola because its the shortest and easiest - only took about half an hour... although it took us a little longer because they had this cool little cafe sitting out over the water where we enjoyed a glass of wine and just enjoyed where we were. The walking trails between the villages are also much better sign posted and used than the hiking trails. Once reaching Manarola it was dinner time so we had a meal there. We headed back exhausted to La Spezzia where we were staying for the evening and went for a stroll in the town and found a very nice gelateria run by a lovely couple at retirement age who make their own gelati and are very generous with their scoops, it was one of the nicest gelato's we had. My mouth waters just remembering it....

The following day we decided to walk the most popular walking route, to and through all the villages. We started at the last town, Monterosso. We could tell you we were avoiding the crowds that all start from the closest town, but the truth is we accidently caught the express train and thats where it dropped us off!

As well at hiking between each village we did want to enjoy some time at each village as well, and planned that we had a drink or meal at each one. The trail from Monterosso to Vernazza was the hardest, many steps, steep in areas so glad we did that first. It took about two hours with some really spectacular views and we were ready for a rest and a really nice wood oven pizza at the local pizzeria! Filled with energy again we headed toward the next village of Corniglia which took about an hour and we rewarded ourselves after this trek with a glass of local Limoncello. Nice and refreshing. It was served in these really cool glasses that you can keep in the freezer that keep the Limoncello cold. We asked where we could buy some and the girl told us they were having trouble getting them themselves. We asked if we could buy some of theirs but they were down to their last 8 because people kept stealing them. Fortunately for us we found some on our travels.

From Corniglia we went to the next village of Monarola, as you approach Monarola you are greeted with the picture postard of the colourful village with little boats in the harbour (its on a lot of the Cinque Terre postcards) and was just gorgeous. We had eaten at Monarola the night before so we just wandered around the shops and bought ourselves a local bottle of Limoncello for us to enjoy at a nightcap!

Returning to Monterosso (by train) to complete our adventure to have a meal or drink at each village, we had dinner - unfortunately it was one of the worst lasagnas Steve had ever had (never as good as Mum's or Steve's) - lucky the Chianti was nice.

Back at La Spezzia we found our gelateria again for some dessert and decided to get a bottle of Chianti to enjoy together and here began a mission. We just missed the supermakets closing time (yep all over Europe they sell beer, wine and spirits in supermarkets for the most unbelieveably cheap prices)... we must have gone to about a dozen places looking for a bottle of Chianti. The only places were restaurants and it wasn't until we gave up an hour or so later that we saw this tiny deli, which was not only still open but with one 4 euro bottle of Chianti sitting on their shelf. Of course we had no glasses so the helpful shop owner gave us the only thing she had - little plastic medicine cups that hold about 2 shots worth. And since it was such a warm night we found a nice bench to drink it - we did receive some strange looks from people as we were pouring the wine into the little cups on the street bench - probably not the way Italians usually enjoy their wine - but we're on holidays :-)

L&S