Al Saraceno Hotel Finale Ligure

... the first time we had actually just stopped and done nothing and we felt a bit guilty...but it was bliss.

As the sun started to dip behind the hills we decided it as time to do some meandering. Laigueglia is connected to its glitzier sister by a 3km promanade which we decided to walk to. Once there we found a funky cafe and enjoyed a well earned beer.

Thu 12 Nov
Set our alarm even earlier this morning - 6 ...

... distance from the train station. Sadie and I take turns exploring the area, it is so cool that the ocean is so near. This seems like a great town to spend time in. The time comes to get on our connecting train then the bad news comes that we have gotten off at the wrong stop. Little did we know that there are two stops in Genoa. We miss our connecting train by 20 minutes and now come to find out are stuck in this town for the next 3 hours. The horrible ...

This morning we woke up to get ready to go on the Historic Center walking tour of Genoa. We had a nice breakfast at the buffet and I even found a decaf cappa for breakfast too. We met in the lounge at 8:45 and got on a little boat in the harbor and had a tour of the harbor and then got off at the aquarium and started our tour. Genoa is very nice and the historic section dates back ...

Embarrassing isn't it? The bird (Jamie) speaks the lingo, FLUENTLY, in the 2 countries we've been to so far. And how do I get by? By attempting to communicate with the locals like Terry Scott in an episode of "Terry and June", where they holidayed in France for the week!! Communication menthods being, speak slowly and shout. My word, that was a funny episode! They don't ...

so left avignon today with thoughts to head to cinque terre, but due to traffic jam only made it as far as arenzano. found a cute pensione and jason was getting sick of driving so seemed like a good place to stop. tried a few others but was like walking through a sad run down old people town so didn't make it more than 5 mins there. well, happy hour time now, so will write more later....

So, the long haul back. Fortunately, there is an excellent motorway all the way up to Ceriale (we have decided to call in at camping visited on way out). Unfortunately, we hit our first real traffic jam halfway up! Mustn't grumble - after the miles we have done. The beauty of ...

Went to Genoa for a coupe of days. Mainly to visit the famous holiday town of Portofino which the Hollywood celebrities used to go to in the 50's and 60's.

Had to change trains 5 times to get here. The swiss trains were perfectly on time, then the almost stereotypical Italian trains were about 30 minutes behind. Thus making me run to my connecting trains with big backpack, tennis racquet, tennis shoes hitting me in the ...

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been a few days since my last entry but both me and Chris have had a really bad cold! Chris thinks he caught it from the air conditioning at the hostel and I know I caught it from him! Although we have been sick we have had quite an exciting last few days and we are trying to enjoy every moment of it! As Chris said "I’d rather be sick and in Italy then taking a sick day at work"!!

Lets start by mentioning we are now in possession of ...

The drive to Italy wasn't too bad, about 5 hours. We took the toll roads as this cut the journey by about 2 hours. I was quite wobbly as we got into Italy as the roads were suspended above huge viaducts and through long, dark tunnells through the mountains, and as soon as we crossed the border I realised that Italian drivers really are absolutely insane. We had got into a traffic jam in a tunnell (caused by a car crash), and as ...

Buying a ticket for an elevator? Genova was eerily quiet when we arrived, but that is what we get for arriving on a Sunday. This allowed us to leisurely walk it's black and white arcaded sidewalks getting a full view of the old mosaics below our feet. This ancient port has some wonderful palazzi which house art collection, the linked Palazzi on Via Garibaldi (Bianco, Rosso, and Toursi). After some terrible pizza, we enjoyed seeing artwork by Rubens ...