Albergo Stella Della Marina Monterosso

As the traffic had been horrendous yesterday we decided to hit the autostrada and pay the tolls to save our sanity and hightail it to our next destination. 130kms and 10 Euro later we arrived in Santa Margherita Ligure, which is just up the road from Portofino. <br><br>This place is a bit larger than we are used to and Italian towns all have small car parks and narrow ...

... again. Being on the coast I went with the special that day, penne in tomato sauce with mussels! and a coke. For only 8 euro I had a huge plate of pasta with easily over a dozen mussels. The prices were nothing like Paris!<br><br>After lunch the rain started to let up. Feeling a bit more adventurous we took the train to Monterosso. There was a nice stretch along the shore and along the cliffs to walk from the train station to the center of the city. The girls and I rummaged ...

... kind of a staging system for the people waiting at the red. Kinda like the start of an F1 race. <br><br>Autobahn/Autostrada: This is an event that must be experienced. This super highway is merely a 4 lane divided freeway much like I-70 heading up into the mountains. The main difference comes from the terrain. Southern Germany, Switzerland and most of western Italy are all heavy mountainous regions. The difference is the ruggedness of the ...

It's Saturday morning and I'm hitting up this internet cafe on my way through the begining of my day long hike through Cinque Terre.<br><br>I left San Fillippo yesterday with happy memories and sad steps. I really did enjoy so much about my stay there that I truly didn't want to leave, but alas my faithful readers needed something more excited to read so I have graciously decided to continue on this path of a new ...

<br> Tuscan Riviera Portovenere<br> Had seen it on Getaway and looked very pretty.. Found a hotel with sea views and have spent 2 nights here resting , climbing around local castles&#8230; eating sleeping and watching the boats go in and out&#8230; not much English here but we are not hungry or thirsty so all going well&#8230;.<br> Tomorrow we are off to the South of France.. 3 nights planned in Nice.. Really looking forward to it but have loved Italy&#8230;

... next day.... but thats a whole other story.... read on...... :-)<br><br>Thursday<br><br>We woke up early and had a plan... early to beach to drop clothes in to get washed, swim, back for breakfast and to check out... quick trip to Riomaggiore to see it (as we had raced through to catch the boat) and then on the 2:55 train, arriving in Zermatt around 11pm. The plan was good, until we got in the sea. Oh.... wouldnt it be nice to stay here another ...

... the Mediterranean. Lots of daytrippers here, but it is more peaceful at night. Lots of great food here for seafood lovers. Specialties of the region include pesto sauce, fresh anchovies (not the canned **** in America), and pastas with shellfish. So tasty and reasonably priced. The other highlight is the topography with steep terraced hillsides spilling into the sea. This makes it hard for cars to get in, but a train line connected by ...

... laughing and carrying on. At 5:30 a.m., Jim woke me up to ask if I'd like to go for a walk on the beach and watch the sun rise. I felt sorry for him, with his "I told you so insomnia", so agreed. It was quite nice out actually, and quite different from the hustle and bustle of the daytime crowds. We actually can't believe what it must be like in the summertime - it's quite warm here, with lots of people around, so it must be madness in the summer! We ...

For our last day we did a day trip through this travel group in Florence called Florence For Fun to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is these five little towns along the coast of Italy. They are adorable towns that are connected by a hike. We me our tour group at the train station and they took us to the first town Riomaggiore. From there we began our five mile hike. We only hiked between four of the towns and took a ferry to the last ...

... yet. No one was working so we just used the machine and got ticket for La Spezia where would try to get tickets home. When we got there we couldn't figure out what we needed to do because there was no ticket man and we had to use the machines again. We ran into some girls from Montreal that needed to get back to Florence as well because they were studying there too. They found a train ticket checker he told us to get on a train for Pisa and he would ...