Due Gemelli Riomaggiore

... ll see how it goes.

Tomorrow I am off to Milan, and kindly enough staying with a friend of the women who owned the horse place I worked at. Can't beat free, and many of the people that I met there vouched for him so, I'm off to another city. I'm hoping to make Milan, Verona and Venice by the weekend so I can go to Parma and see my cousin on the weekend. Wish me Luck!

Missing you all!
Benita

... and stopped for lasagna and cannolis for lunch and more photos in Manarola.

Cinque Terre was such an alluring excursion. The weather was perfect that day, as the locals had their laundry out drying from their windows high above the pedestrian walkways, the fishermen dropped their boats into the coves with a pulley to hunt for dinner, and we enjoyed a laid-back day.

Tuscan Riviera Portovenere
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… eating sleeping and watching the boats go in and out… not much English here but we are not hungry or thirsty so all going well….
Tomorrow we are off to the South of France.. 3 nights planned in Nice.. Really looking forward to it but have loved Italy…

... park and a UNESCO world heritage site. It's estimated that the terraces built into the hillsides to support the community crops utilize walls that, if stretched out, would extend 12000 kilometers. Having been there, I believe them. The bright and distinct colorings on the buildings facing the ocean are there in part to help the fisherman find their way back to the right place. The 'stacked houses' building style was used ...

After travelling for the last 6 or more months without a real break we thought we might just settle down for the winter, instead of heading back to London and back to work. We are plonking ourselves with some of Dino's relatives in Tuscany.
Shona can't speak a word of Italian, but is planning to learn and not one of Dino's relatives speaks English. It should be an interesting few months.
We ...

... day. What more could a girl ask for?

We arrived around 10:30 a.m. in Riomaggiore, which we later found out is the town at the lowest elevation (apparently most people hike in the opposite direction, starting at Monterosso, so that they spend more time going downhill; we didn’t get the memo). We began our trek right away, not knowing how long the entire hike was going to take us. We climbed a few staircases, turned a corner, and ...

... being soldand everyone was gearing up for the day. Cinque Terre was perfect for us because it ticked so many boxes - a decent hike (for me), plenty of swimming spots (for both of us) and lots of cats (for Whitney) - one of which came and sat on our laps for a pet while we were having dinner in the park. We were enchanted by the pretty little towns perched impossibly between the cliffs but had to move on as we have much more to see.

... about Cinque Terre. It means "Five Lands". Those are five villages next to each other located on the rocks and looking at the see. So those are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare. The Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There is no traffic here, you can only move on foot in the village and by train from one to another.

Riomaggiore
This is the first stop of the Cinque Terre. The main ...

... grabbed one of the smaller bags and left him with the big ones.
He was struggling to carry them up the stairs to you could see they were heavy. When he got to the top she put the other two bags on top of the heavy ones and got out a refresher towel and wiped her fore head – he then carrying everything, trying to keep up.
Caught the train from Venice to Milan and just relaxed. Copied photos from the camera, wrote in the diary and read ...

... Between that and the fact that we had one bathroom for 16 girls, I didn't get out of the hostel until late morning. I walked around Venice, bought my train ticket for Sunday, looked in some churches, and paid 4,50 euros to use the internet for 1/2 hour. Venice is very expensive. I'm also trying this new fad called resting since I've been sick so I took an hour nap in the afternoon and just rode the waterbus around Venice. It was nice to get off ...