Hotel Albergo Ristorante Paradiso Portovenere

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.

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 ...

... 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…

... a means of defence, since it gave very little means of entry into the towns, and offered the defenders a height advantage on any seabourne marauders. The local white wine is fantastic.

For those of you with more of an interest in trekking, all five towns are connected by a well-maintained pathway that you can use to traverse from city to city. In short, start saving your nickels and dimes and visit this place at least once!

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 ...

... holes carved from the mountain don’t look that impressive until you realize that the little yellow dots on the different levels are really large trucks and cranes for lifting and hauling the gargantuan blocks of stone from the quarry.

Since it was already getting dark and since everyone was sore from the hike earlier, we decided to not land but to head back to the yacht on La Spezia for the night.

... for dipping feet around the rocky harbor of Portovenere.

Well it's getting closer to reality as we head back to Milano tomorrow before flying home to Seattle on Thursday. For all you female readers out there, we plan to window shop the fashion avenues of Milan and take some colorful photos for you. All for now, hope to get one more blog entry in Milano before flying home.

... the village and I think that is how most of the celebrities came too. It is a stunning village, even though we only saw it at night - the lights, the boats - gorgeous. There was a lovely old castle area too, which we climbed to see the views. The waters can still lap-up very high and the rocks are so smooth from the water. There was a lot of chit chat that night and we were speaking about me going on to Ireland. Gianni said that he would like ...

... made it back to Portovenre with enough time to explore the fortress here, which is something we love to do - climbing the battlements and imagining an invading party coming in to attack. We took a million pictures and felt exhilerated in the cold air. We also found the cemetry in the castle grounds built into the hillside - quite an amazing feat of construction. The sun is now set and soon we head off for a light dinner and maybe a bath to soak the tired feet.

... Monterosso seemed like the hot spot for more restaurants and bars, but Riomaggorie was good. After sweating so much all morning, Christina and I really wanted to go swimming in the Mediteranean Sea, and in doing so, I got a nasty ear infection. We were only in the water for a little bit, so I don't know how I got such a bad infection. About 300 yards off the beach were this huge ...