Italy

Day 21 - Wedensday, June 2
Buon journo!  By this time it was getting warm in Europe and when we got off the train in Italy it was hot.  I only brought one pair of shorts...I should have brought two.  In the blazing heat we climbed up to a fort that overlooked the city.  The famous Duomo, which is basically a humongous dome in the center of the city, was the only neat building to look at from the fort.  Overall, I wasn't too impressed with Florence.
 

Day 22 The food, however, was stupendous.  With gellato for dessert, no other country had better food.  We did some shopping and then we headed for Cinque Terre (pronounced Cheenqua Terra), five cities connected by train and foot paths on the Italian Riviera, i.e. on the western coast of Italy.  Cinque Terra is actually on the Ligurian Sea which is an arm of the Mediterranean.  We stayed in the southernmost of the five cities, Riomaggiore, shown here.  Cinque Terre, highly recommended by Rick Steves, was one of the neatest places we visited in Europe.  Actually, if I had to rank them, I'd place this at #1.  Although the YMCA-style hotel that we stayed in, called Mama Rosa's, was dirty, noisy, and not so cheap, it did not ruin our visit - we just stayed outdoors.  Actually we did not arrive in Cinque Terre until Day 23...I just didn't have any good photos from Florence, so I chose two from Cinque Terre.

Day 23 After dropping our luggage off at Mama Rosa's, we packed our backpacks full of water and headed down the via dell' amore, the walkway of love...isn't that sweet?  The via dell' amore led us to Manarola, a city similar to Riomaggiore.  Between Manarola and Corniglia was a beach where we stopped to enjoy the Mediterranean and had a piece of pizza for lunch, what else would you eat for lunch when you're in Italy?  The pathway from Corniglia to the fourth city, Vernazza, was full of ups and downs and twists and turns taking over 90 minutes to walk it.  However, Vernazza, was the neatest of the four cities.  With a small marina and fort jutting out into the Ligurian, the walk was worth it.  However, we weren't up to walking all the way back so we caught the train - yet another free train ride.  Not that we didn't want to pay, we just couldn't find the ticket seller.  After being busted in Prague, we didn't mind paying.  However, some Americans said that we can pay on the train if we happened to see a conductor, but that was very unlikely.  Thus, a free ride.