Emily, Aidan's sister, had seen a few postcards, and decided that Nice would be a nice (pardon the pun) place to rendezvous with us and Aidan's folks. We had a few days between leaving Italy and meeting everyone, so decided to spend it in Cannes, which is just a few kilometres further south of Nice. Cannes is home to a famous annual film festival, and seemed to us like the Hollywood of France. It was a reasonably big city, although the neat little area near the ...

Our plan when we left the Cinque Terre was to ride the train to Genova, and get on-line to run through our options for the next destination... We were distracted and hopped off one station too early, outside the city centre. For a few hours we searched for an Internet cafe, whilst wandering slowly towards the city centre. Genova seemed like an interesting city. As we meandered through cobbled roads we managed to stumbled into some sort of festival, with people i...

'Cinque Terre' translates to 'Five Lands', and refers to a beautiful stretch of the Italian Ligurian coast. In these rugged, steep and dry Mediterranean coastal lands, five small villages have slowly developed to produce some of the tastiest wines, fruit and vegetables in the region. The villages are linked by a narrow trading route that weaves in-between the sea and a sharp cliff face, where defiant orchids and vineyards cover the slopes. It was amazing to see t...

Although still suffering from a bit of reverse culture shock, we did miss some aspects of Western living. So we decided to crash Aidan's parents' romantic getaway and follow them to Tuscany for some grand Italian cuisine. We were aiming for Florence, and found a cheap flight to nearby Pisa. Andy and Rosy, having hired a little VW Golf, drove over to meet us and we stopped for some obligatory photos of the world famous Leaning Tower of Pisa before moving on. Unfo...

Both of us had already spent a bit of time in London, so it should have been a familiar and comfortable place to start the second leg of our travels. Instead, we found it a bit of a reverse culture shock. We had spent so long in Asia that the high prices, sour faces and materialistic surroundings made our heads spin! Despite the shock, we were excited to find Aidan's parents waiting for us at Heathrow Airport. They have come over for seven weeks to catch up with...