Have arrived safely in Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre. First impressions are positive, but I shall have photos tomorrow. After walking all the way up a cliff (I'm not kidding, look the Cinque Terre up on Google) wearing my backpack, getting to the hotel reception and being told that my room was at the bottom back near the station, and then being further told that I am on the top floor of a rickety building with rickety steps, I'm just going to sit in the shower for 4 hours.

Met a young couple from Australia on the train here who were upset that TrenItalia had slapped them with a 100 euro fine for not filling in their eurail pass correctly - so I had a long discussion about how lucky I obviously was to have avoided the might of TrenItalia. Then a man got on and fined me 5 euros for not validating my ticket, whatever that means. I bought the ticket from the ticket office and got on the correct train, what more do they want from me?

Oh, by the way, he also mentioned in passing that he could have fined me 50 euros but I was a stranger so this was a special deal. Cheers, mate!

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.