An early morning on the train to the Cinque Terre area where we were definately not expecting what was about to happen! I should have done more research on the area haha silly me. The area has five villages each with a train and walking tracks inbetween them. We were told we were going to walk from Corniglia to Venezza as it was the most beautiful track to walk along with outstanding views of the area. Due to landslides last year, the first two tracks were closed...

After our last breakfast in Lucca, we took the train to La Spezia (about 2hrs) and arrived about lunch time. Being Sunday all the shops were closed and the town was almost deserted. We had a small lunch near the water and went back to our hotel to meet up with the tour group. We all took a bus to the lovely town of Porto Venere. It was a stunning little town/village on the water which was so blue. We were told this is where the richer inhabitants of Italy like to...

We arrived in Lucca at 4pm which is a much smaller town, quiet and less hussle bussle. It has over 100 churches! This time we were split up into groups of four and were given apartments to live in which was a nice change from the tiny hotel rooms. As usual, our tour guide spent an hour or so taking us all through the town so we could get our bearings. Dinner again was great however if you ever order a calzone in Italy it is literally the size of a large dinner pl...

We finished off our time in Rome with a visit to the Villa Borghese gardens which are huge. We hired a little tandem bike and rode around for an hour to take in the scenery. We met up with our tour group at about 2pm and took a 1.5hr train to Florence. Florence, what a wonderful city! We checked into our hotels (it was dinner time by now) and met up with our tour leader who took us to what I can only describe as a version of Subway Italian style - but 1,000 time...

The Isle of Capri we just loved. The views, the seaside atmosphere and the shopping, oh my what a lovely place to visit, we wish we had more time there. We arrived by ferry from Sorrento and was amazed how the bus managed to narrowly miss traffic by centimetres lol. After a few token snapshots of the view on the way up, we arrived at the Blue Grotto and actually didn't have a clue what it was until we were there. What an experience, short but beautiful. Made to l...