It was lovely spending a week with Fran's Mum & Hilary, a long-time friend of hers; just a shame that the weather decided to turn a bit rainy for the week. We stayed in Fiesole, a lovely small town on one of the hills just above Florence. To be honest we didn't really see a lot of Florence - just a few of the central sights. The 15th century dome on the cathedral still seems an architectural feat; the Ponte Vecchio looked intriguing and medieval despite the umbrellas; and the Uffizi gallery collection was stunning (including paintings by Caravaggio, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli) though they wouldn't win any awards for customer efficiency.

The Mugello Hills north of Florence were very attractive. We spent a day discovering a few of its towns and had some great tortelli in a rural café (pasta stuffed with potatoes, served with basil and butter).

Thereafter we shoe-horned Mum and Hilary and their luggage into the car, along with all our camping and cycling gear and headed to Lucca and Pisa. Pisa was spectacular despite the rain. We hadn't realized that the leaning tower sits amidst several religious buildings that together make up the Campo Die Miraculi (Field of Miracles); and that it is the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral (which stands separate to the latter). As we visited the various buildings our eyes kept being drawn back to the Leaning Tower - it was quite mesmerising.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around Lucca. It's a walled town - a mix of medieval, renaissance and the modern with an unusual amphitheatre of higgledy-piggledy houses looking out onto a large piazza. It was also the birthplace of Puccini.

While Mum & Hilary returned to Florence to head home, we moved north up the Mediterranean coast to the Cinque Terra National Park, another on UNESCO's World Heritage Site list. It's a beautiful hilly area renowned not only for its walking but also for five villages which lie along the folds of coastline surrounded by steep hillsides. The weather was playing ball again now and we had two fantastic days of hiking between the villages and up on the higher paths with views over to snow-capped mountains. We also came across a family of six wild boars - 4 adults and 2 babies. We were first aware of them from the sound of crashing through the undergrowth and saw them about 30 metres from us. Being unsure of what to do, we just stood still as they circled beneath us and out of sight. Phew! This was the same day that Andy had a metre long snake slide over the path in front of him.

Our next port of call requires a coast-to-coast ride from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic; Ravenna.