We arrived in Milan with no expectations and were actually expecting not to enjoy it so we found ourselves pleasantly surprised. The buildings were worth seeing just for their size and magnificence. The Duomo in the centre and the castle on the outskirt of the old town were both pretty impressive. On top of that the high end shops all over the place, including a Ferrari showroom, were pretty cool. We only had half a day there to break up the trip to France so ...

If ever we wanted the weather to be perfect, it was while hiking around the five lands of the Cinque Terre, and we couldn't have been more fortunate. Only one of the four coastal walks connecting the towns was officially open but a second one was walkable. This was fantastic because, while the first was a traffic jam of older, slow walkers, scrambling through the narrow windy paths, the second walk was almost deserted and more scenic. The towns themselves were c...

Lucca is a cute little town completely surrounded by a 4km long old city wall, apparently making it the only fully fortified town in Italy. It's not on the Italian tourist trail so we got to enjoy walking around the town and through the old streets without too many crowds. While we were there, the local football team had a big win (we seem to be good luck to these Italian teams) so by the end of the day the streets were full of joyful youths singing, dancing, wav...

Naples lived up to southern Italy's reputation for us, seeming like a town in decay. The areas we visited were quite run-down. We were quite amazed to see how much poorer the south of Italy really is compared to the north. We happened to be in the Naples area at the same time as an important soccer match in the Italian league was being played between Naples and Fiorentino. The entire neighbourhood seemed to be watching this game on TV as major celebrations incl...

While in Rome we visited all the must see sites, joined the queue to get into St Peters Basilica in Vatican City, travelled to Orvieto, experienced a huge concert on "May Day", scoped out the prize winning Italian gelataria, ate at a fancy pasta restaurant and knocked back some rosso vino. Our accommodation was a very nice hotel with a huge double bed, lounge room and dining space, not to mention an incredible buffet breakfast, fitness room (if you're that way ...