Emile was to have called me a taxi at 4:30am to take me to catch the shuttle bus to Beauvais airport, one and a quarter hours from Paris, but when he couldn't get a response I decided I'd better walk up to the taxi rank a block away...I was a little nervous at this prospect but was pleasantly surprised at how many partying people were around at that early hour of the morning.

There were about one hundred and forty of us waiting for the shuttle bus and the funniest example of mob mentality happened when the first bus finally arrived. About forty people, wheelie ports in tow, ran after the bus and followed it as it turned around and came back to the main area...they were like fans chasing after their favourite rock star. I don't know whether they thought there was only going to be one bus and they were going to make sure they didn't miss out on a seat or what. I also wondered whether this happens all the time and the bus drivers just go all the way down to the end of the parking lot to turn around just for sport. I'm giggling at the moment as I write this, it was the funniest thing.

I'd attached my daypack to my backpack so it was easier to carry, but as Ryan Air has a maximum weight of fifteen kilos and my total weight was seventeen and a half kilos I could either pay €15 ($30) per kilo for the excess or take the daypack off and take it on board as hand luggage. Of course I chose the latter but forgot I had my handy Kathmandu knife, fork and spoon set in it...after going through airport security I now have a not-so-handy fork and spoon set.

The flight was again thankfully uneventful. I caught the shuttle bus into Milan Central train station and the train to La Spezia where I was to change to a regional train to Vernazza, Cinque Terre where I'd meet up with Hayley again. I missed the connecting train by a couple of minutes because it took me that long to walk (loaded down with my backpack, daypack and bag) to check which platform I needed to be on, but an hour later I saw her smiling face again.

A big hug and we set off to our accommodation, Hayley leading the way, to our accommodation, Camere Elisabetta (apart from the fantastic view can you guess why I chose that place to stay). She'd arrived earlier in the day after an overnight train ride from Vienna via Florence. We met the owner, Elisabetta, who was sitting with two older ladies in the main street of Venazza watching the tourists arrive. Elisabetta told me she had given us the "room with a view" for two nights as it wasn't booked, for the same price as the "room without a view" and we could then change into TRWOV for the third night. She then told me, and her friends nodded in agreement, that I had a "bella figlia" (beautiful daughter)…I of course agreed.

Now I'd read some reviews by other travellers about Camere Elisabetta and they'd all warned about the stairs and steep climb to the rooms...really, could it be that terrible? Well let me tell you, even not loaded down with a backpack they are torturous, I hope the photos give you some indication of just how bad they are, but every single one of them are worthit for the incredible view. After going to the terrace, via a spiral staircase just for a change, we looked out across the sea towards Spain and down the coastline to one of the other five fishing villages that make up Cinque Terre. There are no other buildings in front of Camere Elisabetta, it is built right on the top of the cliff. Like a lot of the rooms for rent in Vernazza, they were previously part of the family home which have been partitioned off and had an ensuite added. The room was very tiny, but we didn't plan to spend much time in it anyway.

The village, whilst originally a fishing village, has developed into a tourist haven, with souvenir shops, gelatto shops and restaurants everywhere but each half hour we are reminded of its village origins as the town clock chimes to announce the time of day. When it has finished its' announcement the church clock confirms that it is indeed that time of day with a second lot of chimes.

We thought hard about whether we really wanted to have to climb up the stairs again but decided we needed to eat so down we headed to buy our dinner. We bought tomato pesto, basil pesto, olive oil, cheese and the most tomato flavoured red tomatoes I ever had, focaccia to put it on, and of course a bottle of Cinque Terre red wine. I'd also bought dukha with me from Australia, special request from Hayley to have with some real Italian olive oil. It seems you can take anything you like out of Australia, just don't try to bring anything in.

Funny thing about wine bottles in Italy, they don't have screw tops like ours do in Australia, just good old-fashioned corks...how were we going to get it open without a corkscrew? We tried to push it in with Hayley's Kathmandu knife (which she'd managed to not have confiscated) with no luck and decided that as Hayley's legs were younger than mine she should go back to the shop we bought it from and beg the owner to open it for us. She'd only been gone a few minutes, certainly not long enough to have gone down all those stairs and back up again, when she returned with the bottle opened. As she was going down the spiral staircase off the terrace, she saw a couple drinking wine and spied a corkscrew on their table. "Could I borrow your corkscrew please?" she called out to them and after receiving an affirmative from them, proceeded to climb across two balconies to get our bottle open...way to go Hayley (anything to avoid those stairs!).

We chatted with a young Australian couple who were staying in one of Elisabetta's other rooms for a while then proceeded to devour our first meal in Vernazza while watch the most glorious sunset over the ocean.

We went to bed for a good night's sleep in preparation for our leisurely walk along the coastal track, of the UNESCO World Heritage Listed Cinque Terre National Park, from Monterosso, the most northern of the five villages to Riomaggiore, the most southern, a nine kilometre walk which should take us five hours.