John: Day 4 and 5, we spontaneously decide to go to Florence/Firenze by train and book overnight accommodation, as it is a 3 hour return trip from Lucca. The day is very wet. Once again, this trip provides us with much better 'Firenze awareness'. We find locations previously unfounded, though it seems that with every new passeggiata, we seem to ultimately find our way back to the leather markets, which coincidentally, are also only around 50 metres from our acc...

John: New Years Day we catch the train to Pisa after exchanging New year wishes with mia Mamma on Skype. The weather has turned and it is drizzling- my 3rd time to Pisa and the weather has always been lousy. The walk from the railway is round 1.5 km and we acquire a greater sense of Pisa. I think that the tower is now leaning 20 degrees more than 2009, so it shouldn't be too long before you will be able to surf the torre by way of the external walls- without havi...

John: We check in to our accommodation, Buonanotte, at Lucca, on time after nearly missing one of our 4 rail changes. Across the road is the gate of Porta Elisa, one of four gates providing entrance to the fortified, medieval town. Once again, the town is incredibly beautiful, causing us to finally reject earlier blog reflections, instilled by our sons, that Italy pales against other destinations in Europe. The 10 metre high wall around the town is 4.5 km long ...

My dream since the first trip to Italy in 2005 was to stay at the Cinque Terre. The dream has been realised. It has been four days of absolute bliss staying in the Cinque Terre village of Vernazza. Our apartment Elisabetta has two levels with the massive bedroom upstairs and the living room and kitchen below. Both our upstairs windows had Ligurian Sea ocean views with our shared terrace on the ceiling providing 360 degree views of the ocean, towers, churches- the...

I am going to try and abbreviate our four days in Venice as one entry. It was strange arriving in Venezia by train as a couple, with previous arrivals on a Trinity tour group bus with 50 other people. With large bags and Venice's unique access issues, I made a point of booking accommodation only 200 metres from Santa Lucia train station. Our four days comprised exploring areas of Venice previously undiscovered. We travelled by vaparetto to both the colourful B...