Hi Everyone,

Well I have hit the wall, I am losing motivation to write these blogs but you must give us credit...its been 3 months now and we have kept up to date with every place we have been. it's a shame though because our absolute favourite place in all of europe is what I am about to write about so I will try my best to do a good job of it.

Cinque Terre, if heaven was a coastline this would be it. Cinque Terre stands for five villages. Cinque is protected by Unesco and is a national park. the five villages are all conected by pathways and the idea is to walk along each one.

I shall start at the beginning. Our journey to Cinque included a stop off at the leaning tower of Pisa. What an amazing sight. It was a really warm day but it didnt stopous from taking the corny photos of us holding up the tower. It took us a while to get the hang of it as youw ill see in the photos!

When we arrived at Cinque Terre we checked into our villa. We were so excited to have our own little apartment with views of the mediteranean. It was very "italian" with our host showing us around and ready to assist with anything we needed. Mike counted exactly 135 steps to our villa which we dreaded every time we had to climb up to our room but the views made it all worth while.

We have taken photos of our apartment so you get the idea of what it was like. Picture floral table cloths and bed spreads, church bells and little birds whistling. The smell of italian cooking nextdoor and a cool sea breeze. PERFECTION! We went to the market and collected some food to cook while we were staying the four nights in Cinque...the freshes of ggs, cherries, grapes and cheese just to name a few.

After we settled into our room we then went down to the beach for a cooling swim with our friends Bri and Chris and their friends from Australia. It was so so refreshing but i managed to cut both my feet on some rusty pipe so Mike is sure I will lose both my feet with infection. He held me down a few times and scrubbed my wounds with detol. Thats true love!

After our swim we caught a train to the fourth village and went out for the best calamari and seafood we have ever tasted. At a reasonable price too! We then got our daily dose of gelati and made our way back to our village which is the first one, Riomagiore.

The enxt morning we got up early and tackled the first 2 villages. This was a really easy walk and very beautiful. The water was so clear even from the high cliffs we were walking along and you could see the fish swimming near all of the sunbakers.

We managed to beat most of the heat but still needed a swim afterwards. We caught the train to the final town which is called Monterosso. We stopped and had a quick ight to eat at a little cafe with views of the ocean. Cinque Terre is home of pesto so we chowed down on a pesto pizza and icy coke. we then made the best investmetn of the trip soi far and purchased some 5 euro lilos. We nearly died blowing them up but had so much fun out on the sea lazing in the sun and trying to stick to the public beaches and not drifting into the private section. After our swim we jumped on the train with our new toys and went back to have a siesta. In italy siestas are compulsive, they even have church bells that ring at either end of siesta to tell you when it is over.

At around 5pm we met up with the group again and even met up with our other friends Sally and Brendan. We went for a cocktail at this bar that had million dollar views as it was literally hanging over the clifftop. We could only afford one cocktail but we got free tapas so we were very impressed. After this we set off to explore another little cove with our lilos and beers. we were truly on holiday!!

After our swim we got cleaned up and met up for dinner. We went and had the best italian pasta we have had with quote "this pasta sauce is so close to nonnas its not funny". Big call from Mike! After dinner we had a few drinks at Chris and Bris apartment then went off to bed for an early night as we were going to tackle the big walsk the next day.

The next morning we got our walking shoes on and had a big breakfast. We met Chris and Bri but made an executlive decision that it was already to hot to tackle the walks and that beks hives would be breaking out within seconds so we got changed and got the trusty lilos and headed to the beach instead. We were the stars of many photos as it was at a popular stop on one of the walks and people were obviously impressed with our investments. Or we simply were the joke as its not easy climbing on a lilo with sunscreen on without slipping off and not looking so elegant.

After all this hard work of swimming we caught the train abck to our village and got some pizza. We ran into our friends Katie and Dan and arranged to have a swim and some drinks that evening at our house. After another siesta we went for another swim (sounds like a hard life doesnt it) and made ourselves some dinner before our guests arrived for some drinks at our villa. Mike went on the net to write the blgo and Bek played house by doing some washing and hanging it on the italian washing line from our window. It was another early night after our drinks as we had to tackle the walks very eaarly the next mornign to beat the heat. We also only had a few hours to do this as our walking pass would run out.

So the next morning bright and early we started our walk. We had been given a tip by our friends to walk from four to five rather that the fifth village to the fourth as it was going to be an easier walk. For the first fourty minutes we thought this must have been a bad joke as it was nothing but incline and stairs. we were all sweaty and hot and swearing at our friends for saying it was the easier way until we got to the top of the mountain (yes i believe it was a mountain) and watched the othr walkers climbing from the otehr side.They were having a much harder time as this was truly a hard walk. Once we got to the other side we had a well earned swim and a second breakfast. We then hired a paddle boat and Chris and Mike did the paddling and Bek and Bri did the sun baking.We had so much fun jumping off the back of the paddle boat into the beautiful clear water and travelling along the coastline watching all the pople swimming and sunbaking on the rocks. After another siesta we went and had a final swim off the coast of our villge and said some sad goodbyes to Katie and Dan who we had spent a long time with and met bnearly 2 months earlier. Its a strange part of the travelling experience getting so close to fellow travellers and then saying at the end "well have a nice life".

We then had our final night in cinque where we cooked fresh pasta with pesto and sausage..you really cant cook a bad meal when you have produce like this! and had a romantic evening of watching The Hills and Sex and the City in Italian.

the next morning we were up early for some last minute shopping and caught the train back to La Spezia where we were due to continue our journey to Nice. To anyone travelling to Europe you cannot miss Cinque Terre...its the kind of place you could spend a month doing the same thing over again and never tiring.

So thats the last blog from Italy. We are now in France again in Nice but Mike can fill you in on this blog. We are coming to the end of our European Adventure which is quite sad but we are really looking forward to catching up with Renee and Gerard and Carla and Jez in Thailand!!

P.S Mum can you please tape Getaway.....Julz off the show was filming in our village in Cinque whilst we were there. So everyone stay tuned for the show you might see Mike and I splashing about in the sea or stuffing our faces with gelati in the background. Probably the later!