Travelling day today. Packed up and headed toward the train station, but first stopped by our favourite breakfast trattoria for the ricotta filled croissant. See pic in the photos area. After filled with sugary goodness we went to the little stazione (station) and bought our tickets to Pisa. We have a car reserved at the airport there. Our plan was to taken the train to the main station, lock up our luggage and then go check out the leaning tower. However, once w...

Had a fabulous day here in the Cinque Terre. We woke up to beautiful skies, nice and clear. This was a day for hiking. There are walking trails between most of the 5 towns and we thought we would try at least one of them out. The is another town called Corniglia that is just 1km away, sounds pretty easy. Just 1km. So we loaded up with water and snacks and off we trundled. First of all, you must know that this is the land of steps. From the photos I've posted you ...

Woke up to sunshine and a spectacular little town on the coast. Nice to see the ocean, I didn't realize how much I missed it. We wandered back to the place where we had dinner last night for breakfast this morning. The girls had cappuccinos, I had my tea and Keith went for his usual, aqua frizzante (sparkling water). The specialties were Sicilian pastries and I didn't need any convincing to try them. The owner was a nice guy from Sicily and he told us about the f...

Off to the Cinque Terre today. We were up and out on the street at 9:15 am expecting our taxi for 9:30, we waited ........ and waited .......no taxi. Michele the owner of our apartment had arranged our pick up to take us to the train station. So after 45 minutes or so I called one myself, it arrived in 7 minutes. Yay! Should have done that in the first place. We arrived at a very busy station, the Santa Maria Novella. A neat 30's building in the early Mussolini ...

Ok Ok I know I'm a little behind on my blog. I'm having some trouble with this program and twice I've had a fully written entry and twice I've hit the"publish" button and poof, it disappears! Very frustrating. So, I'm going to post a bit at a time and will keep adding to this entry. Ok here goes On Saturday we headed off to see the Palazzo Pitti, an enormous residence not too far from us. Built by wealthy Florentine banker Luca Pitti, his family hung out there f...