Rome is big, big buildings, big history, big statues, big lots of people!! We have had a great 5 days here. We were joined by our English friends Shirley John and Abi and we had great fun and learnt heaps thanks to our tour guide, history guide and information reader -John. We managed to arrive just in time for republic day when everything is closed and there are heaps of people in the city, but that didn't stop us walking all over Rome. We have seen way too m...

Lucca is a beautiful walled ( yes another walled) city. We took the train, and as we had to change trains in Pisa, decided to do a quick walk down to the leaning tower. It was still leaning, in fact it has recently been cleaned so it looked pretty good for a leaning tower. Back to Lucca. The wall around Lucca is really wide and there is a bike track and park all around the old city. The old city has very little traffic so it is quiet and great for bike riding...

After spending time walking in the mountains by the sea, Florence seems like a big noisy city. It isn't really too big and it has many redeeming features. It has many wonderful galleries but the ones I enjoyed the most were the Uffizi and the Accademia There I was able to see paintings I have used in my teaching and get ideas for new lessons. Paintings are almost always better in real life. We have also done some exploring of the city both on foot and bus. Looki...

Today we spent a lovely day in Assisi. The weather was a perfect 24 C We traveled by train from Florence through the beautiful Tuscan and Umbrian regions for 2 1/2 hours. The view of the valley from the top of the hill was one of a very ordered landscape. It was great to get out of the city as we have found it tiring to spend so much time in a city with no relief from the hard surfaces. We have found it interesting that there are few free green spaces in Europe...

Cinque Terre. 5 towns perched on the cliffs of the mediterranean sea at the top west of Italy. Having looked at photos of these town many times it is amazing to see them first hand. We arrived yesterday and having missed the bus to take us to the town we decided to walk. Ugh!!!! It was so steep we were knackered by the time we reached the top. Then we had to find our accommodation. Not as easy as it should have been, after walking in completely the wrong dir...