Well Pompeii was everything I'd hoped for & more. What an amazing record of times gone by frozen by a volcano in the 1st century AD. Although not rediscovered til the 18th century, unfortunately early archaeologists either wrecked or took away much that was found for reasons of ignorance or conquest eg marble slabs. In spite of this Pompeii is like a puzzle that has been 3/5 put back together as there is still a large part remaining hidden underground due to ...

Has been a slower couple of days since we arrived in Rome late on Thursday. On Friday we did an open top bus tour around to see some of Rome's famous sites. We've also enjoyed a couple of Italian style Taverna dinners & chatting to some other visitors/locals. It's great meeting new people & hearing some of their stories. Yesterday we transferred Hotels & had a slow afternoon swimming/ reading before joining our tour introduction late afternoon. We had...

On Tuesday we set out for the Cinque Terra. As it was looking quite sunny we thought we'd travel to the furtherest town of Monterossa then do the walk from their back along the other 4 villages as much as we could then come back the next day to finish off. But there were a few glitches to challenge us that day, 1st the boat wasn't running as in spite of the now sunny weather they said the coastline was too rough to land at the villages. The train our 2nd option, ...

On Sunday we headed to the Cinque Terra by train to Monterosso, not long after we were heading back to La Spezia as the already grey sky erupted into a storm that had blown in from the Mediterranean. We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up Kellys then Charlie cooked us one of the Tuscan dishes we had done at our school. Yesterday with weather still dull we headed off by car to Lucca, on the way it rained a fair bit especially as we got closer BUT luckily ...

Ciao from La Spezia, a bit drizzly here this evening, Charlie is cooking us a recipe from our cooking school at Greve, a stuffed chicken breast with salami & herbs in an onion sauce slowly sautéed with white wine. We have met up here with Kellys, great to catch up with friends & share some of our stories with each other. We caught the train to Monterosso on the Cinque Terra but just as we got there a storm blew in over the ocean so we had a quick look &a...