Pisa and a righted tower thanks to the hulk
Deiva Marina on a stormy day
Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre
Fishing boats in the street Cinque Terre
Cingue Terre
Nice at night From Florence we headed to Pisa to see its famous leaning tower, we had about and hour here and it really was enough, we found ourselves in little awe of the slightly leaning tower but all the same we ticked it off the list with one of the classic photos holding it up which by the way is not so easy to work out how to take, especially with hundreds of others trying to do the same!
From Pisa we headed to the coast getting off the bus in La Spezia. From here on in the travel was not so easy it took Andrew and I a good couple of hours to work out where exactly where needed to go! As it turned out the camp ground we had booked was not actually in the Cinque Terre where we wanted to be but about 20 Min's further away! All the train timetables were only of the Cinque Terre so we had no idea of how to get to where we needed to be... finally after a lot of harassment one of the information ladies sold us a ticket and pointed to a train stating "I think this train goes to where you need to be" a very promising statement indeed! Not knowing when our stop would arrive we looked out the window at each stop, of which there seemed to be many especially as we where heading further and further away from where we had planned to be (we had been looking eagerly forward to this part of our trip for a long time now!). At one point our train (being an ever reliable form of Italian public transport) stopped in a tunnel and would not start again for a further 20minutes and all we knew was that there was a problem which we heard muttered by a passing attendant to another, yay! We travelled on and on (time seems to take slow when you don't want it to) and Sharon became more and more annoyed at the camp ground and its description of being `within the Cinque Terre.´ When we finally got to the station and were lucky enough to catch the free shuttle to our campground just in time (other wise we would have had to wait three hours), with something going finally right for us! We checked in, sorted out or stuff, cooked yet another `one pot wonder´and settled down for an early night to the sound of some young Americans who not being able to drink back at home made up for it that night... nice, thank God for ear plugs! The next day we decided to just relax and headed to the local beach, (it turned out that our camp ground was were the Italians came for their holidays away from the busy tourist area but still by a beautiful beach) and soak up the rays. It was a beautiful day we lazed around, swam in clear water in which one could see fish swimming under you, and ate ice cream. That night the heavens opened and we experienced the thunder storm of a lifetime with thunder rolling constantly around the hills on which our camp was located and every 20seconds the sky lighting up in a blaze. This continued for not most of the night and therefore was another difficult night to sleep especially since my side of the bed being wet due to Andrew despite my warnings leaving the windows of the tent unzipped and the wind blowing my side....Now I know that at times I have been known to exaggerate, however you can ask Andrew it was honestly a crazy huge storm and the biggest storm either of us had ever seen! By mid morning the storm had passed and we packed our day bag keen to head out on the famous Cinque Terre walking paths and to see the 5 cute towns that are now UNESCO world heritage sights. We hopped eagerly into a full shuttle and were dropped off at the local train station to catch a train 20Min's to begin our walk.... however this was not to be the case as the before mentioned Italian public transport once again lived up to its name and had decided that today they would be on strike and no one was going anywhere.... so instead of seeing beautiful sights we spent the day doing washing and walking along the now very empty sea front to watch the storm out at sea.
The next day we crossed our fingers and toes and headed out again for the destination that we had come to see, today we where lucky and the trains were running, hooray! However we were told that we could not walk between the towns on the well know tracks due to the weather making the tracks unstable... with our spirits slightly dampened we headed out to what turned out to be an amazing day exploring the old towns (which we travelled between by train) and swimming and eating the local produce and taking excessive amounts of pictures all of which were justified due to the beauty of the place... definitely recommend!!
That night we finally had an uninterrupted sleep and with trains actually working (thank goodness) we headed back to La Spezia to catch our bus and once again travel onwards, out of Italy and up into France, more specifically Nice.
The trip to Nice was pretty neat with our bus winding its way along the coast line at some points on the edge of high cliffs, we were able to look down upon the richness of Monaco (this is the second smallest country in the world and to be a resident one must put down 1k and then also be one of the 30 accepted that year, failing to be accepted the 1k is not returned and one must put down another 1k and try again), and tried to spot the houses of famous stars such as Elton John, Bono and Tina Turner. We arrived at our destination, tracked down our hostel and then some food and chatted to our room mates, one of which turned out to be incredibly self absorbed and incredibly annoying... and also loved to talk.... only the best combination! The next day was beautiful and sunny so Andrew and I spent the day chilling on the beach, wandering through the old town, checking out little local markets and going for a wee walk up a hill for the view. Luckily we had used this day well and to its full as the next day turned out to be miserable as it poured down with rain, and not wanting to return to our room (due to the self absorbed and annoying girl lying in bed waiting until someone would come in so she could once again complain about her terrible life and her recent break up from her `soul mate´and the nose that needs plastic surgery and how tarot readers told her that she would have health problems and so now she believes she does due to a one months stint in which she took up smoking.... and yes this does go on for another couple of hours or so) we spent the day trying to keep dry and window shopping. We spent our last night in Nice with another Kiwi couple in our room. We ate a nice dinner with them and chatted over a few drinks into the early hours of the next morning.
The next day we crossed our fingers and toes and headed out again for the destination that we had come to see, today we where lucky and the trains were running, hooray! However we were told that we could not walk between the towns on the well know tracks due to the weather making the tracks unstable... with our spirits slightly dampened we headed out to what turned out to be an amazing day exploring the old towns (which we travelled between by train) and swimming and eating the local produce and taking excessive amounts of pictures all of which were justified due to the beauty of the place... definitely recommend!!
That night we finally had an uninterrupted sleep and with trains actually working (thank goodness) we headed back to La Spezia to catch our bus and once again travel onwards, out of Italy and up into France, more specifically Nice.
The trip to Nice was pretty neat with our bus winding its way along the coast line at some points on the edge of high cliffs, we were able to look down upon the richness of Monaco (this is the second smallest country in the world and to be a resident one must put down 1k and then also be one of the 30 accepted that year, failing to be accepted the 1k is not returned and one must put down another 1k and try again), and tried to spot the houses of famous stars such as Elton John, Bono and Tina Turner. We arrived at our destination, tracked down our hostel and then some food and chatted to our room mates, one of which turned out to be incredibly self absorbed and incredibly annoying... and also loved to talk.... only the best combination! The next day was beautiful and sunny so Andrew and I spent the day chilling on the beach, wandering through the old town, checking out little local markets and going for a wee walk up a hill for the view. Luckily we had used this day well and to its full as the next day turned out to be miserable as it poured down with rain, and not wanting to return to our room (due to the self absorbed and annoying girl lying in bed waiting until someone would come in so she could once again complain about her terrible life and her recent break up from her `soul mate´and the nose that needs plastic surgery and how tarot readers told her that she would have health problems and so now she believes she does due to a one months stint in which she took up smoking.... and yes this does go on for another couple of hours or so) we spent the day trying to keep dry and window shopping. We spent our last night in Nice with another Kiwi couple in our room. We ate a nice dinner with them and chatted over a few drinks into the early hours of the next morning.
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