Italia

Despite being stopped in somewhere in the middle of northern Italy due to Bush protests for a few hours (not only can GW trash entire countries but he can even try to ruin your vacation), we made it to the small island of Venice a few days ago. After checking out San Marco we plunged into the depths of the city with the full intent to get lost. Its a fun place to walk around, but after a half a day we ventured back to Mestre for sleep.

Over the days since we made our way through to Cinque Terre, a beautiful region of the Italian Riviera that is listed as "hidden" in all of the international guide books. We were discouraged early on when 3 separate people said that it was jammed pack even weeks ago. This morning though, setting out from Monterosso for the full 5 hour hike through the 5 towns, we encountered very small crowds, and for the first few miles, hardly anyone at all.

The trail leads through truly amazing scenery. In 15 minutes you can go from being immersed in terraced vineyards to overlooks of crashing waves against 100 foot cliffs to viewpoints of one of the 5 extraordinary towns. The weather cooperated and even gave us some well received shade during the more exposed sections.

After making our way back to La Spezia, we hopped onto a train for Florence (Firenze for the show offs) where I now type this post. Tomorrow we make our way down to Rome and base from there for a few days before moving onto Greece.

One week left!