'Un'luckily for us the centre of the trail was closed due to a landslide today, so we decided to get the train to the town after the landslide and walk to the remaining 2 towns - rather than through all 5. We managed the first 4k walk between Cornelia and Vernazza, which took us just over an hour and was the toughest walk we have ever done - not quite Barton Hills! It was very steep, hot, and sweaty with some large drops playing on our minds. It was quite enjoyab...

It is just so beautiful here, even the pictures don't do it justice. I am already dreading having to leave! We are here for four nights. We arrived after going via Pisa, it was pretty cool to see it and it's all really well looked after. But an hour there was enough, even though for about 20 mins of it the entire bus group was in mcdonalds.. Says a lot about us as travellers! To be fair we hadn't eaten yet and there wasn't much choice (not that we looked beforeha...

Today has been really lovely. We started off by climbing the Duomo which is 463 steps, part of the way you can stop within the dome and be just a bit of plastic away from the beautiful old paintings on the inside of the dome. Which had seemed so small when we visited the cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore. Then up the remaining steep steps we got to the top of the dome for an amazing view of Florence. We could see the hill we sat on looking at it the other day, and ...

Florence is a smelly place. The horses, the dogs and the river help this out. The most guilty, though, are the people. We have decided they spend all their money on cigarettes rather than deodorant, or bras for that matter. Luckily for Florence there is enough beauty in the buildings to drag your eyes upwards rather than noticing the smelly people or the huge amount of beggars who pester you all the time! Today we went inside the Duomo, it was a big building and ...

Today was much more sunny, after a night with our new roomies we set off toward the piazza michaelangelo which has the best view of the city. It was a steep climb but was worth it. Nothing in Florence is allowed to be over the height of the Duomo, which is the dome which you can see in the pictures. We are going to go up into that tomorrow. Once at the top we sat in the shade and looked out at the view, it was a lovely way to relax, we had found a quiet spot up t...