Cinque Terre, Bologna and Parma

John, Amy and I travelled from Turino to La Spezia. From La Spezia (where we stayed) we were able to visit the Cinque Terre coast. There are five little villages along the coast. In the olden days you could only get from one town to the next by foot or boat but nowadays you can travel by train or boat. The path along the coastline was closed as they had lots of landslides. We decided to go along another path (up and over the hills) from the first town to the second town. It was VERY hard work...from then on we took the train from one town to the next. My legs were extra sore for the next couple of days.

Here I am at the top of the hill. The view was very special but I don't think I would ever do that climb again. The walk was only about 500 metres from the first town to the next but it took us over an hour. It takes about 2 minutes on the train.

All of the towns are perched on cliffs like this. Only one of the towns has a beach for swimming. The water was way too cold for me to go in but some people went for a dip.

From La Spezia we were able to catch a train to Pisa. It was on Saturday and their markets were on. They were quite good and we bought a few bits and pieces. After the markets we went to the tower. Have you heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

John and Amy are in front of The Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is beautiful and yes, it does lean over. It's made of marble. You can climb to the top of the tower but we didn't. They have a big church in the same area too. In one of the other buildings, the baptistery, a man demonstrated the echo in the building. He was just calling out different sounds (like oh, ow and oo) and it sounded just like music. It gave me goosebumps. 

We also went to Lucca. It has a wall (4km long) around the outside of the "old town". This was to protect it from their enemies. We hired a 4-wheeler bike to ride around the top of the wall. The bike got a flat tyre though. 

                   Amy and John in our bike - before we got the flat tyre. 

We are now in Bologna. (the home of spaghetti bolognaise...yum) It is also home to the first university in the world. It was founded in the 1088. James Cook Uni (in Townsville) is 40 years old - that is a bit of a difference.

Bologna has two big towers. The shorter one has a lean on it. It is made of brick and is not nearly as fancy as the one in Pisa. You can walk to the top of the taller one. There are 500+ steps. We did not climb this tower either.

We went to a place with about the same population as Townsville today. It is called Parma. (like parmesan cheese). It is a lovely place with lots of very good restaurants. We had a delicious lunch and wandered around their antique markets. I bought an old clock for my clock collection.

Here is Amy's "spag bog" that she had for lunch today....they don'y say that on the menu though. She said it was delicious but there weren't any tomatoes in it like the one we make at home. Of course she put parmesan cheese on it too.

Here is one of the Easter displays from a shop window. The shopkeepers go to a lot of effort to make the shop windows look pretty. 

HAPPY EASTER to you and I hope everyone is having/has had a terrific holiday. I am not sure if I will get around to blogging again before the weekend.