Italy

Arrived in Genoa at about 9:30 and hopped on a train to Levanto. After wandering around in the heat, with our packs, for quite some time we finally found the campsite and pitched the tent. The rest of Sunday lounging on the beach, before having calzone, pizza and gelati for dinner!!

Monday morning we caught the train to Riomaggiore the first town in the Cinque Terre (the five lands), five villages amongst spectacular coastal scenery.

The weather felt quite warm and we took our time in each of the villages before sweating onto the next.

We stopped in Corniglia for lunch (foccacia) before walking the rest of the way through Vernazza to Monterosso from which we caught the train back to Levanto.

This morning we caught the train to Pisa for a quick stopover. We headed through the scorching streets of Pisa to do the obligatory tourist visit.

We, along with literally thousands of other tourists stood heads askew admiring the city's famous leaning tower. Due to the prohibitive cost and the fact they only let a dozen or so people at a time do so, we opted not to climb the tower but to pose for the standard photo ops and wander around the other magnificent buildings that share the towers complex.

The train trip to Livorno Centrale was short, unfortunately however, either ´centrale´ is Italian for ´not at all close to anywhere´ or the name is somewhat of a misnomer.

So after walking for over an hour through the scorching heat we finally made it, sweating like pigs, to the ferry terminal, purchased our tickets on the overnight ferry and found a cafe to relax in for a few hours.

By the time the ship departed a bit after midnight we were already bedded down under one of the tables in the dining room (who needs a cabin, eh?).