Italy

Cinque Terra is an awesome location and one of my favourites in Italy. There is a train line that runs between the 5 towns along the coastline south of Milan.

Funnily enough I heard about Cinque Terra in 3 different ways before I got there and it never clicked that everyone was talking about the same place.

When I first looked around Rome, I was a bit disappointed. I had such high expectations. I had to look twice when I saw the Coleseum at the end of some normal looking street. I was expecting it to have a bit more of its own space. I think I came upon it from the worst direction though.

A lot of the ruins are... well, really ruined.

The Monument to the Unknown soldier was quite visually impressive.

By the time I hit the Spanish Steps I was really getting into it. Alas, though, it was time to make my way back to the train station for my flight to Stuttgart.

For a city that has a reputation for all roads leading to it...

Florence is kind of spoiled by its own popularity. Tourists are everywhere and you may have to wait several hours to get into the main attractions. People pour in by the bus load and walking around the city can be somewhat painful.

I went and saw the replica of David in ***, as I was not sure at that point where I could handle standing in line for a couple of hours. I eventually did stand in line for about 1.5 hours and seeing the original David was worth it to me. It was much cleaner and with the lighting it seemed much more impressive than either of the replicas I saw.

Personally, one of my favourite parts was the view from Michelanglo's Piazza at night. This was totally unexpected and very cool. The main attractions are all lit up and very visible. There is also another copy of David here.

Verona was very cool. Maybe I just had a good day, but I really enjoyed my time in Verona. You can get the Verona day pass for only 8 Euro for 24 hours and a 3 day version is also available. With this you gain entry to the main attractions. There were so many things, that I didn't even make it to them all in my 24 hours.

Verona's Arena is the third largest of its kind and much easier to get into than the Coleseum. Although its outer wall was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake, the inner wall is still fully formed. Verona's Arena is still in use today with concerts being held there.

Well, Venice has such a larger than life reputation, so it was always going to be hard for it to stand up to it. Venice is best seen from the canals. Floating down the Grand Canal on a vaporetto (which can get awful crowded and not quite so enjoyable) is so much nicer than walking around. The buildings are nice from the water, but when you are trying to navigate your way through tiny alleys and bridges, it gets quite frustrating. It is very easy to lose track of where you are going as you backtrack and try head in the direction you want to go.

Knowing what I do now, I could have happily checked out Venice in half a day. San Marco's Piazza is very much worth checking out. The Basilica is very cool and different enough from other churches I had seen to make it worth seeing.

I was originally going to try spend a night here. After looking at the accommodation prices I had decided against it. After talking to some fellow travellers, they suggested leaving my bags at the station and having a look around for a few hours. This turned out to work really well.

Bologna's architecture (and there is a lot of it) is all very red. My favourite part was climbing a 90 something meter tower. I've climbed a lot of stairs in Europe, but climbing the tilted stair cases of this tower had me wondering how stable it was. Plenty of people had been up it before I though, so it was one step after the other.

I only had a couple of hours to look around Viareggio. Viareggio is half way between La Spezia and Pisa. I had originally planned to check out Pisa, but on the way to Cinque Terre, I had noticed most of the guys on the train with their trinket bags had got off at Viareggio and not Pisa. This had originally got me thinking of stopping at Viareggio. The idea of checking the beach out also seemed more appealing than some leaning tower. I had already seen a few leaning towers and even climbed one that was nearly 100 metres high in Bolognia.

The baggage self storage lockers were out of order, so that kind of slowed me down and limited my enthusiasm having to carry all my luggage.