This trip started a little pear shaped but got better quite quickly. I was originally supposed to fly into Pisa and meet Cassandra and two of her friends at the airport on the Thursday night. She left me a message to say that she was picking me up Friday but would try to get in contact with me a little later in the week to confirm. Later that day she lost the paper with my phone number on it and I didn't hear from her again. At least I knew ahead of time so I made my own arrangements for the first night in Pisa.

These first three pictures are the view out of my hotel room window the first night in Pisa: , , . The hotel wasn't terribly expensive but it was pretty nice to see the sun rise behind the leaning tower. The breakfast the next day was good also, fresh buns and a fresh pastry.
As for Pisa itself, it's a small city (I could walk across it in about 45 minutes but it's not a bad place to visit. The first picture is of the Battistero, , then two of the tower with the Duomo in Pisa in the background, , . There is a nice, clear river in Pisa that is well stocked with some fish that you can see swimming from the bridge. I don't think the picture has enough resolution to show the fish but you can see the buildings along the bank, , . This one is for Madelaine to see with all the flowers hanging from the balconies . Some ruins along the bank, . The Chiessa Santa Marie della Spin that at one time housed the holy relic that was a thorn from the crown of Christ, . And another picture of the bank, .

Well, Cassandra was true to her word and she and her friend Derek showed up Friday when she said they would and we set off immediately for Florence (or Ferenze in Italian). We stayed in a Pentzione (sp?) for our two nights in the city. It basically a nice dorm room with about 10 beds and 2 showers in the bathroom. We got in a little late and decided to wait until the next day to explore.

The first place we went was the Duomo which is a large dome part of a Renaissance catholic church. Surprisingly I don't have a picture of the outside of the dome itself, I'll have to nick one from Derek or Cass later. The first picture I do have is one of the bell tower attached to the church, . It's about 100m high, the same height as the Duomo itself. We set about climbing to the top of the Duomo immediately (there's a staircase on the inside) and here are a couple pictures from the way up: , . A little over half way up the verticle walls of the dome end and the actual dome itself starts. It is painted onm the inside with some beautiful (and terrible) frescos (?sp)): ,
, , , , , , , . If someone wants to put these into Photoshop and reassemble them for me, it would be appreciated. Just like a puzzle. This is what the floor of the church looks like, and one more picture from the way up, . Once at the top, I went a little camera happy and took a bunch of pictures: Florence:
Another picture of Florence:
Me with Florence in the background:
Cass taking a picture of Florence:
Florence again:
And one more time for fun: The view from up there really is quite beautiful.
All 3 of us:
The next 3 may be put together to get a fuller view of the old castle in Florence: , , . We climbed the hill up to what I think was an old palace. I don't think it's still in use except as a tourist attraction and museum type thing. We decided not to go in because it was kind of expensive and we weren't really in the mood for more museums and stuff. First picture is of the courtyard, and the second is of Cassandra in front of a wishing pool .
After the palace we walked up to Michaelangelo's Park (I think that's the best way to put it) and I took a few pictures out over the city. In the first one, you can see the Duomo pretty well, , the next shows a couple of bridges including one that is wall to wall jewelery stores (it's the first one in the picture) and one that has a more gothic church in the foreground and the Duomo in the background, . Also, one of Cassandra on the wall . This is a bronze copy of David, and this is the real thing .

Cinque Terra is a group of 5 (cinque) cities along the Mediteranian coast of Italy. They are all literally carved out of the rock of the cliffs. There is a narrow path winding between them that makes great hiking for tourists. It is also used to transport the olive and grape harvests in fall.
The first picture is of Cornilia (I think). This is where we parked the car and where we thought we might stay the first night. We didn't plan far enough in advance to get the beach-side bungalows though (it turned out they were little green shanties perched on a cliff about 50' above the sliver of beach below) so we quickly set off for Manorola and the promise of the youth hostel there. We did the 1 hour hike in about 15 minutes and made it to the hostel in time to get 3 beds. Then we dropped our stuff off and headed for Riomaggiore . We went for a little swim in the harbour that you can see in the bottom corner of the picture. This is more or less what the sea looked like to us at that time because of the setting sun. I went kind of nuts with the sunset pictures but it really was very pretty: , , , , . And then I took a few more on the walk back to Manorola to the hostel , , , .
The next day we walked back to Cornilio and then continued north along the coast to visit Vernazza and Monterossa. The first few pictures are of the coast between Manarola and Cornilio in the cloudy morning: , , . The next two are of looking ahead at Cornilio , . These are the stairs we had to climb to get from the city/our car to the train station/hiking path .
I think this picture is looking back at Manarola from Cornilio but it's a little hard to make out becasue of the light . This is a good picture of Cornilio from the path just outside the town . This is Cass being blown around in the sea breeze and my attempt of getting a picture of the cliffs and the town in the same picture. Tilt your head and it will make a little more sense .

About half way between Cornilio and Vernazzi we spotted a black sand bech from the path and found a narrow twisty, overgrown path where obviously not very many people go so we decided to attempt the decent and check out the beach. On the way we found a little vinyard so I took a picture of the grapes taht I thought my mum would enjoy . This one is a picture of the beach itself and as you can see the sand is actually black . The next two pictures are of the waves breaking on the breakwater , and one of the waves rolling in . I attempted a timed picture of Cass and I on the beach and it turned out reasonably well except do you see that wave coming up behind us? It soaked us to about our knees before we knew it was coming.

This is a long range picture back towards Cornilio and then ahead towards Vernazzi . This is another one of Vernazzi and one of Cass with a little bit of the town in the background . This is where we exchanged pictures with an american couple . A little closer to Monterossa we discovered an interesting shelter that stares out to sea. This is a picture of a plant that Cass said she has in Canada but that doesn't get nearly this large there and last but not least, to put Cassandra's mum's mind to rest, it turns out that she and I have apporximately the same size feet so for the whole day of hiking, she wore my hiking boots and her ankly braces (my legs are the hairy ones).