3 countries in a day!

Enjoying the view at Monterosso

We left Antibes on the French Riviera yesterday (Wednesday), drove along the coast and got stuck in a traffic jam in Nice, drove through Monaco which was very clean, modern and flashy, then finally onto the motorway which was high in the hills above the Riviera, and into Italy. We went over more viaducts and through more tunnels in 2 hours, than in my life so far, and finally made it to a small village on the Italian Riviera called Deiva Marina.

A quiet and pretty little village near the sea, and there is a stream running through the campground which is full of tadpoles, and Xanthe and Lucas have caught heaps of the poor things!

Anyway, today we took the train to the Cinque Terre (the 5 villages) and wow - this is what I came here to see! It is just like all the tourism pictures I've seen! Just so beautiful. These villages have so much character and beauty and history, and some of them look like they are clinging to the cliffs above the Mediterranean. They are so colourful, and most of the people there are so friendly. And the beaches in some of these villages are just to die for! One of the villages was quite a climb to get to from the train station - in fact 382 steps up! Yes, Stefan counted them all. And in 30+ temperatures! So we have done lots of walking today, picked up a few souvenirs, haven't really stopped and had lunch, but between the 6 of us we have consumed about 20 litres of water, juice, fizzy, slushies, icecream etc while on the go!

And for anyone at Somerfield School who is reading this and enjoyed coasteering at Camp Wainui, well in the village of Riomaggiore we watched "extreme" coasteering! There were a few men jumping off huge rocky cliffs close to 20 metres high!

Tomorrow morning we are off to Pisa. Its not a long drive from here, and our intention is to get there late morning, have lunch, and then drive another 60km down the road to our campground, which looks more like a luxury resort! It has a huge pool complex, and it will be nice to get there early enough in the day to enjoy it. More often than not, we are arriving at our destinations too late in the day to really enjoy the facilities offered at these campgrounds. We are then off to Rome, where we have 4 nights, and we are all looking forward to that - and having some downtime there! Much needed at the moment.

Ciao for now...

 Glen and Di at Vernazza

 "Extreme coasteering" at Manarola