Great seats, three good movies and lots of sleep.

Will work out the train system soon and head to the hotel..

Sitting on the train. Italian conductors still part of train life

On the train to Roma $13 euro

Quick bite to eat. Two small coffees!

Trevi Fountain- couldn’t believe how busy it was. Had to wait for a spot

The buildings are stunning

First lemon gelato.

The light from the Parthenon.

First of many. Walked and walked and got lost so by the time we found a restaurant we were famished with really sore feet. 27,000 steps today.

Spaghetti marinara

Early morning view. Woke too early as we were in bed by 8.00pm the night before.

Breakfast at the Bar Lepanto. About five minutes from the hotel. Really busy with train travellers. \240Lots of delicious pastries to choose from with a coffee. Standing at the bar

St Peters Vatican. So beautiful, intricate paintings. So opulent. Forgot the magnitude of the church.

Angels St Peters.

The new kicks getting a good work out. Another 27,000 steps on day two in Roma.

Two ladies standing in front of the most famous Catholic Church in the world.

So many laneways to walk through. All so pretty

Lunch time - time to rest our weary feet. Papas Restaurant.

Ricotta Ravioli with a Piera garden salad

Trawling through Instagram and a bloddher posted she dined at Ristorante Due Ladroni so we booked it for our last night in Roma. Caught a cab and we had actually walked past it during the day. It was absolutely wonderful. The owner was so attentive even giving me a shawl to wear as we were outside.

Tuna meatballs with eggplant.

Fresh Buffalo mozzarella from Naples which he delivered daily.

Spaghetti vongole. We told the waiters we would share dishes and they played the one dish up individually. We also had a lovely bottle of organic wine. Main meal was fish with olives and grilled vegetables.

After a walk to the Spanish steps a orange and lemon gelato to finish off day two.

Pastries and coffee for breakfast before checking out of the hotel

Leaving our hotel. Great place to stay for our time in Rome. Room was such a good size only thing missing was tea and coffee facilities.

Sienna here we come. Two hour bus ride for 18 euro.

Selfies on the bus. Funny they didn’t seat us together even though the seat near Piera was free.

Lunch - salami panini and tomato, eggplant salad

The colours of Italy

Appricoche

The beautiful streets of Siena

Coffee time

Gelato to soothe the sore throat

Dinner at Zest

Walnut blue cheese salad

What a view

Trying to get rid of the cold with a coffee and custard donut. Breakfast one. Needed to get out and stretch the legs.

Our B&B I’ll Sensino. Approximately $120 a night each. Finding the accommodation prices quite reasonable.

Breakfast included in the price. Salami, eggs, cheese, cake and pasties as well as coffee. Only drawback only served from 8.30 which would be fine if I wasn’t waking at 5.30am!

Delicious and moist cake. Butter, milk and flour - simple ingredients.

Breakast

Main square in Siena

Delicious Tuscan soup.

Lunchtime Aperol Spritz

Foggy morning should bring a glorious day.

Coffee and salami roll. Roll wasn’t the best.

Starting our train journey to Lucca. Missed our connecting train to Pisa but just jumped on the next available.

Pisa station.

Outside Pisa station enjoying a roll in the sunlight whilst we wait for the train to Lucca.

The driveway to our villa. Was a bit frustrated that there were no taxis at the station. The property organised a car to collect us. 20 euro as it is about 25 minutes out of town.

Room 111 which is close to all the facilities - the pool, the restaurant and a beautiful lounge area to sit, relax and read.

Villa 111 decor.

The most relaxing pool. As we sat it started to rain but we moved under the star jasmine which grows like weeds around here. The perfume is intoxicating.

Margarita time. I love how they serve it with a little platter of olives and nuts.

Villa Marta views

Beautiful restaurant where you have breakfast and dinner. Very French provincial decor.

Bikes available to ride.

First night dinner in the conservatory.

The restaurant serves you a small appetiser which was delicious.

Peach Bellini as a pre dinner drink

Eggplant parmigiana. We shared all dishes and I love the way the chef played them up individually for us.

Linguini with seafood and a strawberry sauce.

Seared tuna with shaved zucchini and pea purée.

A traditional Tuscan tiramisu. Nice but too creamy and no coffee flavour.

Morning light from our room at Villa Marta.

Breakfast is included In the room rate. Breakfast is taken in the conservatory or out on the patio. The sun is stinging so sat outside. The buffer is simple but fresh - cheese, toast, fruit, eggs and continuous coffee.

Salami

The gardens are so green and lush.

Subway graffiti

Lucca has over one hundred churches - big and small. The intricate detail in the marble is amazing.

The colours of the zucchini flower

Olive oil on display.

Go Italia

So many bikes. I missed out on riding one through the cobblestone streets - we didn’t plan very well but all good.

Pizza for lunch. Not the greatest but we will find it.

Selfie time. Teaching Piera to keep her head straight!.

All around the city I found these tiles which were really cute. This one is dedicated to Lady with the Pearl Earing.

Lucca church

Beautiful shop fronts that are heritage listed therefore the shop product may not reflect the signage.

Doorways of Lucca.

Just outside the walls of Lucca there was art displays.

Lucca colosseum

Angel tile.

Italy colours.

Angel tile

Lamppost and churches

Starsigns alonf the church - Taurus

Climbed over 200 steps to get to the top of the bell tower which has a small garden growing up the top.

Wonder if I found them all?

Back at the villa for an aperol spritz and complimentary spritz. Good value for $8 euro

Decided to go back to the restaurant for dinner. Entre of scallops, apple and paw paw.

Rabbit with carrots. Not sure why there were potato chips on the plate. The rabbit wasn’t how we usually cook it. More like a turkey roll.

Night time at the villa.

Cycling through the small villages on my bike ride. So pretty.

Lucca doors

My bike

Always a church.

Greenery against the colours of the beautiful houses. A lot of different colours of the houses.

Sunlight in the vegetable gardens. A peaceful way to start a day of travelling. Taxi to Lucca, train to La Spezia and then the cinque terra train to Manarola. It was a bit difficult with the luggage but we got there in the end.

View from our balcony in Manarola. Hotel was the most expensive in our journey so far. The room itself really lovely, spacious and clean and they upgraded us to the top floor which was great. They lacked good facilities in the room - no kettle, no iron.

Lunch at Marina Piccola. Amazing anchovies. So delicious. Food was great, service not so. Waiters were rude. Apparently the internet wasn’t working so we had to make sure we had cash.

Squid pasta with prawns

Gelato time. Chocolate and cherry. Prices range from 2 - 2.50 euro

Hotel Ca’ d’andrean. Up on top of the hill.

What an amazing view.

Love locks with a view. Wakes from our hotel high up on a path that took us to this view.

Aperol spritz in a bottle - my kind of thing.

As we had a late lunch this was dinner.

Views from our balcony. We were upgraded which was fantastic.

Vernazza views on our 3.9k walk which took 2 hours due to the steepness and narrowness of the steps. The walk was from Vernazza to Mentorossa. White sneakers no longer white!

Locks high up on the hill at the beginning of the walk.

Looking down on the train tracks. The train connects all five villages and is easy to use.

Monterosso views

Looking out at the view of Monterossa.

Lunch - anchovies, olive and tomato busscetta. Well second lunch really. Was lightheaded as I only had a smal croissant for breakfast which isn’t enough so as soon as we got to the town I inhaled a spinach pie.

Ginger margarita on the beach. The beach was rocky, not sandy which I love. Lay on the beach and had a snooze before catching the train back to Manarola.

Afternoon gelato time In Monterosso. So many gelato places and every second person is walking the streets enjoying one. I wonder how many million kilograms they sell per year.

Laneways of Monterosso. Everywhere is so steep - good for the backside.

Marble stripped church.

Monterossa beach views.

Dinner at I’ll Porticciolo in Manarola. Food has been so good. A bit expensive.

Seafood platter to share

The arcades were absolutely stunning. Such gorgeous architecture.

Colours of the arches.

Street art down a sma laneway.

Orange trees line the streets and bring out the colours of the buildings.

La Spezia church.

Old meets the new.

Lunch was delicious. A really cute French like cafe where you choose what you want in your panini and they toast it up.

From La Spezia we took the train to Riomaggiore which was one of the five villages. Much bigger and more restaurants to choose from. Colours of Riomaggiore buildings.

Riomaggiore buildings. Again very steep. We walked around for a short while and then headed back to Manarola.

Afternoon gelato.

Train to Corniglia. Fun fact there were 342 steps to climb which is more than the amount of people that live in Corniglia which is under 250.

Corniglia views.

Delicious spaghetti vongole. We couldn’t locate the restaurant that we wanted to so just went to one that was high up on the hill near the church.

Breaded pesto pasta. A local speciality.Pesto was lovely - pasta not so.

On the train which kept stopping. What should have been approximately a 3 1/2 hour trip took over five hours. Didn’t help by the fact that we travelled back to La Spezia when we didn’t need to!!

Our little goodie bag that was given out as compensation as the train was delayed for over an hour.

My favourite European church - the Milan duomo. It took six centuries to build and I love just sitting there looking at the intricate details of it as well as people watching on the steps.

Gelato time. I haven’t kept to my gelato a day - more like every second day. Say in front of Duomo and took it all in.

Shadows in Milan.

Blue skies and the Duomo.

Late dinner at Sorbillo pizza. We are eating quite late. Piera visited her family in Milan whilst I walked around and waited for Hannah and Sophie to arrive from Nice.

Zucchini flowers and potato croquettes which were really delicious. The zucchini flowers were filled with ricotta.

The restaurant is famous for its margarita pizza which was delicious.

The table next to us ordered the tomato and burata cheese which looked amazing.

On the walk back to the apartment we stopped past a couple of food trucks.

The Duomo in all its glory at night.

The courtyard of our apartment. The location was fantastic. The apartment spacious but a bit old but still good.

Sparkling in the sunshine. Walked around Milan looking at the shops.

The beautiful arcades

Lunch at Aqua and Farina. I had a salmon dish with salad and pizza.

Buildings of Milan.

Sanbiase

T

This may be my last treat but then again maybe not

A lovely G&T with a few snacks thrown in

My beautiful travel mate

The history and beauty of Roma

Bougainvillea blooming. The colours

The Panthenon

So pretty

In the early morning we discovered beautiful laneways.

Laneways of Roma.

Guarding the Vatican

Breakfast at a gorgeous little cafe with Hannah

Street art of the Pope

Around every corner is a beautiful church, statue, piazza or building.

Pretty doorway

10,000 steps done by 10.00am. The accommodation was in an amazing location. Really central.

Italian door

Back to the Trevi Fountain to make more wishes. So busy.

Lunch stop

Aperol spritz time.

Melon with prosciutto, spaghetti vongole. Really good.

On top of the Spanish Steps

Bus and train to the airport. In the lounge ready to head home. A procecco or two

Abu Dhabi stopovers