The Grand Canal, Venice

Thursday 13 September, 2001 (Venice)

Met up with Tania & Nana for a gondola ride this morning. It was very expensive, kind of nice but not something I'd do again. We walked back to St Marks Square (too many fucking stairs in Venice!) and did the pigeon feeding frenzy thing which was loads of fun.

Tania and Nana had to leave so we said goodbye until later. Kevin called up and said he was in Venice so we decided to go meet up with him. The boys wanted to go sight-see but I'd had enough so I bid them farewell and went off to do some shopping. I couldn't really find anything I liked, but the time spent alone was like gold.

In the afternoon I thought I should do our washing so I trundled along the Grand Canal to the laundromat (more steps - grumble, grumble). It felt good to be doing something that resembled normality.

After this I met up with the boys and we decided to have dinner. It was a nice dinner, but Kevin had to leave for the opera so we said our goodbyes and went for a token look around the shops. We were pretty exhausted so went to bed early.

St Mark's Square - Venice

Friday 14 September, 2001 (Venice-Modena)

Left early this morning to catch a train to Modena. Wasn't too bad a trip, but a fair few connections made us tired. My sister called on the way with some bad family news so I was anxious to get to the hotel and call my mother. We got there pretty tired, but were able to catch CNN and find out the WTC disaster details. Mark made himself scarce and went for some food and I called my mum.

Had a sleep and watched some teev for a while, then had an uneventful dinner in the restaurant next door. Went to bed early in preparation for the pain in the ass trip to Maranello the next day.

Us & the St Marks Square pigeons

Saturday 15 September, 2001 (Maranello)

Tania sent Mark an SMS today saying we just *had* to go to Gardaland which was this theme park she and Nana went to. We worked out that we could probably fit it in, so we made the plans. We took a cab to Maranello, home of Ferrari and spent an hour in the Ferrari Galleria. Not too interesting for me, but Mark enjoyed himself. Took a cab back to Modena and the train to Peschiera which was on the way to the Cinque Terre. Got a hotel in Peschiera and decided to have dinner at a place called Medieval Times which is in the general vacinity of the theme parks. It was so LOUD! They gave us heavy metal plates, a bowl and a cup and the kids were banging them together, making this huge din! I got a bit of a headache.

Eventually, they served us food and beer and everyone had the same thing:

• Unlimited cola or beer
• Foccacia
• Vegetable soup
• One whole chicken and a side of potatoes

A whole chicken! I kid you not. All of the food was absolutely delicious.

The place was shaped like a horseshoe, with a sand oval in the middle. The story was mostly in Italian, but the gist was that 3 knights had to compete in various medieval type competitions to win the hand of the princess.

I stepped out for a bit to have a cigarette and escape the noise. On the way back, I needed to visit the bathroom so I went to the ladies, but all they had were tiled holes in the ground. (They took the medieval theme very seriously!) I decided that I could wait. I could eat without cutlery, and sit on uncomfortable wooden chairs, but no way in hell was I gunna squat!

We caught a cab back to the hotel very full and contented and went to bed.

Me looking enthused at the Ferrari Galleria

Ferrari Galleria entrance ticket

Us on the rollercoaster at Gardaland

Sunday 16 September, 2001 (Peschiera)

Woke up a bit later than normal this morning and made a mad dash to the free shuttle bus to Gardaland. It was the last day it was open for the summer so it was extremely busy. We didn't have much time to spend, and the queues for rides were 30-60 minutes long. We still managed to get scared on both rollercoasters , the pissweak "train" and the even pissweaker (is that a word?) Egyptian ride. Its only saving grace was the cool laser effects at the end of the ride. Unfortunately, we had to rush off at 3pm to get to Monterosso at a decent hour.

After the last time we wee there and the disaster therein, there was no way I was going to miss out again! I wish we could have stayed longer at Gardaland though.

We got to Monterosso at 9.30 that night and reception was closed. Luckily, the hotel had posted an emergency number on its doors so we were able to contact them about our room. Pretty soon we were in our room and after a quick clean up headed out to dinner at around 10pm (fairly normal for Europeans). It was a nice dinner and we turned in for the night soonafter.

Gardaland entrance tickets

Monday 17 September, 2001 (Monterosso)

I was so tired today so we made a token effort on the famous 5 town hike but my heart really wasn't in it. Went back to the hotel and slept all day.

Found an Internet café and spent an hour deleting spam, but they had mIRC! Joy! Talked to some old friends and missed home like crazy.

We ate lunch at this cool café called FA.ST. The table we were sitting at had a plexiglass top with just enough distance between the plastic and the wooden table to slide business cards under. The table was covered with business cards, ID cards, train tickets and American $1 bills. I had one of Mark's business cards in my wallet and he wrote on it "Mark & Annie, September 01" and slid it under the perspex with the others.

Was still very tired after that so went back to the hotel for a little sleep, again missing dinner.

Tuesday 18 September, 2001 (Monterosso)

I will never forget this day! Slept so much last night that I was re-energised and ready to take on the world! For us this meant starting the 5 hour hike along the coast between the 5 towns. ("Cinque" meaning five and "terre" meaning lands).

The first leg was the hike from hell. Monterosso-Vernazza was only 1.5 hours, but a lot of it uphill. Drank a lot of water and climbed a lot of steps. One whole section was straight up a cliff face for about 50 meters - all steps!

We stopped in Vernazza for coffee & pizza and all too soon it was time to

(Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre - Thanks to Kev for photo)

move on. The next leg was Vernazza - Corniglia, which was about 1.5 hours. That walk sucked too and I found Corniglia to be nothing special. We continued on to Manarola which was the next town on the track, about 45 minutes down the road from Corniglia. Manarola was very pretty, and we stopped for lunch. I had lobster linguine which rocked my world!

On full stomachs (probably a bad idea!) we hiked the 30 minutes to Riomaggiore and caught the train back to Monterosso. All in all it was a nice hike, but so damn tiring! The views made it all worth it, however.

Had an interesting dinner of seafood risotto. It was served in this huge crock-pot type thing and was packed with various seafoods (some still in their shells), rice and a couple of vegetables. Finally, we went to bed for a well earned rest!

Scenes from the Cinque Terre