Northern Italy (1 week) – the best part was Cinque Terra!

- Resting on the Riviera. After Rome, we took a several-hour train to get to Grosseto, a city close to the west-coast of the Mediterranean sea. We stayed for two nights with a Servas host (see www.servas.org). We spent a day laying on a beach, swimming and tanning. Our host, a retired plane mechanic, was very kind; he showed us other cities on the coast, Castiglione della Pescaia, which has a fortified medieval city on a hill, with beautiful narrow streets.

- Florence: Spent 1 full day here. Saw downtown, beautiful cathedral (the Duomo), the bell tower, and the baptistery. Saw a beautiful 13^th century church (Orsan-Michele), castle on Piazza Signori, the medieval bridge (Ponte Vecchio), and climbed the hill across the river to get to the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte (11^th c.). The big terrace in front of the Basilica offered the best view of the city rooftops and the Duomo (see pics on the video below). There were great fireworks in the evening there, over the river, as it was a festival.

- Cinque Terra: We spent 3 days enjoying this Italian Riviera coast. Cinque Terra is a national park which includes 5 villages on the cliffs of the coast and surrounding hills are covered in vineyards and olive trees. Most of the villages have a beach with clear water. We hiked between all the villages and spent two nights in the village we liked the most, Corniglia. We had to climb over 300 steps from the train station to get there, and then more than that to get down to the beach on the other side. We had a great view from our room and terrace, enjoyed walking down one main long narrow street of Corniglia, ate locally grown juicy apricots and peaches, and rested on the beach. I could stay there for another week, but we had to move on to Switzerland, as I was presenting at a conference there.

Here are a couple more pictures from Rome (the Forum & St. Peter's Square):