We've finally done one of the walks. Apparently it's not the hardest, but it was hard enough for us. Straight up the mountain to the town of Corneglia before we even started - 380 steps give or take. Then it's into the hills, again up steep slopes or down steep slopes. There wasn't much flat walking. It had also been raining so the steps were very slippery in places which added to the effort. My arthritic knees just managed the downhill parts but I was very glad to sit down for a rest when we'd finished! I think I must be getting old or something. The sun came out after about 45 minutes walking and suddenly the sea was the sort of azure blue you imagine it would be. the walk is only short - about 3.5km but it took us a good 2 hours to do it because of all the ups and downs. Vernazza is another beautiful town perched on the cliffs and hills around a small fishing harbour. It and Monterosso were devastated in 2011 by floods that caused mud slides to inundate the towns. Apparently they had 22 inches of rain in 4 hours causing flash flooding and burying the towns under 3 metres of mud. These towns are built around old ravines, with the old water courses now diverted into drains below the road, but the drains couldn't handle the amount of water coming down and simply burst open into the road above. The ravines also served to direct the water and mud down into the main area of the town. The result was threefold: the town was rebuilt and businesses renovated, the community was brought together by adversity as they worked together to rebuild over the following year and the landowners realised that they needed to keep up the maintenance of their vineyards so the grapevines would hold the soil together. Today there's no sign of the floods apart from a large display near the station with lots of photos of the devastation cause by the floods.

Some of the 380 steps up to Corniglia before the walk starts

Corneglia

Up some more steps

Vernazza

Vernazza waterfront

Monterosso is the largest of the towns of the Cinque Terre, but even so it's not very large. It does have a beach with coarse grey sand as well as medium sized rocks. it makes us realise how spoilt we are in Australia. You can hire 2 beach lounges and an umbrella here for 20 euros (around $30) a day. But no-one was paying today as it was raining and cool. Not beach weather, nor walking weather for that matter, though we did see some people with rucksacks with waterproof covers walking through the town. We were content to stick to the towns today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better weather for walking.

Riomaggiore is at the other end of the Cinque Terre, just a km or so from Manarola. The local train goes from Monterosso to Riomaggiore in about 15 minutes, mostly travelling through tunnels burrowed through the hills. Without the tunnels the train would be regularly cut off, no doubt, by rock falls just like the walking trails.

Riomaggiore is larger than Manarola with more people walking the streets and more shops and cafes. We stop for a very average coffee - a disappointment in this land of good coffee, though it was better than the instant coffee were had on the train from Venice. 

Monterosso Beach looking towards Manarola

Monterosso

Monterosso Beach

Riomaggiore

The Cinque Terre or 5 Lands is a short strip of coastal hills along the north west coast of Italy between Genoa and La Spezia. It was first developed by farmers who terraced the steep slopes to grow grapes and olives but has now been made a National Park. It's a popular tourist attraction because of the walking trails that join the 5 towns, following the coastline for much of the way.

Unfortunately the area is prone to rock falls and every year or so a section of the walk is cut off. This year it's two sections - the easier two in fact! 

We're staying in Manarola, the smallest of the 5 towns, nestled in against the hill with steep paths and stairways leading up from the sea past the station. It's very picturesque, particularly at night when the lights in the houses come on, turning it into something that looks like a model of a village from a distance. The restaurants, not surprisingly, specialise in seafood. The favourite local dish is Anchovies, not salted but cooked fresh. We had a plate of them as an entrée and they were delicious. The fish we've had here and in Venice has been very fresh and beautifully cooked.

Coastline looking towards Corniglia

Manarola

Saturday morning means the fish market is open for business. All sorts of seafood from sardines to salmon, clams to octopus are spread out on trestles, gleaming with freshness. If only we had a kitchen to cook something in.
The fish market is just down the canal from the Rialto, a large set of stairs crossing one of the canals and lined with shops selling souvenirs and various trinkets. A little further along, via winding lanes and little squares is the Piazza San Marco, perhaps the best known landmark in Venice. The Church of San Marco is a beautiful building next to the Doge's Palace, also beautiful. The crowds here are lined up to go into the church. A little further along is the edge of the lagoon where the gondoliers wait to ply their trade - for a considerable sum.
It's raining and miserable today, unlike yesterday which was a magnificent sunny day, so it's umbrellas everywhere, making walking through narrow passageways tricky. Still people are out in their hundreds, the gondoliers are busy taking people around the canals and life goes on as usual

Fish market Venice

Rialto Venice

San Marco Venice

Doge's Palace, Venice

Gondoliers plying their trade with a water taxi overtaking

Clock Tower Venice

Venice is basically a series of islands connected by canals and bridges. Here if you have a garage it's to put your boat in. The police and ambulance people get around in high speed boats. We're staying in an attic above a largish house in a back street of Venice. Well, actually, they're all back streets with a few exceptions. The streets wind back and forth, tiny lanes lead to larger squares, almost always with a church on one side and without a map you'd be lost in seconds. With a map it takes several minutes before you're lost! Everywhere you go though, there are shops and cafes. Today we came across a fishmonger with his goods displayed on a table outside his shop. Similarly we passed a greengrocer selling his fruit and vegetables from a boat on the side of the canal on one of the islands.
Apart from the main 'island' of Venice there are a several other smaller islands set around the lagoon that surrounds Venice. The most famous is Morano, known for its beautiful glass. We caught a ferry there this morning and saw a brief demonstration of glass blowing. the man created a small vase and a glass horse in a matter of minutes. Quite impressive.
Also impressive was the price of the various glass vases and other objects we saw in the shops nearby. They were of course beautifully crafted but well out of our price range!
We went on from there to the island of Torcello, a much quieter and relaxed little island. The Locanda Cipriani Restaurant and inn was the home of Ernest Hemingway for several months while he wrote 'Across the River and Through the Trees'. As a result it's become a popular destination for royalty and movie stars - and now us.

Fishmonger, Venice style

Venice from Morano

Morano glass blower

Morano Greengrocer

Locanda Cipriani Inn, Torcello

Venice Canal

We're now in Venice, along with who knows how many other tourists. The streets are crowded, as are the coffee shops and bars; the shops are full of enticing goods to investigate and the restaurants and cafes are doing a roaring trade. We're outside the main tourist area so the restaurant prices aren't too bad but our host has told us to go to an area further away where the locals tend to eat. We find a restaurant with tables on the edge of the canal - great ambiance, great food and a reasonable price. A good start to our few days in Venice!

View from our bedroom window

One of many church towers in Venice

Back streets of Venice

Al Fresco dining by the canal

Verona is the setting, as everyone knows, for Romeo and Juliet. If you didn't know that before you came it wouldn't take you too long to work it out. There are R&J references everywhere, from the Romeo & Juliet restaurant to the Juliet macarons in the cake shop to countless Juliet souvenirs. Most of all there's Juliet's house. Di suggested it wasn't really Juliet's house, but hey, could a million tourists all be wrong? There in a small courtyard you find the very balcony where Romeo looked up and saw, not the sun but his true love, Juliet. Ahhh! So romantic is it that the walls of the lane into the courtyard are covered in band-aids bearing couples' names or initials and one wall of the courtyard has an iron grill covered with padlocks engraved with the names of loving couples.

Well we're not sure that there was a Romeo but apparently there was a Juliet Capulet on whom the play may have been based and there is her grave just outside of town.The rest of the story was a creation of WS.
Verona is another old city, with a wall, partly intact still, and a Roman Arena where operas like Aida are staged regularly. In fact the next occasion is the day after we're to leave!
The city has two castles, one at the top of a steep hill to the north and one on the south by the river. Yes, we climbed to the top of the hill to see the view from Castel San Pietro then down again much to the protest of my bad knees!

Juliet's balcony

Love padlocks in Juliet's garden

Crowds in Piazza Erbe

Verona from across the River Adige

Verona from Castel San Pietro

Verona Arena

After driving to Munich we catch the train to Verona. The train winds through the Austrian & Italian alps by fast flowing streams and fields of apples, strawberries and, once in Italy, vineyards. Small villages, farm houses and monasteries sit perched on massive mountains, clouds winding around their tips as the day begins to die. we arrive in Verona at 7pm and are soon on the bus to our B&B - a shortish walk from the bus stop, made longer by the fact that we missed the stop we really wanted. We've found that the correlation between small tourist maps and the reality is often poor!

Austrian Alps from the train

Austrian Alps as cloud rolls in

Cloud circling the mountain peak

The River Inn near Innsbruck

Vineyards by the rail track

It's sunny again after a cold overcast start to the day. Di has decided to stay around our B&B and walk to the nearby lake. I'm off to Lindau, a small town set on an island in Lake Constance and reached via a short bridge. It's another old town with great architecture, walls decorated with frescos. It has a harbour which I guess indicates that the waters around the lake can get very rough at times. The Minster of Our Lady is a simple looking church on the outside but inside is decorated with amazing Rococo art work - beautiful if you like that sort of thing.
On the way back I stopped at Ravensburg, perhaps best known for its games and puzzles - especially jigsaw puzzles - and yes it's another old town. It seems that around here nothing is old unless it's been here for 6-800 years at least. Mind you a lot of the towns and buildings have had to be rebuilt several times because of damage during wars.
We've also seen lots of agriculture, corn, fruit (around here apples, grown on stakes rather than as spreading trees and loaded with fruit), wine, various cereal crops, etc. it all seems so fertile!

Lindau harbour

Decorated building Lindau

Our Lady Minster Lindau - decorated in Rococo style

Ravensburg gate tower

It's a sunny Sunday so Lake Constance is buzzing, people cycling, walking, sitting in open-air cafes enjoying the warmth of the sun, or out on the water in canoes, sailing boats and power boats. This is the holiday place for the rich and famous (which is why we're staying in a B&B 30kms away) so we've seen all sorts of fancy boats on the water. The city, again, is old. we saw several buildings with dates on them from the 13th & 14th century. There's also a display of the old Roman foundations of a fort from the 3rd century.

Old Building, Constance

Constance Cathedral

Luxury hotels on the lakeside

Boat harbour Constance

Sails on the lake

There's also a zeppelin museum further down the lake so we saw several zeppelins flying around.

Zeppelin