The travel log of Vic and Steve

It really is surreal staying on the rim of a volcano and simply crazy how they have built into the layers of rock down and down, with houses stacked on houses, some accessed directly off paths, others up / down tens of stairs.  Our day started with 8am breakfast delivery, omelette and scrambled eggs, a croissant each (I eat croissants now, sourdough and croissants!) and fruit salad. I had deteriorated somewhat overnight so went back to bed for an hour before we set out into the warm but very very windy day.  Our plan was to walk the windy paths down to Fira (the nearest big town), bus to Oia and walk back the 9km to our village. But a combo of the wind and my cold meant we ended up bussing both ways.  These pics are from our walk to Fira. Top left Steve on a quiet part of the track. Top right and bottom left are both looking back towards our wee house with the blue domed church in front. Bottom right a cruise ship with it's tiny boats ferrying passengers to shore.  F...

To get to our hideaway house our host walked us through windy paths from the road, at one stage we rounded a corner to this view - just wow. But that was in the afternoon, our day started getting up at 6am for our early flight. Pleased we had sussed out Termini the night before it all went quite smoothly getting the train from central Rome out to the Airport. The airport on the other hand was actually organised chaos and unlike in NZ or the UK their scanners can see everything so no taking laptops or liquids out of bags, nor taking shoes off - so it all runs quite smoothly except when you have well trained Americans ahead of you who proactively removed everything and we had to wait for them to repack and put shoes / belts back on.  Our trip to Santorini was with Aegean airlines and we had a 60 minute layover in Athens, luckily after being dropped by bus in the terminal our next gate was right there so we just joined a queue and carried on. My cold hasn't improved so I slept a fair ...

  This blog is all about Saturday 27th April, I’m writing it very late after a day of travelling from Rome to Santorini. We just watched the Spanish MotoGP on TV in our room - the one we had planned to go and see, looks like it was hot and they had a record crowd not to mention a brilliant race.   Our full day in Rome was a busy one and our first 25,000+ step day too. It started with an extensive breakfast (bottom right) which seems to be the thing our accommodation is known for.  First up we headed for the Spanish Steps which was, like everywhere we went all day, fully of Tourists - although we were patient and managed to get these photos in quiet moments.  Kim we saw so many colourful Fiat's I had to take a photo of one for you.  After walking up and taking a few photos we started our aimless wandering along past the Villa Medici, taking photos from the many viewing points along the way of the city from above, to a garden full of busts of old people.   Fr...

  Back to our itinerary I'm writing this from Rome. Since we couldn't get tickets for anything and the queues were unreal anyway we had another morning to wander around Florence.  First up breakfast which was avocado toast with 1 x egg scrambled on the side at Ben's Caffee sitting in a medieval square, was really lovely. Then the photographer wanted some more pics of things with his camera (vs his phone) so we did a loop of the major sites before heading away from the chaos and up to Piazzale Michelangelo, which is a park on top of the old walls of the city.  These pics. David up closer. Steve sitting in the square smiling after eating his half of the pain au chocolate we shared. Neptune's backside and David's mates who I looked up and are Hercules again and Cacus (who was killed by Hercules apparently).  Was lovely to walk out of the historic centre and see apartment buildings lining the river and the layers of fortification as we walked up to the Piazzale. To the ...

Buongiorno from Florence!   After considering so many options and despite our having paid for our 3rd night in the La Spezia apartment we decided to pack up early and get back on the train. There are less trains today with the holiday so we chose the next one on the ticket machine and left La Spezia bound for Firenze Santa Maria Novella. We had to change in Viareggio a mid-sized station with a 7 minute window, well our train was 6 minutes late and the chaos of folks getting off trying to get down the tunnel while other folks (us) were fighting our way to get onto their train was ridiculous. We made it and even found seats yay! but then it went a bit downhill. First we stopped on the tracks for 79 minutes due to unauthorised people near the tracks, then once moving again sooo many people got on it was over crowded (so pleased for our seats). It is Anzac and Liberation day today and we loved seeing the tracks lined with wild red poppies (sorry too hard to get a good pic).  ...

  Lesson #1 for Wednesday - always check on whether the country you are visiting has a major national holiday while you are there. I obsessed over where we were for May day recalling Mike and I finding ourselves stuck once with nothing open on May 1st but failed to discover Independence Day - April 25th, same day different war. So this pic is indicative of our day in Cinque Terre, crowded.  We set off and walked to the ferry terminal via the daily market which sold everything, flowers, veges, fruit, fish, meat, cheese, baked goods. Was a lovely walk on a sunny day - ok weather out of the way first, it got to 13C today yay and while we froze on the ferry with the wind coming right off the snow covered French Alps - which we could see clearly in the distance - once on land it was almost warm! As we left La Spezia we observed it's really a giant naval base with super yachts. There were loads of navy exercises going on, things we certainly don't see in Aotearoa like a sub emerging...

Massive day today! Our first 20000 step day too. We woke to a very wet Pisa - not that we knew it in our wonderfully double glazed room - and set out to the nearby cafe where our included breakfast was provided, it was yum. While there we decided to pack up and go straight to La Spezia since it was so wet. Luckily as we did the packing the rain cleared, walking to the station we were so pleased to have backpacks as the cobbles are undulating and hard to navigate in places. We also learned to watch for buses splashing us as they drove through the giant puddles. In these last Pisa pics - Walking in the rain top left and bottom right, our yummy breakfast included with our accommodation (I asked for apple juice), and top right is the entrance nook into the cluster of apartments we stayed in where people leave notes of thanks on postitnotes, there was a water filter machine, espresso machine and snacks here too. Steve is putting our keycard and tax cash into the lockbox.  The train ride...