James & Heather Travelogues

Following Florence, it was back aboard another train and off to the small town of Siena. We had intended to stay in Siena, but there was no room in the inn (or hostels). As such, we only spent a day there - leaving our backpacks in a left luggage store (we weren't going to lug them around the town).

Siena is generally off the tourist route as it is a small town, with not an awful lot there. It has an abundance of medieval buildings with the cathedral in the centre. This cathedral houses the head of St Catherine, preserved in a glass jar for all and sundry to look at. I'm not entirely she would be happy with that state of affairs, it certainly felt a bit macabre to be looking at it.

After Siena, it was off to Pisa and to check into the campsite we were staying.

We only had the one full day in Pisa, so we naturally spent it looking at the sights of the city. We headed straight to the Piazza Miracali where the famous leaning tower is located, although much like everything else in Italy, it is not the only thing in the piazza and there are generally more impressive (and less well known) buildings, statues, etc. In common with the leaning tower, the 2 other buildings in the piazza are also leaning although not by as much. I guess this was the architect's only commissioned work, for fear that he would end up levelling the whole Italy. One thing we noticed was that a lot of tourists in an effort to be humourous or original, take pictures of themselves either holding the tower up or pushing the tower down. We didn't however.

The rest of Pisa is pretty much like any other Italian city, with a river running through it. We also realised that a day in Pisa was long enough, especially after visiting so many Italian cities.

After Pisa, we boarded another train (there's going to be a lot of train travel during this holiday) and headed to the Cinque Terre (or Chinky Terry as I christened it, to Heather's disgust). These consist of 5 villages built along the Tuscan coastline that have been UNESCO listed as they use agricultural methods that were being lost over time; getting the UNESCO status gave them the motivation to keep them.

The apartment that we stayed in was located in the Riomaggiore and had splendid views over the natural harbour. Being in an apartment, it gave us the opportunity to cook our own meals at night rather than going out to restaurants - although we only did that the one night out of 4.

On our first full day, we did the 8km coastline walk stopping off at the odd cafe to add to increase our caffeine/blood ratios. Fortunately the weather was nice and sunny, so we were able to get ourselves a decent tan in the process.

It was while in the CT, that England played a football friendly against Hungary. Fortunately our apartment had a tv with access to Eurosport, so come kick off we were esconced on the bed with a beer or two for the game to kick off.

We had a one day stop over in Milan, in order to see our good friend Audrey. Milan is an interesting city, and pretty expensive to boot. So expensive in fact, pubs in Milan provide free food when you buy a drink, in order to encourage people to drink in town. When I say free food, I do not mean peanuts or similar, I mean salads, chargrilled vegetables, pizza and pasta dishes. May be it's just me, but if they lowered their drink prices, they may not have to spend so much on food... I am always up for a free feed though

It was good to catch up with Auds again. Will have to do Milan again when not a budget though (maybe if Farnborough Town get in to the Champions League against AC Milan?)

After our all too brief stay in Germany, we caught an express through to Paris. Although this was not originally in our plans, a good friend of ours had a business trip there and it seemed like a good chance to get to catch up and watch a couple of world cup matches.

At this point, let me be frank: France is the capital of love and a cultural & fashion centre etc, however Heather and I had both been there before and really there are only so many times you can look at the Eiffel Tower before you long for fish & chips, sticks of rock and seagulls flying overhead. As such, when we were not in the pub watching football matches, we were catching up on sleep or in transit to the pub. As such, our activities in Paris were a bit limited - even more so once we realised that a beer weighed in at €7.50 per pint. It was a bit of a shock after the cheap beer in Bratislava, Prague and Cologne.

One of the most important games that we saw while in Paris was the final group game for Australia. I had two very happy Australians with me after that match, however it was nothing compared to the French game played after that. Once France won the game, the Parisiens went nuts - more than nuts, stark raving bonkers as if they had won the World Cup. After the match, the Champs Elysee was chock-a-block with cars blaring their horns, people leaning out the car windows and everyone hugging each other. If they win the damn thing, it's going end up in a mass orgy - or maybe a riot, as that's what the French are more famous for