We spent all of last week chilling out with Jason, Louise and Adam (who drove up all the way from Sydney!) at Mantra, Kingscliff. We only had one goal for the holiday: relax! And that’s pretty easy to achieve with some great friends, a beachside setting, and some beautiful weather. Truth be told, it was grey skies and rainy for the first few days, but the sun came out on Tuesday afternoon and then stayed for the rest of the week! And all that sunshine and blue sky made for a wonderful outlook from our little balcony!

Our days were filled with the usual hectic routines of a beachside holiday; preparing/eating food, swimming in the pools, playing tennis, and obviously – trips to the beach. Unfortunately, being November, we weren’t the only ones getting a jump on the Christmas Holiday rush, so finding a decent spot was always a bit of a wrestle with the other beach-goers. We were thankful for our time in both New York and London, which taught us invaluable skills for finding space amongst the crowds.

This was Oscar’s first real beach holiday, or at least, the first one where he was old enough to have a proper play in the sand. He absolutely loved it when we’d dig a hole in the sand, which he would inevitably shuffle his way over to, and then fall in. Once stuck, he’s then start whinge-crying until we lifted him back out again, only to repeat the whole process over-and-over until the hole was so full that it was no longer a hole. Ahh, the things that amuse you when you’re young.

Overall, Oscar was a huge fan of the beach, and there were always tears when it was time to pack up and leave. Similarly for the water – be it the ocean, the pool, or even the bath for that matter! Each time we passed a body of water, he would excitedly start pointing and making noises as if to say, “There! There! That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?!”.

On Tuesday, we made our way down to Byron Bay, where we took a trip up to the lighthouse, and then ate lunch at the beach below. I can’t remember the last time I was in Byron Bay proper, but I found it absolutely beautiful! Truly one of the nicest beaches that I’ve seen for a long time, and with brilliant surf! I was disappointed I didn’t take my board!

The view from the lighthouse was also quite spectacular, and Kristy, Louise and Jason even saw a whale just off the coast, while poor little baby Adam slept through the whole thing in the car!

All too soon it was Saturday, and time to head back home. We farewelled Jason, Louise and Adam as they made their long journey back to Sydney, and then departed for sunny Brisbane. Ahh, holidays, why can’t you be longer?

Check out more photos in the Kingscliff Holiday photo album.

For the second long weekend in May, our personal travel planner – Suzie – organised an extended long weekend in Lake Garda. We took the early flight from Gatwick to Milan on Friday morning (which meant waking up at 3:45 AM, w00t!), then drove for 2.5 hours or so, up to Riva Del Garda where we checked in to the Parc Hotel Flora for four nights.

Driving in Italy is not always the greatest fun. Italian drivers are rude, arrogant, love to speed, and they tailgate like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We tried to take a photo of how close they drive – this is the best one that we got. Bare in mind that at this point we were driving at around 130km/h (which is the speed limit on Italian highways):

On the plus side, it’s always a bit of a laugh to drive a left-hand-drive manual – changing gears with your right hand is downright weird when you’re not used to it!

As usual, the food in Italy was overall quite lovely, but our stand-out favourite place to eat – especially for Nick – was a restaurant called Al Volt. The concierge at our hotel had recommended it to us on our first evening, and it was so good that we ended up eating there again on our final evening. The food was deliciously prepared, the staff were friendly, but most impressive of all were the red wine glasses – each one was almost the size of a human head.

On Saturday morning, we rode the Mount Baldo cableway up to an altitude of 1,800m, and had a walk around the peaks. Unfortunately it was too overcast to get a view of the lake, but we did get a decent view of the start of the alps.

We also grabbed a cache while we were there, dropping off a travel bug that I’ve been holding on to for a few weeks. Suzie was the one who spotted it and dug it out from under the rocks – her first cache!

Nick, Suzie and I signed up for some downhill mountain biking on Sunday morning, but when we got to the rental store, we discovered that the other three people that were supposed to be joining us had piked due to the inclement weather. Usually they wouldn’t go up less than four starters but upon seeing how keen we were, they decided to make an exception. Originally we had signed up for a tour called The Skull but since it was our first time, and it was raining pretty heavily, our guide decided to take us on a slightly easier route.

It was so, so awesome! I was amazed at how much easier it is going over huge, rocky, staircase-like drops when the bike does absorbs most of the shock for you. I was well impressed by how solid they, and yet our guide told us that we were only riding the “cheap ones”, retailing for only $3,000! “Only”!

Lately, our luck with travel seems to be working against us, as wherever we go it rains! And for the first three days of our stay, this was exactly what we got – drizzly rain in the mornings, followed by overcast afternoons, then cool evenings. But our luck finally changed on Monday – the sun came out, the skies were a beautiful clear blue, and it was as warm as a freshly baked brownie!

We made the most of the sunshine by driving down to another town called Limone, where we rented a speed boat for four hours and did ourselves some touring. I can’t emphasis enough how much of a difference the sunshine made – it was like being in a totally different place! Of course, being sunsmart Australians, we did our very best to stay out of the direct sunlight.

We all had a go at driving the boat, and it was awesome fun. At full lock (and full speed of course), the boat turned so tightly that we almost thought it would tip! But try as we might (and of course, some of us tried harder than others… no names mentioned…), the boat stayed upright, which on reflection was probably a good thing.

Nick and I jumped overboard for a swim at one point, and it was freezing cold – we didn’t stay in for more than a minute! Not one to miss out, Suzie braved the water as well, but Kristy decided to give it a miss – she was the wisest of us all, I think!

Usually our vacations are non-stop from start to finish, as we try to cram in as much as we can into every day – so it was great to escape to Lake Garda and have Nick and Suzie show us how to holiday a somewhat more relaxed pace.

View the Lake Garda photo album on Picasa or Facebook.

As you may remember, we spent our Easter long weekend with Racey and Wes in The Lake District. As usual, we took a decent chunk of video footage, and I finally had a chance on the weekend to put it all together.

I have to say upfront, this is not my best video ever. The footage was all a bit choppy and random. Actually, there was a fault with the camera, and this was the last time we used it before sending it in to get fixed. So hopefully the next video is a bit more cohesive.

Still, it is what it is, and it brings back some memories. Enjoy!

Music
Biffy Clyro – Mountains
The Goo Goo Dolls – Give a Little Bit

On Wednesday morning, we grabbed a final coffee (espresso for Kristy, Macchiato for me) from Burgus – our favourite coffee shop in Vernazza – before heading to the train station.

It was a fairly uneventful trip back to Milan – essentially just three hours in a packed train. The girl sitting next to me spent a good part of two hours preening herself, including hair removal, nail filing, and other acts which I’m doing my best to forget. Gross.

We checked our luggage at the train station then negotiated a subway into the city. Upon emerging, we were very impressed by the grand church-like building in front of us, but we were very under-impressed by the rain, which was still coming down!

We didn’t have much time to spare, so we took a quick wander around the streets in search of food (which was harder than I had thought, though we found loads of coffee bars!). We ended up in a restaurant that looked quite fancy, and judging by their prices and their clientele, they catered mainly to hungry, desperate tourists. So I guess you could say – we were in the right place!

Somehow I completely messed up with times, and after a fairly panicked subway ride back to the train station, we were almost running to catch the bus back to the airport. With only 25 minutes until check-in closed, I almost had a hearty when I saw a road sign advertising that we still had 45km to go! But it all turned out ok; the decimal point had simply faded a bit, and it was actually only 4.5 kilometers left. Phew!

I don’t think our two hour jaunt in and out of the city counts as a “visit” to Milan, but it was still nice to do something a little different at the end of our trip. Also, we’ve heard it from many reliable sources that Milan is city that can easily be skipped – so perhaps two hours is enough, after all!

Photos from Cinque Terre, Pisa, and Milan now online for your viewing pleasure!

For Kirstin, Ben, and Todd.

The one of me didn’t turn out so well.

Good times.

The weather was not our friend on Tuesday either, so we were faced with three choices:

• Stay in bed all day and eat loads of food;
• Riding the trains all day between the towns, where we’d just hop out and get soaked by the rain; or
• Jumping on a train to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower

Kristy chose the first one. It seemed like a good idea, but I overruled her decision and said we should go with option three instead. After all, who knows when we’ll next be in the general Pisa area again? We had to do it! And, so off we trolleyed.

The trip out took a little under two hours, and put us right into Pisa Centrale station. We weren’t sure how to get to the Leaning Tower, but thankfully, there were loads of directions to the Perfectly Straight Tower, and the Leaning Tower happened to be right next door.

Yes, it’s all about perspective, and from the site operator’s perspective, you should be willing to part with a whopping €15 per head to climb up the stairs to the top. And so, we did – though not too willingly. It’s a very tightly run ship – you only have 1/2 an hour from when you enter until they kick you out again – but it’s definitely a once in a lifetime kind of experience.

It’s actually a really weird sensation climbing up the (very well-worn) stairs; even though your eyes tell you that you’re walking upwards, physically you feel like you’re going both upwards and downwards, as you move around the curve in the tower. Kristy got so thrown off balance that by the time we made it to the viewing platform, she felt a little woozy!

The view from the top kind-of confirms that without it, Pisa would “just be another city”; though Dad tells me that the church next door was quite impressive, too. (We were limited for time, so didn’t bother checking it out, but I’m happy to take his word on this one.) Pisa also seemed to have some old city walls, which in generally we think are cool, but again – our time shortage meant we had to give them a skip.

We headed back towards Cinque Terre which took longer than we had hoped due to poor connections on the trains. By the time we arrived we were quite exhausted, so we grabbed dinner locally, then had an early night. We had a long trip back to London ahead of us the next day!

We were keen to do as much walking as possible while the weather was so lovely on Monday, so after lunch we hopped a train to the southern-most town of the five – Riomaggiore. In my opinion, Rio was the most meh of the towns – it was essentially just a long hill, quite tucked away off the cliffs. Perhaps I was spoiled by the beauty of the other places, but we only took a brief look around before starting on “Via dell’Amore” (the Walk of Love) towards Manarola.

With a wide, paved path the whole way along, this is the easiest of all the walks, and at only 20 minutes (or so), it’s also the shortest. But, it’s also one of the most scenic, since it’s right on the edge of the cliff!

When we got to the other end, we were greeted with one of my favourite of the five towns: Manarola. It’s position certainly made it one of the most scenic, and the path out of town provided a lovely spot for photos!

Unfortunately the walk between Manarola and Corniglia stayed closed for our entire stay, so we couldn’t take that one on. We spent the rest of our afternoon walking around Corniglia, on some of the higher walks above the town, through all the grapevines. We even managed to find a geocache while we were there, and we dropped off our Orca geocoin to start it on its journey.

We decided to have dinner back up in Monterosso. If I were going to Cinque Terre again, I would try to stay in Monterosso. It still has the nice costal village feel of the other towns, but since its slightly bigger than the others, it also has the most variety – a definite advantage when you get stuck by the rain.

Anyway – we were a touch early for dinner, so we stopped for a quick pint at a bar along the start of the walk back to Vernazza. Sitting there with Kristy, overlooking the beach, and enjoying the warm evening air, definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Good times.

Thankfully, when we woke up on Monday morning, the rain had stopped, and the sun was making a good effort to break through the clouds. We seized the opportunity to take on the walk we were most looking forward to, between Monterosso and Vernazza (where we were staying).

We had been warned the previous day (by two Aussie birds, no less!) that walking from Vernazza to Monterosso was much, much harder (due to the steep, slate, and potentially slippery steps at the Monterosso end). As such, we started out by catching the train to Monterosso, where upon leaving the station, we pretty much ran smack-bang into the beach! And thus started our walk.

After proceeding past the beach, the walk took a noticeably upwards turn, and it wasn’t long before we hit the stairs we were warned about. Those birds weren’t kidding – they were steep! We only managed to take a few flights at a time before we’d have to stop and catch our breath.

But, as we headed upwards, the views got better and better.

Eventually the walk levelled out, and we continued along the cliffs towards Vernazza. There were heaps more people out walking compared to the previous day, no doubt because of the gorgeous weather. For the most part, the track was easy enough to follow, but some parts were quite thin, and we had to watch our footing.

After about an hour and a bit, the track turned downwards, and we were given some great views of Vernazza.

And that was it! We were back in town about 10 minutes later, down at the waterfront, and eating pizza for lunch.

This was by far my favourite walk of the whole trip!

After a bit of a sleep in, we ate our breakfast at the supposed number one restaurant in Vernazza – II Pirata della Cinque Terre, or “The Two Pirates”. Conveniently for us, it’s directly underneath our room, so it wasn’t terribly hard to find! Our breakfast consisted of some freshly made pastries, espresso, and some blood-orange juice, and though it was no Full English with HP, I certainly wasn’t complaining. We had read that the hosts – two Sicilian identical twin brothers – were quite entertaining, and they didn’t let us down, making us laugh a number of times whilst we dined.

The day’s weather wasn’t looking too promising, but we didn’t let that hold us back, as we wanted to cover the 1.5hr (or so) hike to Corniglia, the next town to the south. Only a few minutes in, and already having climbed up a decent chunk of steps, we were rewarded with amazing views back over Vernazza.

Unfortunately, the first 10 mintues of our hike were about all that we had without rain; from there on in, it drizzled the entire time, making the already difficult terrain quite challenging! Who’d have thought that rain would make smooth rocks slippery? Thankfully, no spills though, and after more steps carved into the side of a hill than I care to remember, we eventually made if safely to Corniglia. After a quick stroll around the town (and a quick cache!), we found a little restaurant and tucked into a pesto pizza for lunch. Mmmm…. oily goodness….

Our plans for the afternoon were to keep on walking down to the next town (Manarola), but it turns out that the rain had plans of it’s own: to fall, fall, and keep on falling. While we were wiping the pesto and cheese from our chins, the rain became almost torrential, to the point where the owners had to shut all the doors to the restaurant to stop the water from flooding in!

The moment we saw a break in the storm, we paid our bill and headed on our way. After about 20 minutes, we came across a friendly Swedish guy – who I can only presume was a chef. He shook his head and looked at us disspointingly, then said “closed. closed.”. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but his wife then clarified, saying “The trail is closed”. I was still confused – I mean, I don’t exactly speak Swedish – but Kristy managed to figure out that what the meant was: the trails had been closed (due to the weather).

Defeated, we turned around and followed the chef back towards Corniglia. We watched in awe as he proceeded to sell the same story to everyone that he came across; so much so that he amassed quite a gathering by the time we got to the train station! He should have seized the opportunity and whipped us all up a nice snack! But alas, we went without, and instead hopped the train back to Vernazza, to take a well earned rest in our room.

So now all we can do is sit and wait for the rain to clear, in the hopes that the trails will re-open and we can continue on our journey. But given that the path outside our building has become a rapidly flowing stream, I don’t really like our chances!

What a long day it’s been! First we had a one-hour drive to Gatwick airport (starting around 4:30 AM this morning), followed by a two hour flight (from London to Milan), and then nearly four hours on the train! But finally, finally, we arrived in Vernazza (“ver-NAT-zah” as the lady at the train station corrected me). This will be our home-base for the next four days and nights, while we explore the five towns of Cinque Terre.

Since we didn’t actually arrive until around 4 PM this afternoon, we decided to just take it easy and wonder around the town, enjoying the local sites that Vernazza had to offer. We’ve already sampled the local espresso (delicious!), gelati (delicious!) and the beer (delicious!), as well as having our first italian meal (delicoius!) and a chinotto (delicious – well, Kristy didn’t think so, but I liked it!).

Tomorrow we’ll be hitting the walking trails and burning off some of those calories; but for now I think we’ll call it a night. Did I mention that it’s been a long day?