Cinque Terre coastal walk

One of the charms of Cinque Terre is the coastal walk between the 5 towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.

I read that it took 4 and a half hours to go from Montesorro, where we were, which is the start of the trail, to Riomaggiore. We try on our first day to tackle the trail. A coastal walk should be pretty easy - only a 90 minute walk and we'll be at a less Jersey Shore-esque beach (we hope) and there we'll get some sun. We don our bathing suits, dresses, and as for footwear, Ann chooses sandels and I go with flip-flops.

Walking partly up a mountain, we are slightly out of breath but hopeful until we come up to a little hut and a sign. 10 Euros to walk the trail and it can't be done in flip-flops or heels. With a sigh we head back down to the beach at Monterosso where we unwisely bake our skin to a shade of lobster red.

Cinque Terre: the new Jersey Shore

On the train to Monterosso Al Mare, we sit in a train car with a group of older Italians. One asks us where we are going. When she hears Monterosso, her nose crinkles in slight disgust and says "that's where all the Americans go." I took it as an insult to us - oh she thinks we're Americans does she - but what she actually means I won't truly understand until we arrive later that night.

In Monterosso, the ratio of Italians to foriengers is 1 to one million. Of course an exageration but not by much. And most of them are American and most of these Americans are those you might see on the Jersey Shore. Big muscled, overly tanned, tribal tattooed, greasy haired, gold chained, beer-pong playing loudmouths with (but not always) backwards facing baseball caps. All in the middle of a preserved Italian paradise - the Riviera Ligure.

This is the view from our window.



But it is countered by this view.



And this view.



At least we get to relax and Ligure pasta is very tasty. It looks something like this.

ILLUMInations: 2011 La Binennale di Venezia

When I told people I was going to Venice in June, a number of people instantly said I should go to the Biennale. It's an international Art Exhibition that happens every two years and it takes over the city. You'll walk down a side street and a sign directing you to a participating country's exhibit appears. We go to Arsenale, only one section of the two main exhibits on Sunday. It is so diverse and in turns, it is amazing and WTF (as in What the F**k is that doing here and why is it art).

Italian adventure: our days in Venice

We left Friday night for Venice. It was one of those days. My cousin Ann, who was coming with me on a 10 day Italian adventure, got locked between my front door and our inner door, which resulted in a broken window and a few cuts and scrapes to get back in. At the airport, the flight was delayed by 45 minutes and when we hit the ground in Venice, we missed the bus to town by a minute so had to wait 40 for another.

But it didn't matter. We were in Venice and about to start 10 days of touring, eating, walking and trying a bit of the local wine. We were greeted off our boat (the local transport is all on water) by Andrea who led us through the winding streets of Venice to the apartment we rented for 3 days. It smelt of old and stagnent water but as it was the smell of a majority of Venice we quickly got used to it. But we had a fridge, stove, a sitting room and bedroom with a very powerful fan. We were set.

The Day of Free Burritos

I hope I get to go to space (or at least to the #nasatweetup)

One Christmas, my mum bought my sister and I a movie for our stockings. Mine was Space Camp. The ever informative IMDB describes Space Camp as the story of a group of American kids who go to space camp during the summer holidays. They learn how to operate the Space Shuttle. A team, consisting of a guy who just entered to meet girls, a wannabe astronaut and an instructor (who wanted to go on a mission instead of teaching), win the chance to sit in the Shuttle while the engines are tested. Then they're launched by mistake...Ooo kids in space. It also starred a bevvie of (now) well known actors including Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Tate Donovan, Tom Skerritt and the super cute kid version of Joaquin Phoenix who played Max, the little boy his robot friend Jinx wanted to send to space (hence the whole being accidently launched thing).

New Twitter follow button: Great for browsers, bad for mobile

Yesterday talk of another new Twitter feature came out. Nothing to do with an inbox flooded with emails but all to do with a nifty new follow button you can add to your website.

Currently, if you have a follow button, anyone on your site who wants to follow you gets taken to another browser. The nifty new follow button will bring up a pop up and if you're already signed in, you're now following that Twitter account without having to really leave the website you are browsing. Nice.

On a mobile? Different story.