Ciao Now Brown Cow

---

Whilst all you suckers were slaving away at work, we were living it up where the wealthiest of wealthy Italians head for their holidays - Cinque Terra, Portofino, Santa Margherita....life is really tough at the top (of Italy).

Our first port of call was sunny Pisa where we took the obligatory photos of the tower and due to an unfortunate event of brain-lapsing, all photos of the visit were deleted. As we peacefully slept none the wiser, our bellies content with premium Italian pizza, (bring on the Mozzarella di Bufala) the Bed Bug army were staging their second attack. (Little Bastards!) Dave's 6 years of Italian came back to him in dribs and drabs, but for some reason high-school Italian 101 didn't teach him to ask a farmacia, "Do you sell cream for bed bug bites?"

Next on the itinerary was the beautiful scenery of the Cinque Terra villages. We scored accommodation-wise being upgraded to a villa (with QS Bed) at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Three magical days ensued, walking between the villages and lapping up lots of Vitamin D, salami, cheese and limoncino along the way. Dave couldn't get over the lack of sand at the beaches. Again we reiterate that life is tough here!

One of those unforgettable moments occured midway through our third night in the cliff-top villa. Due to a humour factor that had us literally crying with laughter and hysterics, this story will be retold as long as our memories serve us well. Our QS bed was positioned smack bang in the middle of the room. One side wall was flanked by a bunk bed for two room guests, with a roll-in fold-out bed squeezed into the remaining floor space between us and them. We met our room mates for all of five seconds, barely exchanging names before they headed out to party for the night. We, being old fogies, went to bed and were dead to the world by the time they came home. Now Penny has an intermittent nocturnal habit of sleeptalking and walking, often waking herself up with monstrous bellows and panicky sharp intakes of breath. This particular night was showtime for Pen. In response, Dave awoke with a startle, jumped outta bed shouting, "Shit! Shit!" and made a run for the balcony. Forgetting about the fold-out bed beneath him was his first mistake. The poor young thing awoke to a towering monster whacking the side of his bed and toppling over him. If that wasn't enough, the remaining two bunk-bed ridden room mates awoke suddenly to a mid-darkness racket and this clumsy stranger half asleep and attempting to convince them he saw a man at the balcony door, coming to get us. Dave, of course, was only trying to protect the lot of us. Classic! We all had a chuckle and rolled over to sleep. Dave and Pen slunk out of the room extremely early the following morning. Why face the music when you can run, eh?

As the Italian billionaires landed helicopters on their cruisers and reclined in perfectly starched white outfits under neat little lines of identical beach umbrellas, we broke the mould with a phenomenal hike through bushland and olive groves, over one very steep hill and down the other side to the Benedictine Abbey of San Fruttuoso. Hidden within the folds of ocean cliffs, we cooled off in the deep blue sea at the foot of the Abbey as it's bell tolled the hours by, then caught a boat back to civilisation, (the lazy man's route home).

---

Comments

[Rosanne]

Ohhhh....The city of Love!
The city of Love.....Hope you two sucked up all the romance along your journey throughout Italy. I know everyone says Paris but Italy is just so beautiful...I actually enjoy your blogs...keep them coming along with the photos. Rosanne