Yes this is been a real rest day, reading, sleeping and of course writing our blog. Was amazing sitting watching the thunder, lighting and hail roll in this morning and now this afternoon is a clear summers day. We are off for a tour of the property’s vineyard this evening, wine tasting and then local Brianza cuisine dinner in the old barn restaurant on the property. Tomorrow we are back to the Italian Riviera (Spotorno).... read more

We trained into Milan today from the local train station of Olgiate-calco-bivio, we even managed to change from the regional rail system to the Metro Underground. The bonus was the view as you leave the Metro into the middle of the square outside the Duomo, just fantastic. What a vision its pearly-white façade, adorned with 135 spires and over 3000 statues. Very hard to take it all in in the hot of today. We also visited the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping arcade with it wonderful mosaic tile floor and soaring iron and glass roof where we found the World of Leonardo da Vinic exhibition with working models of some of his inventions. Just out the door from here we came across the Ferrari Store (not the car shop just the merchandise shop but Greg sure did ... read more

Not sure if you can call today a rest day, this morning we took a boat to Murano Island to see the glassmakers at work. What artist these people are. The glass works is beautiful and to think all these items are handmade. After a wonderful couple of hour at Murano we then get a boat to the island of Burano where the art of lace making is undertaken. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a shop with the pushiest sales person we have every come across, was a very unnerving feeling. Need a large glass of Aperol Splitzer after this, thank goodness the restaurant down the road and the view of the wonderful coloured homes could help with this. Burano is a lovely colourful outer island of Venice with small almost comically house painted in striking ... read more

After a wonderful morning walk around the city of Genoa to view the 1900’s architecture we are on the road to Parma and this is only with 3 wrong turns. After travelling through tunnels to cross the mountain range we have now reached the long straight roads with large flat farm land all round. We can see many very large farm house with large barns for the storage of the cows (still no animals out in the paddocks). Parma is the home of Parmesan Cheese, Parma Ham and Lambrusco wine, three of our favourite food groups. This is a University town but seemed very quiet for a University campus. While walking around the town this afternoon came across a Food and Beer festival so we did some sampling. For dinner tonight we had a bottle of ... read more

Today we are heading back to the west coast and the Gulf of Genoa but on the way we had to make a stop at Pisa just to make sure that the tower is still leaning. Yes, it is. I must say that I found the Cathedral (Duomo) and the Baptistery (Battistero) just as amazing with its striking cladding of green and cream marble. After this we headed off to La Spezia and our drive into Porto Venere which is a lovely small village and one of the main sea ports that provide tourist boat access to the Cinque Terre (five terraces) towns which are 5 crazily constructed fishing villages set in some of the most dramatic coastal line. Due to the Cinque Terre area been hit by high winds all boats from Porto Venere were ... read more