Italia

As I waited for my computer to boot up I had a good hard look at my reflection in the screen. I've been travelling a month, and have grown a bit of a beard. My face looks tired for sure, and my eyes are a bit puffy due to hay-fever and less sleep than I would like. I looked hard to see if I'd gained any weight, but I couldn't really say.

I haven't had a haircut since we left, despite best intentions. I intend now to keep the beard until we get home, but I definitely need to loose the hair. I also tried to grow my fingernails, they got quite long at one stage, but I found it a bit of hassle, they kept breaking on things. I've abandoned a few items of clothing along the way, trying to reduce the amount of luggage I'm carrying. I've got too many books, I need to post some home when I get to London.

So, a month over, and I'm having a good time. I am keeping track of the days though, maybe that's not a good sign. We're not even half way through our trip, although it feels like we're nearing the end for some reason. We're on a train to Florence now, just leaving Lucca.

Lucca is one of those places that everyone gushes about and its pretty easy to see why. Its quaint. Not in a bad way, its just quaint. There's a massive wall that surround the city, massive in width, not height. There is a park on top of it that stretches all the way around and you can walk or ride a bike. We didn't do much in Lucca, we weren't even there 24 hours. But It was nice just to stroll through the back streets that remind me something of being lost in a Melbourne alleyway. We had a couple of drinks at this bar last night. It wasn't sheap for a glass of wine (4 euro) but there was this buffet antipasti on the bar that after an hour we realised was free. And its was full of tasty tidbits. We also had some cecina, a chickpea based snack, kind of like a pizza with no topping. It was cheap and awesome.

Before Lucca was the Cinque Terre, five villages set in the cliffs with this walking track that wins between them. The walking track takes you through all these vineyards and lemon groves, with tiny gardens everywhere and sheer cliffs below you in some spots. The villages themselves are nice, lots of little restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. We spent a day walking the tracks and the next day took the train between villages. Incredibly picturesque, but I'm happy not to be climbing those tracks right now.

We stayed in La Spezia, which is a proper town about 10 minutes away by train. We had takeaway pizza by a water fountain and wandered up the hill through the middle of all these houses. Saw a lot of cats, which made me happy. Before La Spezia, we did the tourist dash through Pisa. Leaning tower, check. Bad photos, check. People say there's nothing more to Pisa than the Field of Miracles (where the tower and a few churches are) . I'm inclined to believe them.

So thats been the last few days, tommorow morning we are going to line up all day to try to get in to see David. We didn't reserve tickets (20 euro to reserve, vs 6.50 if you wait in line...), so I don't know if we will get in. I haven't hadd an internet connection for a few days, despite snatching a few minutes today to check on accomodation, so I need to catch up on news. I saw theres been a cabinet reshuffle and Andrew Symonds has been fired. I miss the internet...