Back from Cinque Terre

We are back from Cinque Terre, Italy! We were away for five days and came back two days ago... and once again we had a great time.


The weather was like it had been ordered in advance - sunny and not at all too cold for camping. We stayed in the Acqua Dolce Camping in Levanto.


Surprisingly it was almost full. On Thursday (1st of May) they even put out a sign stating, they ran out of space for caravans. This was quite a surprise for us. It is not a big camping site, but to be full at this time of year, came as a total surprise for us.

We took advantage of the weather and hiked for three days in the Cinque Terre National Park.

We also took time to enjoy some of the local cuisine and wine.


In the following few posts I will try to describe our experience in these short five days, include some nice photos and share a couple of useful tips for those of you who are thinking of going there.

The above three photos should do as an appetizer. On the second one you can see the beach of Levanto (which is officially not a part of Cinque Terre, but almost as beautiful) and on the third one is Manarola.

If you liked this post and are interested in more information on our trip, please click on this link or on the Cinque Terre label in the right frame.

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WikiTravel - A Travel GuideBook of Tomorrow?

When I was surfing for information about Cinque Terre, I stumbled upon an interesting site. It is a Wiki kind of site and depends solely on user input.

WikiTravel.org is a very useful site for all of you travelers, surfing for up to date info about your next travel destination.
It was inspired by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and by the needs of travellers for timely information that long book-publishing cycles can't seem to meet.

Feel free to contribute your bit. I have already added a little piece of information to its vast and fast growing database. At the moment they have more then 18.000 destination guides and other articles written and edited by Wikitravellers.

I believe there is a bright future ahead of this project. In a couple of years we can expect various portable devices that enable Web surfing and navigation will become quite widespread. At the same time we can also see all kinds of wireless networks spreading all around us.
Put those things together and you don't have to be a visionary to see which way this is going...

I predict that in about five years time electronic PDA devices will replace classical guidebooks for travelers in the better developed parts of the world. The only limitation I can see is the non-existence of wireless networks in some parts of the world. For those countries a paper travel guidebook will still be the only option for quite some time.

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Cinque Terre it is...

M. and I have finally decided on our next trip destination... It is going to be a trip through Tuscany, Italy.

As I already mentioned in one of the previous posts (link), we have already done most of Tuscany, but have never been to Cinque Terre before. This part of the coast actually falls into the region of Liguria, which lies to the northwest of Tuscany. Cinque Terre in Italian means Five Lands. All five of them are a part of a magnificent natural park, which is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List.


It is going to be a five day trip and hopefully we will also have time to visit Florence (Firenze). We like this city a lot and take every opportunity to visit.

We are planning to stay in our trusty tent in a camping site near the village of Levanto. If some really awful weather forecast doesn't make us change our plans, you can expect another set of gorgeous photos.


Wherever I go, usually I don't buy any souvenirs. I have enough of things full of dust lying around as it is. Nevertheless I make an occasional photo of the more interesting souvenirs. On the couple of photos above you can see two such products made by street artists in Florence.

If you liked this post and are interested in more information on our trip, please click on this link or on the Cinque Terre label in the right frame.

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