Parting thoughts

We had 18 straight days of sunshine and walked at least 60 miles. Our stomachs were never empty and there were stunning sights everywhere.

Here are a few shots that I couldn't fit into the storylines.

A freshly minted bride and groom work their way through Saturday traffic in Nice. He seemed quite pleased.

I loved Papa here. His job was to see that people loaded onto the tour boats in a timely manner. 75 years old with a teenager's heart .

Monaco was over the top.

Florence: big statues everywhere.

Heavenly Levanto

Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore

By far the most impressive site in Florence is this dandy structure.

Original construction started in 1296 long before they had construction techniques to finish the dome. At the time rivals Siena and Pisa had their cathedrals well underway. The project wrapped up 176 years later in 1472.Three parts to this complex. This structure is the same on the other side - you can walk all the way around it. It's just massive. For the façade I had to bend the building to get it to fit this pic, then I repaired it.

Lastly this 276 ft bell tower with 416 steps to finish it off.

Firenze

A city of 400,000 that struggles to contain the 7 million visitors it receives annually. This old city is bursting at the seams. The history and sites are truly the most incredible buildings we have seen. But first a story:

The 13th century bridge over the river Arno flows to rival Pisa. At that time butcher shops were dumping the entrails into the river to flow downstream. The Medici (bankers) gained control of the city and determined the only merchants on that bridge would be those who sold gold and fine jewelry. It remains this way seven hundred years later.

On the bridge my dear is sizing up some red stuff.

The Medici (bankers) won the Pope's account and turned the proceeds from managing that wealth and their own into a supernova of human achievement in science, construction, art and social progress that will never be seen again. Admittedly, science was used to calculate the right trajectory for a cannonball, but other important aspects like time, measurement of celestial bodies and even eyeglasses fell into this period. This was humankind in a giant place of discovery. These folks were paving their streets in 1334. We took a tour of the Galileo Museum and the instruments these people used at the time outlined their incredible brilliance.

Coming up: jaw dropping buildings.

Levanto 2

In the mornings I would get up early and take my workout gear out to the pool, but mostly I just stood around and drank my coffee. This picture was taken just shortly after 7 AM as the sunlight cascaded down the hill.

Sheila and I really liked the smaller pool design. Big enough to get wet in but a lot easier to maintain than the one we have now.

There is only one small drawback to a villa in this terrain. Hills.

A show stopping view but trips had to be planned carefully. A march up this grade came close to rendering one unconscious.

I estimate that we have walked about 50 KM so far and half of it was spent conquering grades of this severity.

We were sad to leave. Now on to Florence for some hustle and bustle.

Levanto

That house on the far right is where we are staying for the next seven days and none of us can believe how beautiful it is here.

Levanto is just large enough to have all the amenities and a wonderful beach. We have taken boat and train tours of the coastline and the smaller villages are just astounding. Below: Manarola

Beautiful port. Monster climb.

At Porto Venere we ascended this lofty ridge behind the church.

Liguria is Sheila's favourite place. Winner of my pizza pie award.