The next day I took the best train ride so far: from Basel to Lugano Switzerland. Beautiful mountains and a narrow guage line with many bridges and tunnels. At one point on my right I noticed a picturesque church up on a small hill in the middle of a small town. Two minutes latter on my left I saw a similar looking church on a similar hill but down . I did a double take and sure enough, it was the same church. We had switched back and were headed back up the same valley. The ride ended in a quaint little Swiss town of Lugano on a mountain lake were I spent the night in a beautiful hostel building.

The next day I traveled to Cinque Terre and area of five small towns on the northwest coast of Italy. The towns are nestled or perched on steep terraced (for wine) mountainsides and cliffs with trails and a train line (running through the mountain) connecting them. I went to Manarola , the second town in line north and waited an hour and a half at the youth hostel for them to re-open in the afternoon, only to find they had no more beds left for men. They did recommend a hostel/hotel/room finding place in the first town to the south, Riomaggiore. I went there and was guided through narrow (5 feet wide) winding passageways between houses to my room on the second floor on a house. That evening I wandered around through the many more passageways in the town. The next morning I was woken up by the sound of two housewives in the alley below reprimanding, as only Italians can (LOUD), a carpenter working on their building.

I walked around that morning and found several small twisting passageways near my room that led to a nice secluded terrace with a great view of the harbor and the Mediterranean. I had made a reservation at the hostel the day before but would have been perfectly happy to stay in my $20 room in Riomaggiore.

The hostel turned out to be great though. The building was located the farthest up the gorge that the town of Manarola nestled in and it had a commanding view of the town below and the sea beyond. My shared room was on the top floor with the same view of the west and sunset as the rooftop terrace above. In addition there was level dirt path leading from the hostel along the terraced mountainside to a bluff overlooking the town and a grand view of the sea out and below. I spent the rest of that second day hiking along the terraces and cliffs and through Corniglia , the next town in line north , and on to the town of Vernaza, where I decided to halt and not continue to the last town, as it did not look as picturesque. So I spent the rest of the afternoon climbing the tower in the fort above the town, wandering the town's narrow passageways, eating an ice cream, having a beer and enjoying my VACATION.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I found a great pizza and foccia place (Italian pastry sandwich) in Manarola.

The next day it drizzled and I took the train to the last town that I had decided not to hike to the day before and found that I had made the right decision. I managed to find dry places between the rain that day and by the evening it cleared and I watched the sunset from the bluff near the hostel.

The last day a Cinque Terre I did two hikes up the mountainsides to trails above Riomaggiore, Manarola and Corniglia. I came back to the hostel in late afternoon to do laundry and watch the sunset from the roof top (that's where the washer and dryer were). It took a lot longer to do wash than I figured (4 hours) and I was getting cold on that roof as the sunset approached, wearing the only thing not being washed ..a pair of shorts. Luckily I found and stood in the corner outside the dryer exhaust and wash able to watch a glorious sunset in relative comfort.

The next day I took the train to Florence and the home of another Servas host. On the way there I had the thought that I had been lucky so far that none of the hosts smoked. I arrived in Florence around noon and left my bag at the train station lockup and toured some of the town until 8 PM when I was to meet my host. When she opened the door I realized that my luck had run out. She greeted me with cigarette in hand and never had one out of hand for more than thirty seconds the whole time I spent there. She was a nice person and lived on the top floor of an 18th century building.... but I was glad to leave a day later.

After sightseeing the second day in Florence I figured I had seen all I wanted to of it and decided not to go to a hostel as I had planned. To fill in the two days until my next Servas host stay in Rome I decided to visit one or two small medieval hill towns in Tuscany. I arrived in Siena around three in a drizzling rain and spent the next three hours walking the old winding streets getting lost and trying to locate an inexpensive room. Finally, after deciding that the time I was spending trying to save $25 bucks was not worth it, I took a $50 room in a one star hotel. In seeing some of the town that day I figured it was worth spending another day there and in the morning I again decided to cough up another $50 for the night rather than taking a bus 6 km out of town (and back) to the hostel where they had $18 beds.

It rained an hour or so in the middle of the next day but I managed to avoid it and spent the rest of the day seeing the town. I'm not a religious man per say, but since I entered Italy I have been going to church a lot….. sometimes 6 or 7 in a day. And Sienna was no exception. They had some really beautiful cathedrals and basilicas. I visited one, "the "Duomo" , three times that day, ending up there so many times due to the confusing streets. The inside of the Duomo is even more beautiful . The last visit to the Duomo I saw Donald Sutherland "walk quickly up the steps of the basilica" five times. They were shooting a movie .

Toward sunset I went to the bell tower in the central square, the Torre del Mangia to see if it was open (it had been closed the day before and in the morning due to rain). It was open and I climbed the staircase to the top and up onto a wooden platform underneath a 12 foot bell suspended from four iron beams. From this platform I had a 360 degree unobstructed view of the town below and the surrounding Tuscany countryside .

Amazing .

This was about the 7th tower I had climbed on this trip, but it definitely was the best . I watched an amazing sunset behind the silhouette of the tower of the basilica. At 6 PM the bells in the churches around town starting ringing. I was standing right under a very very huge one. I wondered….. Yes, I rang and rang. I put my hand up to feel the vibrations.

The next day I took the train to Rome. The first two nights I stayed in a hostel east of the main train station. The last two night I stayed with Servas hosts. My hosts in Rome were a couple my age who were also blind (not from birth). My time with them was an experience of Italian culture as well as that of the blind.

The second night I took them out to a restaurant for a meal and afterwards we had a traditional Italian lemon flavored liquor. We were all a little tipsy when they asked if I wouldn't mind walking home (about a mile away). I agreed but it felt like the blind leading the blind when we rolled out the door, as I had no idea where we were. We made it home safe though and the next day I left to go to a hostel near the train station for my night in Rome.... I leave for Bari, Italy and the overnight ferry to Greece tomorrow. I took an overnight train from Barcelona to Paris on my way to Germany and I'm not really looking forward to the ferry. The next stop is Athens, but I will probably not stay long. I've just about had it with churches. And the money and time I have spent in museums has been a waste... the $8.50 I paid to see David in Florence, the $5 I paid to see a table setting display in a Bern museum, the $10 and 1 hour of wading through rooms and halls and stairways full of paintings and sculptures, tapestries and tourists to get to the Sistine chapel that I could barely see in the dark of the natural light of the room.

In the coliseum yesterday, there were three feral puppies living on one of the walls of the old floor of the coliseum which was about 14 feet wide and about a hundred yards long. Apparently the groundskeepers thought it was cool and OK for them to be there because I saw one of them take the pups food and water. The whole time I was in the coliseum these dogs spent their time chasing each other and mock fighting. Just like the old days when they staged fights between wild animals. I and a lot of other people were captivated by their play. It really was the most interesting sight there.

Later that day I wondered around the forum area. Again I am amazed that they let you touch this history .

The last day I visited the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's

Coming back to the hostel the last evening at dusk I came upon this amzing phenomena. Above the large parking lot next to the main railways station there were millions on small birds soaring and singing. Whole flocks of thousansd of birds wheeling and turning and flowing like liquid in the sky. I also learned not to stand under millions of birds.

The best of the trip so far has been the towns, the buildings, the streets and bridges, the Servas hosts, the sights and sounds, the street musicians and, especially since Italy, the food. I have had pizza, ice cream, pastries, this delicious pizza like stuff called foccia. My allergies should be raging (due to all the milk products), but as I suspected they might not, they have not bothered me at all. The first year I lived in California they completely went away as well; so I figure if I just keep on moving.....