Hey, back at uni now & glad to be home. I didn't have much access to computers over the last few weeks in Italy, so I thought I'd put some stuff up now. Since my last post I've travelled to Munich (Southern Germany), Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome and Milan. Munich is buzzing with construction at the moment, there's a section of road that's meant to be the busiest in Europe and is currently being worked on. They're putting in a massive tunnel, which is a really huge project considering the size of the road. I also got to visit an older piece of innovative German engineering. The olympic stadium in Munich is the most massive, complex structure I saw on the whole trip. At the time it was built, it was really controversial. A lot of people thought it wouldn't work or that it was too expensive, but now it's one of the city's biggest assets. Here's a picture:














Pretty impressive, hey?

After Munich I headed down to Venice. I'm not sure how many people already heard about this, but Venice is pretty much sinking into the water. A lot of the buildings are starting to tilt or crack and some of their quick-fix repairs looked very different to the high-tech construction work we saw in Munich... This is a Venetian patch-up job on a wall that was falling down:














Here's a picture that follows on from the environmental stuff I was talking about a few posts back. These bins in Cinque Terre are made from recycled plastic bags and there are lots of sections for different types of rubbish:

Just thought I'd put in a picture I took in Cinque Terre.

Today is our last day in Cinque Terre, it's been a really amazing few days. One major difference I've noticed is that people are expected to take care of their own safety here - we walked along narrow, rocky paths on steep cliffs, often with no hand rail. They're very heavily used, these walks are one of the major tourist attractions of the area. I don't think you'd find that in Australia, liability must be much less of an issue over here. Although, they seem to have all the same regulations when it comes to actual construction sites.

People over here are also very environmentally conscious. Recycling is a huge thing, they have so many different bins rather than just recycling and waste. Public transport is also widely used and very reliable.

Tonight we're heading back to Milan by train, then up to Munich in southern Germany. Bis bald, Clare

Holidays are finally here and I'm touring around Italy. We're in Cinque Terre on the coast at the moment. The little towns are built into the cliffs along the shore and it's all very picturesque. The buildings are all painted in bright colours, it's so different to anything I've seen before. Anyway, I'm off to walk to the beach at another little village :)