We have two nights booked for Monterosso which for us is the gateway to the Cinque Terre ( five Towns) we carry our luggage down the long road above the beach through the tunnel echoing beautiful piano music as we enjoy the sights and sounds. 
  Most of the beach is owned by private businesses marked by the color of beach chairs and umbrellas that you can rent for 15 Euros. You have to walk past  all the matching umbrellas until you find the free beach  with mis-matched umbrellas or the that is on the rocks.

  We walk through the town, past the church  into the piazza through the arches and after a long climb up the hill, we arrive at our Bnb . They show us our room and give a set of keys for the the inside door, outside door and the electricity.  Each morning we have a  wonderful Italian breakfast  with home made cakes, fresh fruit, yogurt and cheeses. 

Since it it is very crowded with tourists during the day, I go out at 
6:00 Am to paint.

Later in the day when it got really hot, I went for a swim at these rocks. I had to walk from the free beach at the end of the town to here. The water was very clear and refreshing but it did take two hours to get there, swim and walk back. 

It  took two trains and seven hours to get from Nice to Ventimiglia then to  Rapallo. Most of the coastline was lots of rocky beaches and distinct  towns totally different from each other. We chose Rapallo because of it's proximity to Portifino since it has alway been my sister's dream to there. this photo is the view from our hotel balcony. 

Rapallo is more of a  vacation destination for Italians. It really gets lively at night with music along the promanade until 11:00 Pm. I reccommend staying Rapallo, as Portofino is very expensive. 

The next Morning we take  a boat to Fruitoso, Camogli and  then Portifino. I took the opportunity to swim in this beautiful cove. It was quite luxurious to float there and look up at the small village surrounded by towering Italian Pines. 

Camogli is a small  town with pastel and shell encrusted buildings overlooking the harbor. 

Portifino has the beautiful villas  with cascading bouganvillas overlooking the water. It also has  a nature walk  above the  town.  This would be a great place to stay longer and paint if we had time.

On day eight we leave Tucany and fly to Nice . Our plan is to stay in Nice three nights then travel back along the Riviera back to Florence.
     
I pack a smaller suit  case with my art supplies  for my checked bag and put the clothes in a back pack and have to carry the easel separately. Security does not like the easel and  I am forced to pay 60 euros to check the easel or ditch it altogether. I pay. 

My  sister found this beautiful home owned by Jonell and Werner on Air Bnb.com  They give us a beautiful room and are fabulous hosts. It also helps that my sister is fluent in French.

We explore Nice, the beach, flower market and take a train to Cagnes Sur Mer to find the Renior home and studio only to find that it is closed until after we leave.  So we go to the old villiage. It takes the whole day to walk and take the trains.  The next day we explore the spectacular Rothchild Villa and Monaco. No time to paint. 

The beaches here are rocky with some imported sand. You can rent a space on the beach for 12 Euros. We dip our feet in the water then leave. 

For more stories on this see:http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gretchenart/1/1373890777/tpod.html

Day six in San Michele.  The internet connection here does not work very well for my sister, too many dropped calls on the internet phone and bumps off the internet by multiple users in the bulding. Lisa  (The manager) of the BNB  finds a friend in Florence that will rent to my sister for the rest of her stay. ( 2 more months) Her boss offers vacation time up until July 24. So this will be our last night in San Michele.
   The photo here is showing the breakfast table that has been set up for the "B and B" guests that have just arrived. At $30. a night we are just B customers. The owner opens the front doors of the church at 6am and is surprised to me me in there, but  tommorow will be the last morning I will be in the church.
   I decide to take an early walk around the grounds and run into Robert who is another long term guest from the USA who also owns property in Hong Kong and is re-building the villa across the street.  He is so happy to give a tour of his project.  He asks me where we are planning to go today. I told  him about the lovely hill town called Montepulciano. He tells me that Sienna would be better,"No one should leave Tuscany without seeing Sienna ' he says.

My sister and I both read the book by Jennifer Criswell called "At Least you're in Tuscany."  We both have visions of Montepulciano and fantacies that maybe we would run into Jennifer while having gelato, but we get talked out of it by some guy.  So were off to  Sienna. Ms Tomy does a good job getting us to Sienna by 9:00 am.

Sienna is actually a huge walled city. Each neighborhood has it's own flag. This flag in the photo here is for the "Duck" town. After two hours of walking up hill  and seeing the Duomo, plaza and a million tourists we decide to leave. My sister is so happy when we find the duck flag again as we make our exit.  We get back on the highway pass some funny signs like Pongibonzi and laugh and wonder why we see that sign every time we go somewhere. 

It's day seven and I want to see another town in Chianti. Off we go to Radda. Radda is the prettiest and most flowerful town so far.  We did not paint here, but took a lot of photos for future paintings. 
  Being a small town and we were there early, My sister informs me that we have time for another town  before she has to be back for work.  So...  were off to Poggibonzi. After 2 hours of driving through the hills with Ms Tomy as our guide we arrive at Poggibonzi only to discover that it is city probably built in 1946. We get cold lazagna,  cheese  and nutella at a deli and eat it in a park with dead grass.

 We get back on the highway and I notice a castle in the distance. So we drive there to see what it is. It turns out to be a large villa in San Donato that was made into a hotel. Down the street there is a restaurant made out of someone's house. called "Mi Casa"  My sister feels that we need to get a real lunch.  She has some better photos of the inside. 

My sister goes back to work and I paint the cellar next to the picnic area as a whole table full of people from South Africa, England and Austalia watch.  Will post abetter photo later. 

Ater two days of travel I arrive at the Florence (Firenze) airport  to be picked up by my sister who is living in Italy. She has an internet  and phone research job that allows her to live anywhere. So she has invited me to come stay with her. She is proud of herself for riding two buses and then renting a car and figuring out how to get into the airport.  As soon as I get in to the car I have to be the navigator with Ms Tomy the GPS to get us out of the airport and through the unnamed back country roads to a small hill town of ten houses called San Michele. My sister rented "The Birdhouse apartment from Airbnb. It is actually a convent built in the 1100's.

We decide to go out for our first meal at a near by camp ground for dinner.

The church where I do my daily yoga and meditation at 4 Am.

Inspite of Jet lag I decide to go on our first jouney to Greve and Montefiralle. Ms Tomy gives good directions that we mis-interpret and go down the wrong tunnel on the toll highway. She re-configures and puts us on small roads instead. It takes two hours to get to Greve. 
It happens to be market day  I find a beautiful Tuscan table cloth, and a linen blouse and we enjoy watermelon on a park bench. Then we set out for Montefirealle. Unfortunately Ms Tomy can't figure it out and we end up back in Greve two more times so we change our our itineray to Castelina where we tour the town and paint our first paintings.

On day three I realize that the jet lag has caught up with me so we stay in San Michele. My sister finishes her report for work and I walk up the street to paint. 
On day four we take the bus to Florence. No painting this day but lots of inspiration at the Piti Palace. (sorry no photos allowed there)

On day five my sister informs me that she has conference call with clients so we have to be back from San Giminano by 3:30. Which means that we have to leave there by 1:30 , we were lucky and arrive in San Giminano at 8:00am.  
We saw the beautiful church there and after lunch, lots of photos and geleto we have to go.

Back in San Michele in time for my sister to start work. So I walk up to another place and paint. I found a spot off the narrow road at the top of a driveway to a beautiful 
country home and olive orchard.