pisa, cinque terre, genoa...

after our time in florence we rode in to pisa the following day. i hate to say it, but i wasn't that impressed with pisa. i mean they have a tower that leans (actually quite significantly to my suprise) but besides that, there isn't a whole lot to see in the city. it's a big college town, so i guess that makes it fun.... but otherwise it's a bit shady. we did stay at a guesthouse with the most peculiar host. his name was michelle and he loved talking to us.. the next morning we left pisa and made it to levano, a city just north of the cinque terre national park. we left our bikes at our hostel and hiked 4 of the 5 villages. cinque terre was so beautiful!!! we had a lot of fun there, and tried to imagine what it was our parents did and talked about when they were there less than two months ago. much to our surprise there was a religios prosession in the 4th town with fireworks and all. i think it was a little treat the city planned for us. the following morning we started to make our way to genoa. the first 10km of the ride out of levanto was all uphill!! it was the hardest ride we've had yet. we had no idea italy was so mountainous. it was beutiful none the less. from the mountain top we had beautiful views of the coast. we are now in genoa. we were so tired last night fromm the days ride we got some pizza (pesto pizza/ pesto anything is my new crack!)and went to bed. today we will ride through the city a bit, see a world herritage site and continue our ride towards nice. from nice we fly to the netherlands... our trip is coming to an end :( it is so strange, we've been traveling for so long yet it has all gone by so fast. it wil be so strange to be back at home... ( the top photo was taken on our ride towards france... much of the ride had views like this!!! the bottom photo is cinque terre)