Getting closer to Croatia

My time in Italy has almost come to an end, I have tonight in Bologna and then 2 days in Venice before I cross the border on Tuesday, well actually 2 borders as I have to pass through Slovenia to get there. Since my last update the highlight has been the Cinque Terre hike/walk I did on Thursday. The evening before was pretty chilled out, managed to find the Chelsea/Juventus game on the tv at the hostel. It was the first football I've seen since leaving England so that was nice. The next day I got the hostel shuttle which they kindly include in the price of the booking to the park. It dropped us off in the first village, Riomaggiore and I set off from there. There are quite a few different trails you can take but the most commonly used one is the azzuro (blue) trail which links all 5 villages and is supposed to take upto 5 hours. Unfortunatly the path was closed between the second and third villages so I had to take the path aimed at experienced hikers which I am far from! this added an extra 2 hours onto my time and by the time I reached Corniglia the middle village I was fairly sure I wasn't going to manage the 3 and a half hours of hiking still ahead. Just to put it into perspective this is not the Tissington trail! there is a lot of uphill invloved and a hell of a lot of steps! also bare in mind the temperature was in the high 20's and you will see why someone like me, hardly at the brink of physical fitness was feeling the strain after some 4 hours of this! Anyway, after a sandwich and a litre of water I carried on to Vernazza which I completed in the hour and a half it was supposed to take. After a rest here the temperature was cooling and I found the last 2 hours to Monterosso easier than a lot of the rest had been. I celebrated with a pizza back at the hostel and felt quite proud to have completed the whole thing in one day and for the most part I enjoyed it. Yesterday I was aching, climbing any form of stairs with my backpack on was torture and when I arrived in Bologna via Parma, I wanted a simple stroll to my hostel. However the train station and surrounding area are probably the most chaotic I've come across so far and the hostels directions were fairly awful so I thought bugger it and allowed myself the luxury of a taxi. I was really not in the mood for Bologna yesterday, a big dirty city with noise and chaos was not something I was upto after the previous day so I had an early night and slept for 12 hours. Today I've found the centre and it is actually a pretty cool place, its another university city and they are obsessed with food! it is everywhere and it says something that the city's nickname is La Grassa which translates into 'the fat one!' speaking of food I'm off to sample some, if this proves to be my last entry from Italy then it has been great and one hell of a way to start the trip. I plan to do a personal guide to getting around Italy on a budget, trust me it can be done!