From Italy to Germany to Hong Kong

Riomaggiore. We were going to give this a miss, but decided to make the effort.

An unusual village, split into a sea part and a rural part. No beach, but people were swimming in the harbour. Needless to say, we got there by train, which took only about 15 minutes.  A lot of gelato consumption, and a strange snack: a thing like an ice cream cone, but made of cardboard, and filled with deep fried seafood. Tasty.

The previous day while swimming, I got stung by a jelly fish, which knocked the chrome off the snorkelling.  The next day, I was careful to look where I was going, spotted him, so no stings.

A lot of angst was generated by the rail timetable for the day of our leaving, but it all turned out ok, going from Monterosso to Genova, changing to the Milan one at Genova.  We were going to get a taxi to Milan Airport, but Rose spotted a shuttle bus just outside the station, 5 Euros to the airport-unbelievable value!

Much long waiting around and we got on board our plane to Frankfurt.

No horsing around this end, we got a taxi to the Dormero Hotel, just near the city centre. This is a picture of Frankfurt.

A brilliant hotel: 2 large screens, one for Internet, the other for TV, and a choice of free movies. We had a day to have a look at the city, as our flight did not leave till 10pm.

We walked towards the city centre, and came across a brand new shopping mall, Skyline Plaza.  Spotless, and very tastefully done.  Back out onto the main road again and eventually reached the heart of the city.  It felt a bit like La Rambla in Barcelona. Nice enough, but not spectacular.

Leg power failing, we decided to get out to the airport early, and proceeded to wait forever for boarding.
 This is a picture of Hong Kong, from our hotel in Kowloon.

The usual not fun trip sitting for 10 hours,  now we are sitting up 19 floors in the Panorama Hotel, looking towards Hong Kong, a bit zapped as we have been virtually up all night.  It is now 5.15pm and it feels like we had breakfast about 5 hours ago.  Everything here seems to cost mega bucks. A buffet dinner downstairs is HK 400=NZ 60/ person.