A park bench adventure among other things

Salzburg was cute. Went on a biking tour around the 'Sound of Music' movie locations. This was after wandering for 2 hours in the rain to find a place to stay - with almost everywhere booked out.
Onward to Munich, and having to stay an extra night due to Dachau concentration camp actually being closed on Mondays. Involved a night each in two different hostels due to how busy they all were! The camp was sobering, but somehow disconnected from the atrocities that were once committed there - given how clean and touristic it is now.
Down to Fussen to visit Neuchwanstien and it's sister castle - built by a crazy king in the 1800s who wanted a medieval castle, now the inspiration for the Disney fairytale castle. I turned up at 9pm and couldn't find a bed after an hour... and receptions started closing. I slept on a bench outside the tourist information centre.

Amusingly that sleep was probably better than the night train to Venice (after a stop by Munich to pick up a laptop charger I'd left behind - and of course a visit to an Augustiner beer hall)

Venice while touristic is amazing. Also the most expensive place I've visited yet. Wandering lost through the streets was fun, finding markets churches and streets dead ending onto canals at every turn. It was even fun to wander in the rain.

Florence was nice - like a quieter and smaller version of Vienna. More friendly and of course full of gelati. Saw the orginal David, and a replica on a hill. Ran into Michelle from Melbourne who happened to also be going to Cinque Terra when I was.

Cinque Terra - simply beautiful. The coastline itself is quite spectacular, if not entirely unique, however no other coastline like this has 5 small historic and rustic towns built into them. The 7 hour hike between them was breathtaking and full of photo ops, gelati, stairs and amazing pasta and pesto.

I'm beginning to dispair of finding time to catch up with 3 weeks of blog posts! Hopefully my memory doesn't fail too soon.