The first part of our Italian road trip

Aosta, Gran Paradise, Genova, Portofino and the Cinque Terre… a very picturesque Italy! (see Eleonore's blog and Raphaël's blog in French)

And we are off again! on the way to Italy from Thonon les Bains, we stop briefly in Chamonix, but the weather is quite bad so we can't take the cable car to the Aiguille du midi…

We arrive in Aosta and what do we do? Italy's country factsheet!

The underground arches that supported Aosta's Roman forum… and its Roman theatre (or what remains of it)

The weather is still not great so we do some shopping… new masks for everyone!

Hike with beautiful views in the Gran Paradizo national park

Heidi lives over there, right across the meadow!

A beautifully preserved mural from the Middle ages, picturing a market scene (with a thief on the left with the red hat), in the Issogne castle

At the Bard fort, in the 'bubbles' to go up, and with Avengers' statues (the first scenes of 'Age of Ultron' were filmed there)

Shopping at an outlet village near Torino

Mother's day in Genova

The wonderful sea museum

View on Genova from the top

Via Garibaldi, lined with palaces (still all closed, unfortunately) and the very narrow streets of Old Genova

Piazza San Matteo, Palazzo Ducale, and ice creams in front of the cathedral

Photo session in Piazza Ferrari

The nuns on the right are the only other tourists in Genova apart from us, it seems!

The port with the Renzo Piano structure, and the Neptune replica Pirate ship used for a Roman Polanski movie

Palazzo San Giorgio

Boccadasse

The villages on the coast all have buildings enhanced by optical illusion… very pretty and effective!

Camogli

Portofino… with a huge yacht!

Going on the famous Cinque Terre hike (we can only go through three villages as the path is closed between the first villages)

Corniglia

Vernazza