Not a hiker? Not to worry, you can still enjoy the beautiful views of the Cinque Terre by taking the ferry that runs between four of the five villages.

A ferry funs between four of the five villages of the Cinque Terre in Italy starting at Easter and running through October or later if the weather is warm and dry. The boat runs frequently between Monterosso, Vernazza, Manarola and Riomaggiore and less frequently to Portovenere. The ferry does not stop at Corniglia since this is the only village without water access. At certain times of the year and week a boat also runs to Portofino.

Schedules are posted at various points around the villages and information can be obtained at the information offices located near the train stations in each of the villages of the Cinque Terre.

My sister, Susan, and I frequently travel to Rome, Italy. On our most recent trip we stayed a few days in Rome before taking the train to Sicily. We have both traveled to Rome more times than either of us can count.

For the first time in all those trips spread over so many years, we failed to follow our own advice and Susan had her wallet stolen while getting on a train at Termini train station.

Here’s what we did wrong:

•Too Tired: Having arrived in Italy only a few days before we were both tired so we were not as alert as we normally would be

•Too Obvious: We both walked the length of the train on the platform so we gave the thieves ample opportunity to observe their targets (us). One of us should have walked the length of the platform to look for our train car while the other stayed with our luggage.

•Trust Your Instincts: I saw the three girls standing in the door of the train, but did not trust my instincts that they were thieves. We had been in Termini so many times and no one ever bothered us before.

At the start of Sarah Dunant's novel, In the Company of the Courtesan, it is 1527 and Rome is being sacked by Spanish and German invaders. Fiammetta Bianchini, a successful Courtesan and her business manager Bucino Teodoldo, a dwarf are forced to flee Rome for the flourishing economy of Venice.

Fiammetta and Bucino swallow their jewels and hide a locked book, the contents of which is unknown to them. After what can only be described as a few "uncomfortable days" the swallowed jewels reappear and finance the start of their new lives in Venice.

Sarah Dunant has an amazing ability to develop unlikely but likeable characters. In addition to the courtesan and dwarf there is a mysterious Turk and a blind healer. In Rome this high priced prostitute's customers were cardinals, popes and other members of the church. In Venice she "services" merchants and members of the government.

How can you not love a novel that has a tattooed nun, the monk Savonarola, Lorenzo the Magnificant and all the intrigue of 15th century Florence? The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant is one of the best historical fiction novels that I have ever read, and I have read a lot of them.

Sarah Dunant's writing conjures up what life in Florence, Italy would have been like at a time when wealthy families hired artists to paint their private family chapels and Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella were places of worship and not primarily tourist attractions.

The Birth of Venus begins when Alessandra Cecchi is a precocious adolescent who has not yet realized that women of her time do not have any choices in life. This is an age when women are married off to men who can help improve the status of the family with no consideration given to their happiness. Personal freedom is something that women dare not consider even in their dreams.