Gelato, Pasta and Ruins in Rome

Now I'm not sure why the first time I was in Rome I didn't really enjoy it. It might have been because I had no interest in its history or architecture, only its food and shops... Needless to say that this time I had a completely different look about it as I had studied its building in Classics and actually knew the difference between ionic and corinthian columns.

So as our bus arrived and we were dropped off at our campsite and found our that we didn't have to put up our tents as we would have those incredible permanent tents that we had in Florence, I knew Rome would be amazing!

Once we had sorted out our tent buddies – as 15 of the group were leaving in Rome because their tour had ended, our pairs had shuffled around a bit, we got the metro into the city for our walking tour, which would be a couple of hours long...

On the walking tour we saw everything – the Trevi fountain (which was under construction annoyingly), The Pantheon, the place where Caesar was stabbed(!!!!) the Colosseum (where we had gladiator fights with wooden swords that Kiki had brought for us). We had dinner just down the road from the pantheon, and then stopped in a gelato shop for dessert, where we had the impossible task to choose three scoops from over 150 flavours... It was probably the hardest choice I've ever had to make...

The Spanish steps, I walked half way up and then stopped because I didn't fancy passing out because of heat stroke

I literally have dozens of photos of columns... Spot the inner classics freak.

Just incase you didn't believe me. This was like 1/4 of the counter...

Where Caesar was stabbed. It's now a pile of ruins and home to dozens of cats

La Familia after our gladiator battles

When we had finished sorting ourselves out for long enough to get a family photo in front of the Colosseum, we headed back to the campsite on the metro and basically went straight to bed!

The next day I had a rare sleep in, and then tried to do some washing, but 7euros later, my clothes were wet, but not clean, so I wasn't impressed. I headed into the city with Rachel, who was meeting her sister later that day as she was leaving the tour, so once we had found her hotel for the night, we said our goodbyes and then I made my way into the city. I had decided that all I wanted to do that day was go inside the Pantheon, as I'd seen all the other sights before and I didn't fancy rushing around like a loon trying to see an entire city, so I got off the metro near the Trevi fountain because I remembered that they weren't too far apart. I thought it would take me 10 minutes to walk between the two, but after 30 minutes of being lost and no matter what way I walked, always ending up back at the Trevi fountain, I decided I'd stop and ask for directions.

When I eventually found the Pantheon I went inside and just sat there for nearly an hour taking it all in. When we were in Rome last time I remember Chloe going on about its history and how interesting it all was, and sitting there I could finally appreciate the beauty of the building that had caused me so much stress during exams last year...

When I had finally taken in as much of it as I could, I left and found somewhere for lunch because I was starving. I had the best pasta ever for lunch, and I was even hit on my an Italian waiter ;) when I had got some souvenirs I walked to the metro, and again got stupidly lost, but it wasn't that bad because I stumbled across the Altare Della Patria (an amazing building/museum), and then after another 30 minutes of being unable to find the metro station, I found a taxi and asked him for directions. Turns out if i'd kept walking for about 50meters I would have seen the metro sign....

This was lunch. It was incredible. Italians really know how to do amazing simple pasta!

When I finally made it back to the campsite I had a chilled afternoon, because after all the walking i'd done while I was lost, I didn't feel like doing anything else.

We had our last dinner as the original La Familia, and then I had a drink with Carin who was also leaving the next morning to go back to South Africa. That night the bar on the campsite had a crossdressing themed party, and we all went hard out for it. The boys were borrowing dresses and complaining about mascara and lipstick, while us girls were in footy shorts and singlets and making the most of not having to do our hair and make up. It was also the first night our four new members were with us, but I'm sure they wouldn't forget it in a hurry! (the first thing I said to one of the new guys was “Hi, I'm Chanelle, here borrow my skirt.”...

Footy players don't smile in photos, which is why I look like I'm in pain because I was trying not to laugh..

The girls, but for the sake of that night, The Guys...

It was a great last night for the 15 that were leaving us, but it was also really sad..

The next morning when we had packed up and were getting onto the bus without the others felt so weird and there might have been a few tears on both parts...

But while we were all guttered to see the others go, we were all super excited to be heading to Greece!!!

Avoiding heatstroke in Pisa and Florence

As always, I slept basically the entire way from Venice to our lunch stop. You might have heard of it, its this little city that had really bad foundations that make it's buildings go on an angle. Yeah our lunch stop was PISA!

So because we were a bunch of massive tourists, we spent nearly all of our time taking cheesy photos, photo bombing other people taking cheesy photos and running away from the dozens of men trying to sell us sunglasses and other “designer” things... Plus it was like 35degrees so we also spent a lot of the time following the shadows..

Me succeeding at life. As always.

Once we had taken enough cheesy photos to last us a while we hopped back onto the bus where I slept the entire way to florence (all motorways look the same no matter what country you're in so I didn't miss out on anything)

When we arrived at our accommodation in Florence we were greeted with some incredible news. For 3,50euros we could upgrade to a permanent tent. While this may not sound all that fancy it was music to our ears, because it meant we didn't have to put up our tents, we had a proper bed and a proper floor and we could actually stand up in our tent. So once we had all dumped our stuff and locked (!!!) our tent room things, we walked into the city for our walking tour. We were told that it'd be about an hour long and none of us were too thrilled about that because it was still stupidly hot.. But the lady who guided our tour was a local of Florence so she has all these really interesting facts about it, of which I can remember none of them..

We saw the fake statue of David, and we walked across the Ponte Vecchio and saw the Duomo which is possibly one of my favourite buildings ever! And then she took us back to Kiki and a leather factory where we would learn all about leather in a blissfully air-conditioned room.

Basically all I can remember from the leather place is that the whole proving that leather is real by waving fire over it doesn't work. The only way to tell is from the back of the leather (if it look suede then its real), so yeah I've just saved you from buying what could be fake leather (you're welcome).

I don't know what it is but I love this building! Brace yourself for a lot more photos of it... 

Inner classics geek freaked out over this... 

After the leather place we went to a restaurant for dinner, and there was a bit of mis-communication, because we (the people at my table) thought it was just one course, so when a massive plate of pasta came out, we ate all of it. And then the two massive plates came out. Rookie mistake. While we were trying to eat as much as possible because it was delicious, some of the group had opted for the steak option. One kilo of steak. Most of them went halvies on it, but our fearless leader Kiki ate the whole thing.

After the amazing, but massive dinner, we headed to the karaoke bar. Yes, there were 30 tourists in the middle of Florence singing karaoke.. I think the highlight of the night was when Marcel and Paul (both Aussies) sang “I come from the land down under” in their really strong Aussie accents. Thankfully I just watched everyone else sing, and then when we eventually called it a night we made the long trek back to the campsite, and into our beds (!!) where I basically went straight to sleep.

The next day we had the morning to explore Florence, so I walked into the city with Carin and Rachel, where we spent the day in leather shops because they wanted genuine Italian leather jackets (and they were because we knew how to spot the fakes). I did this happily for a couple of reasons, firstly because I'd been to Florence before so I'd seen the real David and all the other stuff, secondly, I love shopping, and thirdly, every shop had air conditioning. Once we had done our shopping 

, we walked back to the campsite in record time (it took 15 minutes to get there which included going up a hill, across a river, and all in stupid heat = impressive) and then got on the bus and got appropriately excited because we were off to Rome!!

But I'm going to leave all of Rome for another post other wise you'll never finish reading it... So instead you just get a really short post and then probably a normal length one next week!!

Verona to Venice

So, the next few posts will all be about Bella Italia as we spent nearly a week exploring this insanely beautiful place!

Starting with Venice (with a stop off in Verona)

So after the usual start to the day of packing up the tents by some ungodly hour of the morning (7.15 everything but the cook tent had to be on the bus...) we slept our way through to the Italian boarder, which we didn't realise we had crossed, so when we stopped off at a petrol station for some snacks, and tried (and failed) to speak our non-existent french to the person behind the till who was really grumpy. We later realised this was because we had spoken french to an Italian, so their bad mood what quite understandable..

So once we all understood what country we we in, the excitement levels rose as we made our way into Verona. Now this place was beautiful, full of history and things that tourists love. But I feel like I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have because it was 40degrees, and with everything being marble, there was no escaping the heat (except for gelato and going into air-conditioned shops..)

We walked past a mini Colosseum-like building and battled the mass of tourists to see Juliet’s balcony (built after the play so that there was somewhere for the tourists to flock to, and it definitely worked).

We weren't in Verona for very long, and everyone was almost too happy to get back on the bus which had the air-con going full blast – and would continue to do so for the remainder of the trip.

Juliette's balcony, and hundreds of tourists crammed into a tiny little courtyard.. Great fun in scorching heat!

Proof that I'm not just being dramatic!

We arrived in Venice in the afternoon and put up the campsite in the heat – but never fear, there was a swimming pool at the campsite! We had a massive dinner cooked for us by the restaurant that was on the campsite, and by the end of it none of us could walk properly, and we spent the next hour in a food coma. The bar that night was where the entire campsite was that night, including our entire tour, and so we all spent the night dancing to the music (and getting way too excited when the wakeup song camp on, so up went the duck hands so we could find each other and have our own little party for the duration for that song.

I called it a night pretty early compared to everyone else because the bar was so hot that when you went outside into the 35degrees it felt like it was air-conditioned...

The next morning we were up early to head into Venice, and while I was really excited to go, some were feeling a little fragile after the night before. Poor Marcel woke up 2 minutes before we were leaving so he grabbed his “bus bag” and jumped onto the coach. The only problem his bag had everything (blankets, pillows, the works) except for shoes.. So he had to walk around venice in what was probably 40degrees, hungover and with no shoes...

We had our usual walking tour of the city and then were left to run free, well when I say run I mean walk at a slow pace because it was way to hot to even think about running anywhere. Most of us had chosen to do the gondola optional, and it was really cool – there was a nice breeze on the canals..

After the gondola ride we got some pizza for lunch, and then tried to find our way back to the train station that we had to go to so we could get back to the bus. I didn't find this too hard because there were signs everywhere that pointed you in the right direction (it was made easier because we stopped off for gelato and found a place where you could get five scoops for 3,90euros!) So we eventually made our way onto the bus and then back to the campsite where I spent the afternoon in the pool, and then had an amazing dinner of gnocci (!) and then just relaxed for the evening because it was too hot to do anything else!

I was convinced that this was part of a set. It looked fake!

Venice is one of my favourite cities in the world, but in near 40degrees, its harder to enjoy! But I still had an amazing time!

Next stop: Florence (via Pisa!)