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Published: September 22nd 2006
Hi
Well we finally made it after the longest trip in the history of travel. 3Hour stop over in Singapore was a chance for us to have a walk around and around and around. Managed to find a machibe that massaged your legs and feet and reduce the swelling. There was just a second there when I thought my ankle bones might become a jigsaw puzzle....god..that thing could squeeze!
Arrived in Rome to a strike of baggage handlers and customs staff. Consequently, there were about a million bags all in a big heap we had to sort through after standing waiting for 2 hours to get through immigration.
Things we have learned so far...
1. Do not eat everything they give you on the plane.
2, Do not assume everything will run smoothly.. an Italian has said to us that there is world time and there is Italian time. Italian for express service is 3 days.
So we arrived in Roma to torrential rain interspersed with blistering heat. No matter. Taxi to the hotel cost 75 euros. However it was still just 10am so we grabbed a shower and headed off into town. The hotel is a bus ride and a metro ride away. We spotted an open top tour bus so got on that for a hop on hop off tour of the famous monuments. Absolutely breathtaking and everything you could wish for and more. Got off at the Vatican... wrong thing to do... forgot it was sunday and Il Papa was saying mass. I have physically never seen so many people in one place. The queue for the Sisitine chapel was right around St Peters square and down a few side streets as well. Might come back tomorrow when most people everone will be at work and the queues will be shorter.
Also a very strong armed police presence. We found out later that the Pope had said something to upset Al Qaeda.
The traffic in Rome is unbelievable. I am so glad we did not hire a car.
Things we learned today
1. Do not take an open top tour bus if it looks like rain.
2. Do not go to the Vatican on a Sunday
3. That fantastic deal you just negotiated with a street vendor for that special item for 50 euro instead of 150 is probably worth about 3 euro.
4 Saving money by staying in a cheap hotel is offset by the cost and time of catching public transport.
We are having a fantastic time.
On tuesday we went to Florence on the Eurostar. What a beautiful place Florence is. Much cleaner than Rome and the people are friendlier.
I could live quite happily in Florence. The food was magnificent and really cheap for the quality. You do need serious amounts of money to be able to shop in the good stores. I spotted the once in a lifetime pair of shoes.... the guys reading this will not understand.... but they were magnificent but absolutely unaffordableTrain was an hour and a half late leaving Florence. Once we got on and found someone in our seats. Turns out that we were on the train previous to ours and ours was running 3 hours late. Conductor said we had to pay extra for being on the wrong train and he would come and collect but to sit anywhere in the meantime.
He never did show up and the train was nearly empty anyway.
What we learned today
1 Every train has a number and you should read your ticket carefully.
2 If you tell the street vendors that you have no money on you they drastically reduce the price of the item
Wednesday we went to Naples and Pompeii.
Quite a nice coach ride. Again blistering heat.
Naples is indescribably chaotic. Traffic is worse than Rome. 2and a half hours to go 100 metres. They double park and triple park, park sideways on crossings. The scooter riders have a death wish but manage to scrape throught the narrowest of spaces. Everyone seems to be able to survive...we only saw one prang.
Everone seems to live in an apartment in Naples. We only saw high rise blocks... with the exception of course of the very large villa of Ms Sophia Loren.
Pompeii of course was special and Tim was fascinated. Unfortunately our tour did not take in the frescoes and was a bit disappointing. I had to keep diving into the shadows to avoid the sun. They appeared to have been a very advanced civilisation. Astonishing really that they had flushing toilets in those days.
The trip back was interesting to say the least. Our coach driver was doing about 160 on the autostrada when he suddenly veered off the road and the coach slammed to a dead stop. He had collapsed over the wheel. We assumed he had had a fit so nobody was prepared to get back on the coach if he was driving it.By the time we had waited for the new driver to come from Rome about 2 hours it was dark and a bit chilly. We got back into Rome at midnight and the poor tour organiser had to fork out not only for an extra meal for everone but also a taxi. He told us that this episode had probably destroyed his business and all because the driver had forgotten to eat lunch and fainted.
But you know he could have killed us all...the coach had stopped about an inch from the guard rail over a ravine. The pokice had stopped to tell us to move the coach off the road as it was hazardous to the very fast moving traffic on the road. Despite Tim having experience in driving buses and is licenced in Australia we did not have our licences with us so the polizia told him he was not allowed to drive it, even to move it off the road.
Things we learned today
1 Wear a hat
2 Make sure the battery in the camera is fully charged
3 Make sure the driver eats lunch.
Thursday today and after yesterday we just wanted to stay near the hotel and perhaps do some washing.
Impossible task. Our hotel does not have a washing machine or even an iron and there is no such thing as a laundromat. The dry cleaners have an express service but it means 3 days. Ended up having to buy some stuff at Il supermercat to wash out a few things.
Tomorrow we might make an concerted effort to queue for the Sisitine chapel.
We have met some really nice people here, both tourists and locals.
until our next posting arrivederci.
Unfortunately not able to decipher the Italian instruczione on the computer so cannot upload photos at this point. Might have to wait until we get to England.
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anonymous
non-member comment
It was lovely to hear from you, we have been thinking of you ever day, Now you know there is no better place in the world than good old Aus. one point that made me laugh is "why must the driver have lunch, I haven't finished reading all your news yet, so I'll send this and write again. Love Sandra