The 3 P's - Pizza, Pasta & Paninis (& Gelati!!)

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Italy (24th June - 13th July, 2007)

From Austria we crossed in to Italy and spent the next 2 and half weeks exploring this amazing country.As you can probably tell, it's still all about the food! Visa requirements for Italy are very strict. It is a requirement to have at least 1 gelati per day!!

We didn't get off to a very good start in Italy. Very soon after crossing the border we stopped to use a highway toilet and when mum went in to the cubicle the toilet disappeared in to the wall just as she was about to sit down. Thankfully she had pulled her pants up when the door automatically opened! Not long after that we got a fine for doing a u-turn before a toll booth because we missed our exit!

Venice

We camped in Fusina and could see Venice across the other side of the Adriatic Sea. Venice is an amazing place just to wander and that's what we spent the next couple of days doing. You can get quite lost in the narrow streets but as long as you can still find some gelati and pizza you know that everything is going to be okay!It was great just riding the boats up and down the grand canal and doing lots of people watching. We also went for a gondola ride once we found a handsome gondalier!San Marco (St. Marks Square) was impressive and we saw it start to flood when the tide came in. Apparently when the square is under water they put duck boards down for people to walk across.

Levico

We camped at Lake Levico which is at the base of the Dolomites not far from Trento. Fantastic scenery and some great walks. We earnt our gelati that day after a 4 hour walk around the lake and surrounding area.

Verona

We sure know how to pick great camping spots. In Verona we found our campsite at the top of a hill in the grounds of a castle among the grape vines overlooking the city.We made it to Juliets house and out on to the famous balcony. "Romeo, Romeo......" There is also a statue of Juliet and apparently if you touch her left breast you will find a new lover! There was quite a lot of people waiting to get close to Juliet!The Verona Arena built in the first century was impressive where there is still a lot of Opera performances held.

Bologna

We stopped in the 'Red City' of Bologna for lunch before continuing on to Florence. We climbed one of the 2 leaning towers overlooking the city.

Florence

Someone saw us coming! We walked across the Ponte Vecchio bridge and bought the most expensive gelati in the world. We paid 33 euros for 4 cups of gelato each with 2 scoops. Just to give you a better idea that's almost 6 pounds per serve or 15 Australian dollars per serve. We savoured every last mouthful! Most gelati we bought cost 2 euros per person for 2-3 scoops!There were fake leather bags and prints being sold everywhere on the streets. As soon as the police came along the sellers would scoop up their whole collection in a sheet and standby until the police had moved on elsewhere.

We became experts at queuing! We made it in to the Ufezzi Gallery where there are loads of impressive pieces by Michelangelo and Donetello. We spent the next 3 hours queuing in the scorching sun to get in to the Gallery Accademia to see David. Apart from the obvious which was impressive you could also see the veins on the back of his hands and top of his feet. Bern was impressed by his big toe!

Some classic mum moments while in Florence - Elizabeth was looking for some new pyjamas after leaving hers in the shower block. There were lots of tacky boxer shorts with prints of the statue of David but in particular his crown jewels. Then there were boxer shorts that mum pointed out and said ‘how about these Elizabeth, they have animals on them.’ In fact they weren’t animals but pictures of all the positions of the Kamasutra!

Talking about David again, Mum pointed to a postcard in Florence and said ‘that’s a cute postcard of a sheep, I might send that to Ryan’ (5 year old grandson). None of us were able to see a postcard of a sheep and why would you see one of sheep in Italy! It wasn’t a sheep at all she was looking at but a picture of David’s crown jewels with a smiley face and nose sketched upon them!

Levanto (Cinque Terre)

We had a hard few days in the Cinque Terre which are 5 little villages along the coastline stretching for about 9km. On the first day Bern, Elizabeth and I walked between all 5 villages and met mum at every beach. Mum was able to catch the train between all the viallages. It was just so beautiful that we spent an extra day here on a beach and 3 P's crawl - swimming, eating gelati and pizza and reading our books. We also discovered Limincello which is a lovely lemon liqueur - great to sip as you watch the sunset over the Cinque Terre.

Some more mum moments - While in Italy I've said that it was a visa requirement to eat at least one Gelati per day. On one day in the Cinque Terre Mum managed to eat 10 scoops throughout the day and then announced that she thought we should have a Gelati free day!

The book Mum was reading while we were in Italy had a few loose pages at the end. While doing a beach crawl in the Cinque Terre some of these pages escaped and got blown high in to the air and are now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Pisa

We spent the morning in Pisa before continuing our road trip through Italy on to Rome. It is quite strange climbing the stairs of the leaning tower with the tower on such an angle.

Rome

Rome is a fantastic city to explore. We just walked until we could almost walk no more! We have this queuing thing down to a fine art now. We would leave 2 people in the queue while the other 2 went off exploring. So many sights that I've heard so much about; The Vatican City, St Peters Basilica, the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Colosseum, Pantheon and the Roman forum. We managed to be part of an audience with the pope and were blessed by him along with thousands of others!Naturally we found the ultimate Gelati shop with over 100 flavours!

Terraccina

A great spot on the beach en route to Sorrento.

Sorrento

After our customary morning swim we made our way along some very narrow roads to Sorrento. From our campsite in Sorrento we had amazing views of Vesuvius and Naples.We spent the next few days exploring Vesuvius, Pompei, the Amalfi coast and the island of Capri.

We drove to Pompei and explored the ruins of the old city that was covered when Vesuvius errupted in 79AD. We were able to drive most of the way up Vesuvius and then walk the remainder of the way to the crater.

The Amalfi coast was beautiful but not as quaint as the Cinque Terre. It was really quite scary driving along the coastal roads - not quite wide enough for cars to be going along in both directions. And we were driving a people carrier!

We caught a ferry across to the island of Capri. We slowly started to adapt to sunbathing on rocks! There were some very serious multi-million dollars boats in the marina.

Naples

We stayed in Naples long enough to find the No. 1 pizza restaurant which was amazing! The traffic in Naples was atrocious and driving there even worse. Waiting for an adequate gap in the traffic before turning or when overtaking really didn't exist. It was crazy.

Naples was really dirty and there was dog pooh everywhere. We tried to sit down in a park while we waited for our ferry to Sicily but there was just no patch of clean grass anywhere.

Sicily

We got the overnight ferry to Palermo in Sicily and had our own cabin. It was a very smooth journey across the Tyrrhenian Sea. We wandered around Palermo the following morning where there were some interesting 'middle eastern' looking sandstone buildings surrounded by palms trees. It was just so hot that we found the beach as quickly as we could. We found our first sand beach! Later in the day we found a campsite acrosss the road from the beach where there were police divers looking for something and lots of official people in uniform. Elizabeth suspected foul play by the maffia!

We did a beach crawl along the northern coastline of Sicily and at one beach the lifeguards had their lines out ready to come and rescue us. We didn't understand a word they were saying and hadn't noticed them blowing their whistles at us. It was clear though that they weren't happy with where we were swimming!

We explored Mt. Etna which last errupted in 2003. We were hoping another erruption wasn't due yet! We got a cable car up most of the way where people ski in the Winter and then we boarded a 4WD bus which took us up to the main craters. There were steam vents everywhere.

On our way to Catania Airport in Sicily we had to make one last gelati stop or we would not be permitted to leave the country. It was 8.15 in the morning and the shop was only just opening. I don't think they normally sell gelati at that hour!

From Catania we flew to Athens...

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Photos

Check Out The Pizza!
Venice

Fonzies!
A little like Twisties!