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Published: October 20th 2007
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We have just left Italy and are writing this blog in Athens. We were on our way to the Acropolis but is is bucketing down outside!
Italy was a mixed bag for us. The roads were rubbish (well coming from Germany anyway) and the driving was bad, although not as bad as we had expected. Still the road rules hardly apply, if you need to get across a road you go and hope someone will stop! We also found Italians to be a touch 'horn happy' with a beep for just about everything! Best of all was how italians stop there cars at intersections when they see a friend and have a nice chat even getting out of their cars and double parking on 1.5 lane streets is not just ok but standard practice. With so many, we will say "differences" in the driving it got to the point of just being amusing! Aside from the roads, much of Italy in the north was heavily polluted and it really did have a feel of having too many people! Anna thought there was too much rubbish everywhere and we found many Italians to be, look and act grumpy! Come on, a
smile wouldnt hurt!
Our first stop in Italy was Cortina, a little ski town situated next to the Dolomite National Park. We had a great view from our campsite, of steep, rocky mountains towering over 1000m above us. We did have some great photos from here too, but they disappeared with the Last Germany ones! (really, they dissappeared, one day they were on the portable drive, the next they were gone!)
From Cortina we drove to Venice. Well actually you cant really drive to Venice, but our campsite was just a short ferry ride across to the island city. Walking around Venice was nice, the natural colouring of the buildings, the little canals, and bridges all very nice, but just a tad touristy. We even spotted a couple of local rats too!
In the Northern parts of Italy we could hardly see 100m in front of us because of the pollution! We stayed in Vada by lake Garda where we had a nice hazey view of the opposite side of the lake for a couple of days. Despite the haze the locals here were more friendly, and accomodating and we ended up having a nice couple of
Fatter than Anna
ok thats not hard but check out the tyres from one of the Ferraris! days exploring the neighbouring towns.
From Vada we stopped into Bologna for of course some spaghetti bolognaise. This was our first taste of Italys busy city culture. A little cramped, but bustling with activity and people.
Heading south to Pisa we had to stop in at Maranello where the Ferrari Factory is located. From outside the factory you could hear Formula 1 cars being tested on the Ferrari test track and people everywhere were wearing the red uniforms of Ferrari. Evidently they have 3000 employees so it really did feel like everybody we saw was from Ferrari. We stopped in at the Ferrari Galleria, with a respectable collection of street and F1 cars and some of the fattest tyres we have seen this side of a tractor!
Before Pisa we stayed in Florence for the night, Annas favourite city in Italy.
We called in at Pisa for the obligatory Italian stop and then headed into the Tuscan Hills, staying at a lovely campsite overlooking the hills and we woke to a great sunrise, well Anna poked her head out of the tent anyway!
We had planned to head south along the coast stopping in at the
little towns but found most seaside towns to be ghost towns! It seems that many places get full in summer and empty completely in the offseason and we were a few weeks to late. This also meant most campsites were closed so we had to stick to the larger cities, so skipping south we ended up in Sorrento camped on the hileside overlooking Naples and Mt Vesuvius.
From Sorrento we explored the Amalfi Coast and Pompei before driving back up to Rome.
Before we arrived in Rome we'd been told by an unlucky kiwi couple on their honeymoon about the pickpockets! So it was a little hard to relax and really enjoy the sites when we were constantly watching out for each others backpacks. Later on a guided tour of the Vatacin one lady in our group had her bag slashed and we talked to others who had their bags stolen!
Our first day we wondered around the main sites of Rome on foot. A few highlights included the Coloseum (you really could imagine gladiators, and Roman emperors on show around the arena), the Circus Maximus (remnants of what was a grand chariot racing arena), the Roman
Florence at night
The Duomo (Cathedral) Forum, and eating roasted chestnuts from one of the many street side vendors - tasted pretty good actually, a bit like kumara, and chicken!
Our second day after spending 4 hours trying to post some gear home, we managed to explore the Pantheon and squeeze through the crowds at the Trevi Fountain.
Our final day was spent walking through the Vatican City. We decided to pay a bit extra and book a tour, mainly to avoid the 3 hour ques. It also ended up being to our benefit, as we entered at 9am, and general public were still waiting for entrance, so we didnt have the huge crowds. The tour took us through the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel, and finished up in St Peters Basillica.
After an early morning start (5am), we flew to Athens.
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