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Published: November 13th 2007
Pisa
Leaning TowerHey guys.
We are getting through Italy now, actually we have been here for 12 nights so it is going flat out of course and heaps to do and see.
We started off in Milan in the north of the country but we were only there for one night because we were planning to head up into the Italian Alps and that will be the last of the Alps to see for us. We have been in the Austrian, Swiss, French and now Italian alps so very lucky to see all of that! The town we went and stayed at was called Trent and not a real big place and we were doing the couch surfing thing of course and they went and took us to the biggest lake in Italy called Lake Garda. It was a very nice area with the mountains all around and on the way home we went to a castle called Besenu and it is the largest fortisied complex in the region and never concered. But for us the best part of the day would have been our first taste of gelato which is ice cream but it is absolutly fantastic! I think it
Venice
Ponte di Rialto is a kinda mix between the texture of ice crean back home and whipped cream. It was invented here in Italy so they take alot of pride in it along with eveything to do with food as we are finding out.
Another thing that I must mention about Italy, well mostly the northern area is that every night they have a thing called Aperituo and what this is, it is like a happy hour but goes for three-four hours so you go to a place and a buy a drink for 5 Euro and you can eat as much bar food as possible! It is not like chips and nuts here in Italy no.... Our first one, been to a few, was a pizza and pasta place so we could eat as must Italian pizza as we could! How fantastic is that! Exp when it is every night! Brilliant!
Anyway we also have had a few traditional meals with our hosts, so mush pasta has been eaten of course and their meals arent two mains kinda things, it goes for several hours with many meals over that period! So we are putting on lots of weight with the
Trent
Lake Garda - Largest lake in Italy pasta, pizza and gelato all the time but it is just soooooo good!
Well after the Alps we went to the floating city Venice and it was reelly strange to see that it looks like it should be under water and in fact it is slowly heading that way. Some of the houses along the river and canal banks, there are many of them, have infront of there doors two metal slides that a metal plank can slide down to stop the water coming in the front door! It is starting to get bad as well with some off the photos that we have seen there and even the water is coming up from the ground underneath.
But it is a very interesting city and we thought it would be alot different than we got, all the building were mostly real old and looked run down but i guess that makes for the great feel around the place. It is far from relaxed there sometimes as it is a massive tourist trap and everything costs in that place! We went to a couple of the islands close by and not sure if anyone has heard of Murano glass but
we went to where it is made and watched the local guys making the stuff.
From here we headed to Cinque Terre where the famous five little villages are and we stayed in one called Manarola it is only a tiny village wedged inside a rock cliff it looks like. The walk that we did was about 9k going all through the towns along the coast line sometimes on a cliff edge walking along but was very spetacular. We even got to go for a swim in the larget town Monterosso but there is still only about 500 residents living there and since it is the quiet season we had the whole beach to ourselves on the Mediterraen. In the summer we were told people get up at 5-6am, head to the beach just to reserve a spot along the coast line here! It was very nice!
We were going to stay in Cinque Terre for two nights but there was abloody train strike organised once again so we had to get out of there otherwise we would be completely stuck in the middle of know where. So we packed our stuff and headed to Pisa for a
Flight
We had great views of the Alps from France to Italy... Good promotion for Ryanair! night. We were just going to stop in Pisa for a few hours and check out the tower then go but decided that we will spend a night. In the end it would have been fine just to stop there for a few hours and keep going since in Pisa there is nothing much except for a square that has two very nice buildings and one that is on a massive lean. It is hard to beleive how much of a lean the tower is actually on, dont really know how it is standing up!
So thats pretty much kinda up to date, we are now three citys down after this. Well better be going and we will keep in touch.
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Erin
non-member comment
Hello
Hey there slug and kylie!!! You have taken some awesome photos, it took me a while to realise that one of the pictures was actually monkeys not you guys he he!! Have fun in Rome!! :)