Italy (August)

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January 28th 2008

Published: January 28th 2008

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leigh jacqui

Pisa

After living in a campground in Rotterdam for a couple of weeks we finally secured a room in Delft where I was going to be studying, so we packed our things and flew to Italy for a week.

We arrived in Pisa and set up our tent worried about the large amount of rain that they had just had as our tent was not waterproof at all. We then wandered the city of Pisa and its monuments and fell in love with buildings and culture of Italy. The fantastic sunshine was a great backdrop to the leaning tower of Pisa and after awing over its lean we felt it was time to experience what we had read about, the apertivo hour! If you have travelled here or in Italy you know the deal, you buy a drink at around 6pm or so and they give you a little bit of food to go with it for free. Some places had a little food some places had heaps. Leigh and I throughout the whole of Italy made use of this great system and enjoyed all of the cities with an apertivo drink and food in the early evening often not needing

Florence

Shops on the bridge

to make dinner!

From Pisa we travelled to Florence where we finally gave in and bought sleeping bags as the nights were just too cold to have nothing. Our campground was situated on a hill on the opposite side of the river to the main town, and had fantastic views over the city. The buildings in Florence were so ornate and decorative and there was lots of architecture to see and interesting gardens to wander around. We moved from here to Bologna where we spent a day looking around the old city which really didn’t compare to Pisa or Florence but had its own unique more brutal feel to it. The temperature in Bologna was very, very warm so we also relaxed by the campground pool and then enjoyed some original Bolognese (well Leigh did) and the local atmosphere.

We continued on to Venice where we spent several days. Our campground was under an airport and we soon realized that sleeping in was not possible. So we made the most of our time catching the bus over the bridge to the old town everyday and wandering the streets for hours and hours until we were exhausted in the

Bologna

evening and headed back. The canals in Venice were charming and quirky. It was incredible to see how they have become part of everyday modern life, with things like rubbish pickup boats and water ambulances. I spent some time working out how people got around when it flooded and was amazed to learn how they build a whole new network of platforms to accommodate the rising waters in winter. We visited the plaza and Cathedral, as well as the university area and parks. The Venice biennale had just begun so we also took a look at the exhibitions there and visited the Australian Pavilion. Venice was a fantastic city for endless wandering and sitting down in the sun to make a sandwich and enjoy the people watching, which we did each day and enjoyed tremendously.

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