Italy welcomes careful drivers!

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It is often easiest to see differences between places when there's stark contrast. Having driven between all the countries on our adventure so far the closest we'd got to this contrast was entering a tunnel in Austria and popping out the other side in Slovenia. Therefore the boat from Dubrovnik to Bari, Italy was really going to provide us with this view.

We set sail at 11pm to arrive at 8am. Finding a space required imagination if you'd gone for the budget option, like us, of 'deck space' rather than a proper cabin. There were people all over all the chairs and even in the kids ball pond; huge Italian families produced not just a few sandwiches for the journey but whipped out a table cloth and covered it with jars, breads and of course lots of conversation. It was very exciting. Jo couldn't settle at all until we set off and even then not very well. In the end we made our base under a table - sleeping bags, pillows, earplugs and a couple of sleeping tablets, we thought we were quite luxurious for deck dwellers until someone walked through with an inflatable bed!

I managed to sleep most the night but sadly it just added to Jo's tally of disturbed sleeps (you'd think we'd be sleeping easily through storms by now but you'd be wrong!!) I was grateful for it though as I'd heard all about Italian driving and wanted to be psyched up! We went up onto the deck to watch Italy appear before us and the first thing I was struck by was how hazy it was. Gone were the clear blue skies and waters of Croatia. Boy did I need to be psyched up though! As soon as we got off the boat was an experience I can only liken to Cairo for traffic - we were definitely back in the throng of crazy western Europe. Two lanes were marked but there were at least three in practical use with mopeds diving in between. The roads were in terrible condition and we needed to fill up urgently given a silly game I play of seeing how long I can leave it between petrol stations. We found one easily enough and Jo went to pay. She emerged a few minutes later to have been told by the guy that the machine was broken to for paying by card. Unfortunately we'd spent our last few euros in staying at Little-old-ladies so I left Jo as a deposit for the fuel and set off for a cash machine! Fortunately 20mins later we were finally on our way. A few minutes later we were at a toll booth, in short someone obviously hadn't managed to get their ticket so pinched ours and this process was continuing to great commotion and little intervention by the toll booth people, we'd gone through without a ticket and Jo was sent back to investigate. A couple of minutes later, having participated in the 'nick a ticket' game she was running back to the car screaming "drive!!" I'm sure that somewhere between here and Sorrento, our destination 3hrs away, I found my first grey hair!

We arrived in Sorrento and set up camp (next to our second Thai bride spot of the trip). Next was the hunt for food. Italian is definitely the worlds number one favourite type of food and they're very proud of it. In the local shop there were two aisles dedicated solely to pasta and then another for variously packaged tomatoes. A pre made jar of Carbonara sauce would have caused local outcry! The restaurants were just the same. Stone fired pizzas were everywhere and very cheap. We both tucked in excitedly - surely you can't get fed up of such good cooking?

After a drop too much of the old fall down juice that night we set off to catch the bus down the Amalfi Coast. The old bus had an old driver we named Luigi, who had nerves of steel. Driving the AC must be some badge of honour in their circles! He didn't blink or fuss as he patiently wound our bus through the roads up the mountain. I got my camera out and the act of taking my eyes off the road sent me right to the edge of needing the plastic bag that Jo kindly offered me!

Luigi continued up the road and it opened out onto the coast like a ribbon draped along the cliff face. The sheer drops were numerous and in many places the road was actually built to be hanging out over these drops, often by a metre or so. There were lots of ooh's and arr's from the passengers and all the time Luigi patiently threaded the huge steering wheel back and forth or stopped for oncoming coaches that none of us could possibly imagine getting past us. An hour later unharmed and very impressed we arrived in Amalfi and I gratefully went to sit in the shade and stop moving.

The town itself is small and attracts the wealthy. Lots of nice boats and lots of private beaches that we couldn't sit on. Very quickly we were done with our site seeing and excited to take the boat back to experience the coastline from another angle. And what a ride it was!! The water here is famously choppy and the boat bounced along with a mane of white surf all the way back to Sorrento. I was stood up most the way, well hanging over the side for the view. It was great. Not only was there a whole world below the road that we had seen from the bus but also as much again above it. Houses, hotels, terraces and pools all testimony to daring engineering. It was truely awesome not least because of how many miles it stretched out over. It left me at least once suggesting to Jo that we should make working as crew on a boat our next adventure. (she knew me well enough to greet this with a sigh and a "yes dear")

The next day we were off to Pompei, a city frozen in time when it was buried in the fallout of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. The sheer scale of the site is what sticks in your mind and we were amazed by how vividly you could see life in those times and overall how little has changed! There was obviously evidence of workers from doctors to bakers and perfumiers and of course the more military or government pursuits. There were political campaign adverts "ye olde vote for me" banners painted by the streets. Snack bars and saunas, a central square for events and passing the time. There were theatres for entertainment and an ampitheatre for sport, sacrifices or to watch justice served. There was even a brothel and, if you looked in the right spots there was preserved graffiti - a Caesar with a large nose or something equally naughty.

Outside the town were memorials to the great and the good who had died and of course the more humble memorials to the common man. It was a long and hot walk but we both enjoyed it and then fell immediately and gratefully for the over priced bottle of ice cold water as we left.

Our last excursion from our base in Sorrento was Naples. We'd read that it is a dirty, hectic and crime infested place. The first two were already our opinion of Italy and the third we didn't think could be worse than England so off we set!

Without doubt Naples is everything it was billed as - but for some reason we both loved it. To cross a road you literally had to 'make the cars have it'. Just in leaving the station there were tens of stalls offering to sell you knock off or imitation goods and I was offered at least one iPhone for €50 by blokes who seemed reluctant to get their fingerprints on them! We didn't see any particularly beautiful sights, we didn't have any great meals or special purchases but for some reason the city just had a great buzz that we both loved. The traffic in Sorrento that evening was a breeze in comparison, we seemed to just stroll along easily looking practically local!!

Fuelled with this new confidence we were to depart for Rome - a city that in anybody's books contains so many "must dos" in your lifetime. There's so much - the Colosseum, the Panthenon, Trevi Fountain, Vatican, Sistene Chapel and much much more. There must be plenty of artists and architects that have spent lifetimes studying the city and still only scratched the surface. Rome for me though is like staring at a lightbulb, it dazzles you. Some of the greatest works of art serve as filler between ones that are hailed as even better. Overall I think I was a bit overwhelmed.

Quite apart from the art there are so many stylish people, big shades, colourful jeans - even the few chavs we saw had manbags and trendy baseball caps!!

Take the Sistene Chapel for example. This serves as the Popes own private chapel but the walk to it for most tourists takes a good hour and passes through corridor after corridor of Renaissance art, of intricate maps of Italy and finally through a set of apartments painted by Raphael. For us then entering the Sistene Chapel sort of lost its 'wow' factor. It wasn't like comparing my best efforts at a mural with Micelangelo ... it was grand masters set against each other!

We went from there into the Cathedral and, as you would expect, we have never seen such a grand church before. The sheer scale of the sculptures, the pulpit, floors walls and ceilings. They'll never be a thermometer shaped board hung outside recording donations for a new roof or Brownies selling flapjacks towards a new mini bus there that's for sure!!

For both of us our favourite sight in Rome was the Trevi fountain. I think part of the reason was as it was so unexpected. We'd been down similar types of alleys looking for the Mannequin Pis and been sorely disappointed but instead this search was worthwhile! The magnificent sculptures were given life by the pounding waters around them. You stared and stared but couldn't take it all in, and that was just the bits you could see through the other tourists! It was fantastic but then, as apparently Italy is prone to in mid September, the weather broke and the rains came. They didn't just trickle, shower or even have heavy downpours. We were talking heavy thunderstorms and tent flooding, suddenly we were both completely over camping! Huddled in the tent though we watched Gladiator again and brought the Colesseum to life which distracted us nicely from how the floor was like standing on a waterbed. It was time to leave - next stop Florence.

The campsite itself in Florence is one of the highlights. It shares almost exactly the same view as one of the best viewing platforms in the town offering gorgeous views of the towns teracotta roof tops and the imposing Cathedrals dome. The town itself is gorgeous and from there we did a day trip to Pisa. For those that are interested 'yes' it's still leaning and 'no' we didn't take a photo of us trying to push it straight! We did however sit and watch other people doing it Left arm up a bit, one step in, Lean forward a bit, back a bit, yes, hold it, sorry, wait for these people to pass, right now, no, sorry you had your eyes closed

One thing we didn't expect was how pretty the tower itself would be. For Jo it became one of her favourite ever pieces of architecture. Simple white marble with darker brown and grey details and a church behind to match. Bless the tourist office, they try really hard to make it only part of the reason to visit Pisa but we saw it, had a quick look round the pretty town centre and another exceptional ice cream and left! That evening we enjoyed how friendly our site was and shared a great evening with a lovely couple - she from Ireland he from Aus who had plenty of great travelling stories to share.

We did a day trip to Venice, which was lovely and everything you'd expect especially if you just enjoy getting lost in its little streets of, but somehow didn't set either of us on fire. After that we moved on to the quiet life, back to the west coast and to the Cinque Terre (5 villages). These little places barely have roads and are listed as conservation areas and great for hiking. They restored a little faith in me that Italy can be beautiful and the idea of conservation was one I thought had escaped the place - at one of the campsites I asked where the recycling point was and the guy just laughed at me!

It was fantastic to see this side of Italy. We had the time and weather to enjoy the beach, hike in the countryside and relax at the campsite. All in all an excellent way to say goodbye to Italy. Possibly underwhelmed, probably just dazzled and over pizza, unable to be anything but tourists pressed along with the scores of other people seeing the 'musts' of Europe.

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