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Published: October 3rd 2013
Rome if you want to…by Mike While my lovely family will fill you in on the sights and sounds of these two fantastic cities (and I may to) there is always the other side to share.
I guess our road trip started when we left Hotel Mariano. We dragged our suitcases to the train station to catch the Metro B to Laurentina. First timers looking confused… this young lady then came up and offered assistance. She lead us down the escalators – just beckoning along…Michelle should have clicked when someone yelled to her “be careful” as she went down the escalator but she was balancing her suitcase at the time and thought they might have been referring to that. At about this time I started thinking we might be being led down a blind corner to be met by some goons but we are led to the ticket seller and I think – oh she’s drumming up business for him…I get it. I didn’t get it. We are led to the turnstiles for entry and the hand goes out. In Italian of course “I led you here now thank me properly…Michelle was incredulous…I had 50c in my hand…no no
she pointed at my tickets and so I slipped her a fiver…more than the tickets were worth. Lesson learned.
On to the train and cab to Freedom Campers – get the briefing (don’t drive into ZLT’s – no go zones for Camper Vans or you will get a fine) but the Tom Tom lent to us by the Williams is at the bottom of the suitcase. No matter – we can figure this. Catch Christopher Columbus into Rome Ring Road left – turn off and go to airport then right to Civitavecchia – go on to Orbatello – nice seaside town…so what do we do? WE DRIVE STRAIGHT INTO ROME AT PEAK HOUR AND I’VE NEVER DRIVEN AN RV IN MY LIFE!
I knew we were in trouble when we passed the Colloseo…no Tom Tom - no idea!! We drive into a ZLT – fine coming – and I do a 360/180 at a roundabout – “hey honey is that the Vatican?” I don’t give a f***!!! … I drive til I see a gap and stop…take a breath. OK I will use maps on my phone. I turn on dataroaming and plug in destination. Finally some sense!
Take right turn this way turn that way…in such a soothing voice…we get out to the airport…about 90 mins since our departure from Freedom and 30 mins since leaving Rome for the second time today….beep – txt message – you have reached your $150 data cap…lesson learned.
We keep winging it to Civitavecchia and end up entering a supermarket that had closed and front up to the supervisor with a full basket and told sorry…Michelle looked like she was going to cry and it worked – she reopened the till! I had seen another camper van parked at a servo and parked beside it. First night in RV on the bludge in a service station.
Bored yet?…we weren’t!
We take off the next day determined to get to Pisa in good time. After fumbling my way through a fill up at our friendly service station we started the journey to Orbetello. I say to the attendant where’s Bordatello – I think he was pointing me in the direction of a brothel! Second right hand turn and crash bang wallop. We have taken our kitchen set off the bench and we smash half of our rented crockery…another dent
in the deposit.
At least Billy (our friendly Tom Tom voice was not Sean Connery as originally thought, it was Billy Connolly) had joined us. “Turn around, don’t just turn around in the car, I mean turn the car around” “want to take the Toll Roads? – I am just doing as I’m told – don’t shoot the messenger” “you are at your destination – please thank me later…without me none of this would have been possible and you would have been hopelessly lost” “exit coming up…keep going”. Ha ha bloody ha Billy…I don’t think you are that funny a comedian now…not at all…in fact I wonder how many sales you have lost because of your Tom Tom gags?…anyway…
On to Pisa but as we enter the city boundaries we realise that we have asked Billy to take us into the city centre and he doesn’t know we are in an RV! Left left left…OMG we are in a one way street lined on both sides by parked cars and street peddlars…I can’t back out (there are already about three cars behind us) there’s no turning back! First two cars to negotiate – My wing mirror clips the
car and bends in…”mirrors in!”…slowly we edge foot by foot down the street with about three people giving me directions about 10 cars behind me (not honking thank god) but we did it!!!
Billy then calmly directs us to the camp ground for the rest of our day roll out.
So…lessons learned;
1. Don’t trust yourself
2. Make sure Billy is with you and on at all times
3. Don’t tell Billy you want to go to the city centre
4. Walking into town is better than driving in it
It is all part of the adventure – got to laugh…afterwards! Love it!
I spotted in Jacobs journal that he observed that “Mum and Dad suck at airports” – he has probably added driving, cities, towns and taking directions to that list by now!
A gals perspective of Pisa – Michelle It literally made my heart sing when we pulled into Pisa. Nothing like I had expected and so much more than I could have hoped for, what a beautiful city! A river running through the middle with bridges every now and then, not unlike Hamilton,
but the buildings were so Old Worlde, quaint and full of history and purpose. I literally fell in love for the next five minutes until we ended up in the one way street designed for motorbikes in our oversized campervan – Mike’s story! Anyhoo – drama averted we made our way to the campsite. Fantastic place full of hospitality and amenities we did not enjoy last night, hmmm, again Mike’s story!
I confess to having a very ignorant idea of Pisa, I thought it was little more than a tower on a lean in a medium sized Italian city. I couldn’t have been more wrong nor found a city I loved being in so much. Yes Pisa was a fortified city and the whole tower, cathedral, Baptiste building, museum and memorial monument are amazing! But they are only one part of the city of Pisa and Jacob will talk about the highlights of them.
For me a highlight of Pisa is the fact that it is a university town. Again making reference to Hamilton, it is very similar (in some respects). I would refer to the leaning tower and connected geographical tourist buildings as the religious centre of
old Pisa and this is filled with tourists. This is Jacob’s blog part but I must just make mention of the funniest part of our trip thus far. We have less photos of the leaning tower of Pisa than we do of random strangers adopting ridiculous poses to get photos looking like they are pushing/holding the tower up! Sorry for those I know will take offence but we called it mass tai chi in Pisa!
So the population is young and vibrant and the streets outside of the tower are filled with chat, laughter, motorbikes and many bicycles with little baskets on the front charging through the alley ways. It is a fun place lined with gelato shops, ristorante, speciality shops and market shops to the side. Those that appreciate detail will also appreciate a little café/ristorante with about six tables on the street making the effort to put a fresh bunch of colourful cut flowers as a table centrepiece. That was my experience of Pisa – beautiful, friendly, colourful and everything was served with love, but still a cool buzz and energy about the place. I could live here I said and Mike just knowingly rolled his eyes…
A guys perspective of Pisa – Jacob So when we arrived in Pisa we were in awe by all the old buildings and ancient architecture. The buildings towered high over-head while the ground was a cobble-stone pavement. We decided we wanted to try and see the leaning tower of Pisa so we found a motor-camp close to the fortified township of Pisa (Inside is where the tower and other buildings are located) so we set up shop and started walking to the township.
We finally arrived at the gate after carefully dodging the pesky street traders. Then we slowly stepped into the grand entrance consisting of stone from millennia ago. As we ventured deeper into the structure we saw the walls of the township expanding into the sky. We finally reached an open area of grass where we got a magnificent view of the Baptista. The Baptista had huge patterned marble pillars that held up its dome consisting of tiles with minute detail in the patterns that were layered so meticulously within them.
The crowds of people looked like sheep being herded by the tour guides. We had to firstly go get our tickets so we went to the museum and we bought our tickets. Then we went into the Baptista. It was silent and you could only hear the echos of your own footsteps. That was until one of those tourist groups came in and then you could hear talking.
After we had finished up in the Baptista we stepped out of the building and looked to our left to see a marble building that seemed to last forever. As we went closer Dad mentioned that it looked like it was out of ‘Lord of the rings’ I agreed. We discovered it was the Cemetery Memorial building. After being inside the building for a while I jumped when Dad told me we were walking on GRAVES. The floor was entirely made up of graves and on the walls there were marble coffins that were engraved with amazing artwork. In the middle of the complex there was an empty grass court yard. We learned that a large section of the Cemetery was blown up by a grenade in WWII.
That was all we ended up seeing that day, but the second day was the best in my opinion.
It is our second day in Pisa and we are all really eager to climb the leaning tower so we all get ready to go. After arriving for the second time in the little township of Pisa we go and line up for the leaning tower. Turns out the ticket we got yesterday was only good for one day…. That’s not what the lady told us. Anyways we go to the complaints section and we end up getting it recoded to today. We get in line and eventually go inside.
Once inside you realise how much of an angle it’s really on. Your mind starts to get confused after two minutes of being on such a strange angle. We climbed and climbed the seemingly endless staircase until we reached the top. My father and I gazed out into the distance at the expansive height… While mum was hugging the wall...
What happened after the leaning tower experience was my favourite one in Pisa. We were all hungry so we decided to go get a bite to eat. We passed this artist that used graffiti and random objects as a medium and I was interested so I stopped and watched. It was really cool but dad called me over to eat my food. Afterwards I pulled mum over and showed her the guy. We were both watching in awe until Dad decided to be a kill-buzz and told us to move on. After browsing shops we eventually made it back to the man and I was watching again. He asked if I wanted to look at his other work and my parents knew I wanted a picture so I looked through what he’d done. I chose a piece and we got a discount on it because he had noticed me watching and coming back to him. I got a picture with him and we talked about how I could begin to do the same as him.
We paid a quick visit into the cathedral before we left. It was like the one we saw in Roma…. BUT BETTER. That was all we did in Pisa apart from eat Pizza. I also bought some glasses. Aviators are round.
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Simmy and Carl
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Campervan
Literally in hysterics reading this, tears rolling down my face.....