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Published: June 29th 2006
Yes...I seem to be behind again. I will attempt to be prompt as it's midnight in Naxos right now, and I have the rather unglamorous task of registering for my classes in an hour. Oh happy day.
So when I last left off we were going a little nuts in the shopping department in Florence. One most notable thing about our time in Florence I must mention, was the fact that I had the best meal of my life. Il Trattoria Casalinga...omg. It all began with the local specialty, Rabollita soup, followed by some roasted potatoes swimming in olive oil and garlic, and topped up of course with Tiramisu. Definite trip highlight oh my. Italy was not kind to our waste-lines or wallets, but it still definitely ranks very close to #1 among all the countries that we've visited so far.
After Florence we headed off to one of our last major sight-seeing cities: Rome. We had some pretty great times in Rome. We were staying at an amazing hostel, where we spent our time with the fun staff, and in the kitchen cooking up masterpieces from the grocery store (not counting our attempt to make stir fry out
Trevi Fountain
Making a wish hehe. :)of frozen italian vegetables...puke). We obviously crammed our days full of sightseeing, as well as doing a walking tour in order to familiarize ourselves with the majority of the history, and the location of all the major sites. Over the next two days we visited the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Jewish Ghetto, Trajans Column, the Pantheon, the Capitaline Museum (including the Colossus statue of Constantine and the infamous She-Wolf), the Marcellus theatre (currently called home by both Sophia Loren and Roberto Benini, who live in the apartments built above), Palatine Hill, the Roman Circus (the course where they ran their chariot races)...and soooo much more. My favorite day in Rome was spent in Vatican city of all places where we saw one of the worlds biggest celebrities...THE POPE!!!! I honestly don't think that any of us could have anticipated just how excited we would get by this sighting...but seriously...so cool. Every Wednesday the Pope holds a public audience and does a little tour around the crowds in his Pope-mobile. What else can we say but...the Pope is my home-dawg. He's my Pope-Dawg. (Sorry...inside joke hehe). Too cool though. After that we spent the entire afternoon touring the Vatican Museum,
The Colosseum
...from the inside. including the Sistine Chapel. This however was not the highlight as expected...no, we came to a realization that day that I don't think any of us had expected. We are all massive map-nerds. Seriously, they have the biggest ancient map display in the world in the Vatican museum, and Steph, Danielle and I revisited the site at least three times throughout the day. And we all bought a book of maps. Nerds on parade, I'm telling you.
We also got to see a bit of the nightlife in Rome, as tourist pubcrawls are everywhere. We did a really fun one through our hostel on our first night of arrival, then did one of the larger ones, called the 'Spanish Steps pubcrawl'...now I have to say, I like Americans just as much as the next person, but when you're the ONLY Canadians in a massive group of Americans it's a little hard to handle. After being outcasted all night, we actually started telling people that we were from Dade County, Florida. I kid you not, WE ACTUALLY STARTED TO MAKE FRIENDS. Ridiculous I know. Desperate times call for desperate measures though. The pubcrawl itself was a bit of a joke
in general though, as the last bar that we went to was a pretty extreme Techno club...so we decided to make our own party by tying our free t-shirts around our necks as capes and dancing our faces off. Perhaps there's more to our outcasted status than the fact that we're Canadian haha. Ah well...an interesting night allround. The curse of the American pubcrawl continued however, as when I did my laundry a few days following, the dye from my pubcrawl shirt leaked and ruined two of my favorite tanktops!! When will the madness end?!?!
We finished off our time in Rome with fabulous memories, and if our coins that we threw into the Trevi Fountain have their way, then we will all be returning shortly. 😊
After Rome it was time for our last Italian stop. The touristy town of Sorrento, just one hour south of Naples. Now this was a new experience, as it was our first camping stop on the trip. Now I must say, Europeans know how to camp. This was not your standard BC tent and camp fire pit kind of place. We had our own private cabins, private beach, pool, restaurant, mini-mart.
Pub Crawling In Rome
Making our own fun...who needs Dade County when you've got capes?! You name it, this place had it. Deluxe to say the least. We also met some cool Brazilian girls on our bus ride over, and ended up hanging out with them and a bunch of other people from the campsite, and heading out to the English Inn, which we find out later was THE place to go in Sorrento...haha. Who knew. We definitely welcomed the experience after our last disastrous pubcrawl, and were not disappointed. Good good times. Italians certainly know how to party.
We spent the next day poolside, and in the evening joined the other campers in our deluxe campsite restaurant to watch the football on TV. Now that was an experience. Watching Italy in the World Cup with Italians, in Italy. Madness. PLUS it was Italy versus the US. Interesting to see the dynamic between the 12 or so Americans who were staying there, versus the 60 or so Italians. The game was red card back and forth madness, and you could certainly feel the tension in the room. At one point when Italy scored, a guy at the table next to me almost knocked over his beer, and successfully managed to send his chair flying.
English Inn Sorrento
People can be very odd...case in point, this Italian Man. The Italians, they don't let much distract them from chasing females...but football seems to be the one exception. Needless to say, Italy took the win, and us Canadians had a good laugh at the scene around us, while enjoying our gourmet grilled vegetables and marinara pizza. Seriously, camping...who knew.
The next day we hit the sites hard. We started off in Pompeii, when we spent about 4 hours surveying the grounds, then took the metro 20 minutes away, where we caught a bus to Mount Vesuvius, and proceeded to climb to the top in the sweltering mid-day heat. Amazing experience, but wow...so hot. After that we almost couldn't go on, but we pushed through the pain and finished off the day in Herculaneum. Holy exhaustion batman. I gotta say we were looking pretty good as we strolled through the swanky streets of downtown Sorrento at about 9pm that day, after spending more than 12 hours sight-seeing in the dust and heat, probably reeking of B.O., and to top things off, me with a most attractive sun rash on the backs of my legs. Meow. To make matters worse, we were leaving to take a ferry to Corfu the following
Pompeii
Chilling sights. morning, and realized that the only way we could make the schedule work, would be to wake up at 5am the following morning. Aiiii...travelling good times.
The next morning we struggled through our tiredness, and took three separate trains to get us the the eastern Italian port-town of Brindisi. I slept through every single train ride, and actually managed to feel somewhat human by the time we bought our tickets for the overnight ferry to Corfu. Longest travel day by far. So at 9pm we boarded our ferry, spent a couple hours watching Fernando Torres kick some butt for Spain in the TV room, then found a nice spot in the cafeteria booths to bunker down for the night. What a day. 5am our wakeup call came. We dismounted the boat, and just like that we were in Greece. Luckily it was all uphill from there, as the bus for our hostel was waiting there to pick us up, and by 7am we were sitting in a waiting room, about to get breakfast and a room. Thank god. Only problem was, our hostel was the Pink Palace. Under normal circumstances this would not be a problem, except that this
So Very Tired
Burning up in the theatre in Pompeii. is a hostel renowned for it's crazy party atmosphere...so of course, as a welcome, they gave us all a pink shot of Ouzo. At 7am. Aiiiiiiiiii...
All I can say is that it was a sign of things to come. We spent the next three days and three nights lying on the beach all day, and partying at the Palladium (yes, aside from having it's own beach, pool, basketball/volleyball courts, boat etc etc...they have their own night club) all night. We also did a booze cruise during our second day, which took us on the most amazing tour around the island. Unfortunately for safety reasons none of us had brought our cameras (camera overboard = not good times), but we saw some pretty amazing sites. They also took us cliff jumping, to a private secluded beach on the other side of the island for snorkelling, and swimming throught the caves and grottos. We finished off the boat ride back with some singing and dancing, and Captain George took us in to port around 7pm. Just in time to get a few hours of sleep before heading off to the Palladium for the Ouzo circle...an event consisting of Greek traditional
Vesuvius
Looking down at Sorrento from Europe's only active volcano. dancers, and plates being smashed on our heads. Oh the madness. By the dawn of our fourth morning, we were all ready to leave, but what can you say about the Pink Palace that has not already been said. It's quite a place...and we were sad to see it go, although our poor bodies were definitely happy to say goodbye. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Corfu was the beginning of the saga of...the poo flu.
Maybe it was the free dinners they served us, maybe it was the tap water we occasionally forgot about and used to brush our teeth...who knows. We'd all been warned about illness in Greece, and we'd been sooo careful, but lo and behold, it got us all. And what timing. We left Corfu at 9pm on the bus trip that went directly to Athens. And by direct I mean, not direct at all. 2 hours of bus was followed by 2 hours of ferry, followed by 1 hour of bus, 30 minutes of ferry, and then 6 hours of bus. Add to the mix that we were all feeling nauseous, and it was a baaaaaaad night. We arrived in the middle of Athens at 7am,
Vesuvius
The Volcano itself...sadly lacking any sort of excitement in the form of liquid maaagma. groggy eyed and confused, and just in time to take the metro to the port, where we literally ran to catch the only early boat to Mykonos. We spent most of the six hour ferry ride sleeping on the deck, and arrived in Mykonos a little worse for wear. Luckily, the greek system of ferry pickups struck again, and though we squeezed thirteen people into a van that was meant to seat about 7, we made it to Paradise Camping Mykonos, ready to die. Death unfortunately was not an option, as our time was limited, and we had to be up early for a day trip to the nearby island of Delos to see the ruins.
Delos was very cool. An uninhabited island, absolutely covered with ruins dating back thousands of years. We spent a few hours seeing the highlights of the sights, then headed back on the ferry to Mykonos. What a crazy experience on the boat though...a girl we spoke to said she had been travelling here every year since she was young, and she had NEVER seen waves this big. Danielle and I braved the outer decks for a short while, until we were basically soaked
head to toe, and began fearing for our lives...then we decided to head inside and enjoy the madness from the safety of our seats haha.
Camping, did not disappoint once again. The beach was AMAZING. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend some time there upon our return from Delos...as long as you ignored the wrinkly old naked people, it pretty much was paradise. Beach side bars and restaurants were packed with people dancing and drinking all day, and grass huts covered the beaches, which were just amazing. Crystal clear turquoise waters...beautiful. Mykonos as you can tell is a bit of a crazy party town, and luckily for us, we had arrived just in time for the first 'Bubble Party' of the season, which was being held at the Paradise Club, one of the biggest clubs in Mykonos, directly next to our campsite. The party features the biggest bubble machine in Europe, ane although we weren't sure exactly what that entailed, we knew it was something not to be missed. Unfortunately Danielle and Steph were not well enough to attend (nicknamed Thunder and Rumble respectively by our Australian neighbours), but Emma and I put in a good
Welcome to Greece!!
Home of windy and unreliable ferries haha. showing, staying out long enough to watch the sun rise over the waters of Greece...what a place.
Next day was time for another ferry day, as our island-hopping adventures continued. Everything was planned out perfected for an early arrival in Naxos. Unfortunately for us, the Greek ferries are not quite as reliable as our itineraries, and we spent 4 long hot hours waiting in the port for our ferry to leave. Oi.
The past couple days in Naxos have been great...despite the everpresent force known as poo-flu (we are finally all in recovery mode though...thank the lord...and immodium). We spent a relaxing day riding the waves at the beach just down the street from our hotel, and got lots and lots of sleep...something which has been rather absent from out schedule of late. This afternoon we checked out and went to book our afternoon ferry to Ios. Greek ferries strike again...all ferries to Ios had been cancelled. Hooraaaaaaay. We were all pretty bummed as we were all really looking forward to spending lots of time in Ios, but there was nothing to be done. So we checked back in to our Pension and tried to figure out how
Pink Palace
Dancing at the Palladium. :) we could make the best of another day on the small island of Naxos. We thought maybe of renting ATV's, but were disappointed to find out there was not half-day rate, and we'd have to pay the full day rate. Turns out however, the full day rate for an ATV rental was only 14 euros!!! So off we went for a Naxos ATV adventure. Good times on wheels that's for sure. We explored several of the other island beaches, and did some off-roading through some cornfields, even attempted to head up one of the mountains, but were turned around by a Greek granny haha. ATV's are pretty fun I gotta say...but at one point I had a good laugh, as I caught Danielle and my shadow in the sand and pointed out that we looked like a lesbian biker couple. And so, our new alterego's have emerged. I will henceforth be referred to as Honda, and Danielle and Berryl. Don't ask about the names, they were both ATV yelling misunderstandings. Honda has a career in piracy, while Berryl is a 'man' of leisure. They spend their days riding around on their motorbike named 'Sally'. Keep posted for updates on their
Mykonos
So very many pelicans...cool to look at until they run in your direction and the fear of being speared sets in...*shudder* adventures through the Greek islands. We had a pretty good laugh at the idea, and when I suggested I didn't really like these new alter-egos, Danielle simply said: "It's a force greater than us Julia". Truer words were never spoken. Hhahahha.
So here I am in an internet cafe in Naxos. In half an hour I will register for classes in September, then I will be in bed by 1:30 if I'm lucky, as I have to re-pack after today's change in plans. 4am we wake up, and 5am we (hopefully) board our boat to Ios. What a life.
Hope you've all enjoyed the ramblings of our crazy times. Two weeks til we return to normal life again! Ahhh!!!
xo,
Julia a.k.a. Honda
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