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Published: August 5th 2007
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Hello people,
Im writing my very last entry from Italy now.
I’ll start with Pisa. On my way from Florence to Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore), I stopped in Pisa for a while to visit the leaning tower. By coincidence I met Tiffany there, a girl from California who was staying at the same hostel in Rome. We spent all the time in Pisa together, where I had the best Italian ice cream ever. When I went back to the train station, by coincidence I met Peter, a Dutch friend, and his girlfriend. They came out of the train I had to board. My train departed about 20 minutes later so we had some time to talk.
After arriving in Riomaggiore I went to the hostel: a lot of walking and climbing: 300 > steps from the main street up the where the room was. I put my stuff there and went back down to look around. And then by coincidence I met with Cindy and Lucas, the Australians I met in Sorrento as well. We talked for a while and later I went to get some food. After sunset I went back upstairs, had a chat with the
roommates and went to bed.
The next day we planned to do walk through all the five villages. Cinque Terre consists of five villages, located along the coast with steep rocks. From southeast to northwest, the names are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The last one has the best beaches, but I liked Vernazza and Riomaggiore more. There is a walking path which links all the five towns. The distance is about 10 km and the whole route takes about 5 hours. I went with two of my roommates. We took it slow, no hurry here. The towns are gorgeous and very unique. Once they were just villages where many fisherman live, nowadays there are many tourists around but the fishermen are still there. The walking itself was pretty though, especially from Corniglia up to Monterosso: dozens of steps. But it was worth it for sure! We had lunch in Vernazza and in Monterosso we stayed at the beach for a while. We took the train back to Riomaggiore, where we had dinner. I went to bed early, because the next day I had to take the train at 7:27am.
The next day I arrived in Venezia-Mestre around
14:00, where I met with Luca and Lucia. I know Luca and Lucia for almost 2,5 years now, I met them when I went to Tenerife with Ingrid and we spent some days together on the island. That’s where I started to learn some basic Italian. I had to, because they didn’t speak much English or Spanish. It was fun because we could understand each other pretty well. Back in Holland I tried to practice and learn some Italian on my own, and also by emailing with Lucia. Now it’s much easier to communicate with them because my Italian is better now, of course not fluent at all but enough to make myself understandable to people here. The whole afternoon we stayed at home because I was tired of the journey. They live in Noale, a small town just out of Venice, together with Lucia’s mom. The mom was living alone in such a big house and they decided to move in as well. We ate some pasta and later I went to sleep for a while. In the evening we went to Lido di Jesolo, which is a town just northeast of Venice with a lot of disco’s, bars
and of course many tourists around….also many Italian tourists! There is a long beach here, but you have to pay to use it, unless you’re a guests at one of the hotels there. In Monterosso there was also a beach where you had to pay. So not only in Curacao you have to pay for some beaches, here too!
The next day we went to the Lago di Garda (Garda Lake). This lake lies west of Verona and is very popular by tourists. As we drove into the area you could notice that: many foreign cars, especially German and Dutch (lots of makamba’s here too!). The lake is very nice, and the water had a very nice colour. We spent the whole afternoon around, just relaxing and chilling around….especially in a town called Sirmione and another town called Pischiera del Garda. There was a part where you was allowed to swim but we didn’t. In the evening we went to dinner in Mirano, at a restaurant where Luca's little sister, Melania, works. It was her evening working there. Andrea, Luca's brother, also had dinner with us together with his girlfriend and three other friends of Luca.
The next day
we didn't do much. Travelling really is tiring and some days you just have to relax and do little or nothing. So today I slept untill about 12:00 and then we went for a while to Andrea's workplace (car dealer), where Luca brought his car so they can repair it's right mirror which was broken. Now he got another car to drive while they're repairing his car. In the evening we had dinner at home together with two cousins of Luca: Chiara and Mauricio, and also Kenia, Mauricio's Cuban girlfriend.
The next day we woke up early and went to Venice downtown. It wasn't hot because during the whole morning the sky was overcast. Venice is very very nice and unique!!! I liked it very much. There are no cars in the city, everything happens by boat: taxi, public transportation etc. We went also to the island Murano, where they make several things out of glass. In Venice again I met with Lucas and Cindy (from Australia) by coincidence. The famous Piazza San Marco was, of course, full of tourists. If you want to sit down here and drink something, don't order more than one drink because the prices
are skyrocketing (6 EUR of one coffee!) The biggest channel in the city is the Canal Grande, where you can also find the Ponte Rialto. We were back home around 8pm and later we went to dinner with friends of Luca & Lucia: Marco and Elisa. Marco is a taxi driver and four times he took girls, married to rich man, by taxi from Venice till Milan just to buy a Prada dress for 2500 EUR, or a Gucci purse for 1800 EUR etc etc. Such a ride Venezia-Milano-Venezia costs at least 500 EUR.
Today I'm leaving to Croatia by bus, where I'll be working for 4 weeks on a campingsite for a Dutch travel organization. Of course I'll have some days off, enough to see and visit around the area. After Croatia I'll be back in Holland for 2 days and then I'll leave to Kiev, Ukraine where I'll spend 9 days visiting a Curaçaon friend.
Italy was great for sure, and I hope I'll come back one day! There much to see here and it's a country I recommend everyone to visit one day. The Italians are pretty crazy but fun and nice people.
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Byron
non-member comment
Italië is een leuk land ja ^^