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Published: October 29th 2006
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After leaving the Eberhards place we headed to Venice staying the night in the swiss town of Tenero on the way. We met up with the Vermaat troupe at Fusina. Here there was a busy, touristy campground from which you could look over the water to see the islands of Venice in the distance.The next day we caught the boat to Venice. It felt like we were walking around in a postcard. Got lost in the winding streets at least once and had to jog back to catch the ferry in time. Then we headed straight to Florence. We got our first awesome Itaian pizza there, but the camp ground was miles away. That night was the semi final of the Soccer and when Italy won the Italians felt the need to drive round and round the streets with their hands on their horns and car alarms going. Even the deaf couple camped next to us had trouble sleeping because they could feel the noise. The next day we had a look around the big dirty touristy city of Florence. There seemed to be almost as many burnt english tourists as there was Italans selling them souveneers. I decided to wait
in a queue for two hours to see some Michelangelo sculptures and Steven opted for wandering aroung town looking for the always elusive camping shop to buy a liquid fuel bottle. Then we pretty much got out of there as quickly as we could and headed to Siena.
I loved Siena it was like the smaller, less touristy, cleaner version of florence. It was built on a hill and all the streets wound round and up and down. It was hot and sunny here with intermittent pouring rain and thunderstorms then sun again. We really wanted to get out into the tuscan country side. So we caught the first train that went in the opposite direction of any major city, it went throught the coolest country side, just like you would imagine. Hills and covered in olives and sunflowers and grains and dotted with villas yew trees, and through little towns with the paint peeling off the stations. We ended up getting off at a town called Montepulcano, the train station was miles from the town center and the place was eirely dead.
Eventually we found out from the station bar owner that there is no camping
ground in montepulcano but he said there might be one in Sarteano. We had to catch the train to another town (where all the shops were closed untill four o clock which meant we missed lunch) and waited in another down pour for the bus. While we were waiting an enthusiastic Italian kept talking to us in Italian even though we kept telling him we didn't understand. The camping ground at Sarteano was worth it. It was like a village in it self, with a restaurant, cafe, 3 huge swimming pools, tennis court and more showers and whash basins that you have ever seen in one place. The town of sarteano was also great. A sleepy tuscan town with cobbled streets and too many 3 wheeled cars. We stayed a few days here just relaxing in the sun and bought fresh pasta and went to a pizza restaurant that had 200 varieties of pizza and a hardcase waiter. This is also where we discovered custard or chocolate filled crossants which we lived on for the next while.
Next we brifly stopped at Pizza, and yes I can confirm that the leaning tower is still leaning, though not as much
Me in Florence
it was a long hot day as it used to apparently. Tonight Italy won the world cup but aside from the owner of the mini supermarket letting off an airhorn inside while we were shopping, we still got a good nights sleep because the majority of the people in the campground were french, and they were being quietly depressed over their loss.
Levanto was our last town on the way out of Italy. It is one of those touristy beach towns. Beautifull white sand covered in colerfull beach umbrellas and bright blue mederteranien sea. There was a choice of 5 camp grounds but all of them were worse than anywhere we had stayed so far (and all of them had squatter toilets). I was so excited about swimming but the water was like a hot bath and so incredibly salty that I just felt less refreshed especially after having to dodge rubbish and slimy rocks. The next day was another train chainging marathon through our favorite city of Milan and back to Switzerland.
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