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Published: July 11th 2008
It's all Roho again today I'm afraid, got a bit of catching up to do!
Let's start with Florence. We spent five nights there and I loved it. It wasn't quite as hot as Rome but pretty darn close. Our accommodation was a camping ground about 6km out of the city centre. A lovely place but a bit of a hike from the bus stop - and you never knew if you were going to get an air con bus or not! OK it was only a 10 minute walk but there was blazing sun and a big huge nasty hill to climb just when you got to the camping ground and thought it was all over.
Anyway the night we arrived we went for a quick walking tour and dinner with the Busabout guide - it was good to take the walk and get a bearing on Florence and we got some smashing sunset pics (yes, they will come, all in good time). The dinner was ... interesting ... we were promised a four course Italian meal for €15 - the first two courses, bruschetta and mixed pasta, were fab, the main and gelato a bit average. But
Florence Duomo
Duomo is Italian for "Dome", it was stunning, and licorice coloured outside.still pretty good value.
Next day we attempted to get up early to go 'gallery-ing' and did as all the tourists do in Florence - queued for more than an hour and a half at the Uffizi, one of the world's most famous galleries - it's the mostly Renaissance collection of the Medici Family, who ruled Florence for centuries. Poor old Richard had a helluva time but I absolutely loved it, totally an Art History highlight for me and well worth the wait. Some seriously, like, seriously famous paintings.
From the Uffizi it was on to the Duomo, the big ole cathedral in the centre of Florence. Beautiful church and a very interesting excavation in the basement we had a look around of the ancient church that originally occupied the spot.
OK memory is a little hazy of the rest of the day, I don't have my little journal of notes with me, no doubt I'll remember at 3am...
Anyway next day was our big day trip to the Cinque Terre, five tiny villages on a stretch of UNESCO protected coastline. The town to get to them is La Spezia, which is a Busabout stop but
Sangria with a view
This was taken in an Irish Pub with a great balcony view of the Duomo in Florence. we hadn't been able to get accommodation so we did a day trip instead. Up early, on a train, which we caught with literally seconds to spare. Two and a half hours later we hit the first (actually the furthest away) town, Monterosso. Long story short, the towns are absolutely gorgeous, totally worth it and Richard swears he saw Phil Keoghan in Vernazza. I'm not so sure.
Third day in Florence was our rest day, so that was nice.
Last day and Richard was on laundry duty again while I traipsed off early to go and see all my other arty treasures. First the Palazzo Pitti, the Pitti Palace, with another very awesome collection and impressive apartments. Next the Brancacci Chapel at the church of Santa Maria del Carmine to see some very very famous frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino - the accompanying movie was very good although the cool shade and afternoon heat sent most of us dozing...shame! Then across town to the Santa Maria Novella, home of another very famous Masaccio fresco that I actually found quite disappointing, small and in worse condition than the pictures I've seen. What else did I do? Oh yes, I
Cinque Terre
This is basically 5 little villages on the West Coast of Italy that are UNESCO Protected World Heritage Sites. went to the Medici Chapel, their family church where they're all buried and where Michelangelo had his first go at architecture, complete with extremely ugly sculptures.
All our dinners in Florence were 'self catered' - that is, the camping ground had a kitchen next to our cabin so we had pasta four nights in a row...and unfortunately it was the best pasta we ate in Italy - that's not to say the pasta in Italy was yuck, just that we probably couldn't afford the good stuff. Plus it's good to know what we make at home is just as good as the real thing.
Then it was on to the French Riviera - Nice to be precise, intended as a base to explore the rest of the area.
On the way from Florence we stopped for a sightseeing stop at Pisa, for the obvious tourist attraction. The bus held a cheesy photo competition - you know those crappy photos everyone takes of themselves pretending to try to hold the tower up and all that bullshit - well the competition was for the best picture in that style. Yeah we won! There was NO WAY I was EVER
going to do something so arse as pretend to hold that thing up. We do have a picture of all the people who were posing that way though. Dorks. A combination of my idea and Richard's execution won the competition - turning the tower into a giant ice cream for me to lick. Yes, picture will be here at some point. We won a little wooden Pinocchio toy. We are so cool.
Our first day in Nice we spent exploring - we went up to the Parc Chateau, where there is a spectacular view of the airport and aeroplanes taking off. As we got off the free shuttle that takes lazy munters like us up the hill to the top, we were accosted by a woman selling tickets to what we thought was the festival looking thing going on behind her. So we bought some, €6 each and went on in. Food stalls, check...artsy stalls, check...feminist communists, check....wait....what? Seems we had stumbled on some kind of communist fair. I shit you not. Once things began to sink in we literally saw communism everywhere...timetables for political debates, people in red clothes with hammers, sickles and stars on them, stalls selling
Leaning Tower of Pisa
You don't really realise how much it is leaning until you are standing in front of it. Cuba Libres...seriously. And lots of banners for various communist groups. We high tailed it out of there (after a curious little nosy) and looked at our mystery tickets again - turned out we'd bought tickets for some sort of jazz and reggae festival on that night. Yup.
We bought some wine for dinner (and cheese and other yummy stuff) and stuck it in the fridge at the hostel. Two and a half hours later we went to get it...gone. I mean really. So I left an arsey note on the fridge door and we went ahead and had dinner. The hostel kitchen and courtyard closed at 8pm and you had to move into a 'chill out room' where unbeknownst to us, until that night, the proprietor served free white wine. OK, it was awful, sweet white wine but it was FREE and the owner of the place was so friendly, it was a nice little night in.
Day Two in Nice - time for a Riviera day trip. Jump on the train, disembark in Monaco. Head to the tourist office, yes, I'll have a stamp in my passport, please.
On the bus on the way in our
Award Winner!!
This won us the best photo competition on the bus! We got a little toy Pinocchio!! guide had told us about Riviera Radio, an expat station based in Monaco. We thought it sounded interesting so googled it. Lo and behold a brand new ad on their website for presenters and journalists! We emailed the boss and told him we were in town for one day and we'd love to meet him.
Having not heard back from him the day we went to Monaco, we decided to rock on up to the station anyway. We got the address, found it and walked into an empty office. We had to walk through the entire place before we found someone who told us the boss would be back in an hour or so. We got to walk past the studios...niiiice.
So we retired to a nearby expat bar and had a beer and a pizza, watched the Tour de France and some darts on TV and discussed how hard it would be to move to Monaco.
Back up to the radio station, awkward explanation about not having an appointment, and being set to wait in what we think passed for a meeting room. Nosily looking at the sales charts, sales promotions (the winner of a new
client campaign, getting 12 new clients in three months, won €2000, second prize was a weekend in London and third prize was...something...three prizes for five reps...nice). Out comes the boss finally....and gives us the big fob. The kind of look we give schoolkids at 1XX when they turn up asking for jobs. Except at 1XX Glenn does actually give them the time of day. Shame. So that was a disappointing end to the day but it was pissing in the wind really anyway.
Apart from that we loved Monaco, Ferraris, Bentleys, other fancy pants cars everywhere. You can pay €45 to be driven around the Grand Prix circuit in a (red) Ferrari or €85 to drive yourself. A bit out of our price range, just like a real Ferrari really.
After Nice it was a long day on the bus to Spain and Barcelona. For the first time we weren't staying at the Busabout recommended accommodation so we had to have a hike from the drop off point to our hostel, not a happy Rohani. I LOATHE carrying my backpack. Our hostel was nice, very youthy and a little bit Christian. We had a range of interesting roommates
over our three nights, including one who was stupid enough to fall asleep on her intercity train and have her wallet stolen.
We didn't do too much in Barcelona, we rambled down Las Ramblas, kind of a pedestrianised Queen Street, but much choicer, obviously. Down the bottom you get to the port and the Christopher Columbus column marking where he landed after discovering the Americas. We toyed with the idea of a harbour cruise but decided to eat instead. He he. There is a market off Las Ramblas called Mercat de la Boqueria and oh..my..god. We decided to lunch at a restaurant there which had a very cheap 'menu' (lunch deal) - salad and paella for €11.90 - the salad itself was huge and would've been a decent lunch on its own - tuna, boiled egg...and the paella....it arrived in a huge cauldron with chicken, mussels, clams, squid, prawns...and it was SOOOOOO good.
What was also good was the jug of sangria that arrived after we ordered 'two sangrias'...until the bill arrived and you saw where they made up the loss on the menu price. Lunch for two: €24. Huge jug of sangria: €16.50 - oh well. I
Socca is famous in Nice
Socca is a chick pea flour and olive oil pancake sort of thing. Really yummy! think it was worth it. That paella was what dreams are made of.
Yesterday was another quiet day, a little wander around to the nearby Le Cortes Inglese, the Spanish equivalent of Takashimaya or something between Farmers and Smith and Caugheys. There was a lovely supermarket, deli, bakery and gourmet store in the basement - I spotted some goodies you can buy at Sabato and you can be reassured they are just as expensive here!
We wanted tapas for dinner but we were a bit early (8pm ish) and couldn't wait so we ended up eating at some sort of burger chain which is much better than McDs or BK but not quite up there with Burger Fuel. It was good, different, unusual.
I'm finding the Spanish people really really friendly, it's amazing who speaks English - at this Internet Cafe for example the young guy at the counter didn't speak English but the old guy he was serving did. I'm also loving, LOVING tortilla...I've had it for dinner from a supermarket, for breakfast with sausages, for lunch in a baguette...all good. And if you're wondering why I would eat bread inside bread, you need to go
Dinner anyone??
Let's just say we steered well clear of eating here while in Nice!!! find out what Spanish tortilla is.
Not too impressed with today's Busabout guide, as we drove into Valencia he told us last year's America's Cup was the first to be held outside America...no prizes for guessing which part of the Western world he was from...needless to say I corrected him as quickly and firmly as possible - and proceeded to get hated on by half the bus for it! He he. People always hate the smarmy know it all. Rohani - smarmy know it all and proud!
Anyway we're well overdue for some tapas so I'm outta here - perhaps Richard will get on with some photos at some point soon.
Cheerio, adios!
Roho
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Christine
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At Last...
Hi Guys, well guess what, I finally got Deanna to find your Blog site for me and have sat and read your whole site - what a wonderful book this would make - you really have had the most wonderful time I know it is hard to describe things to people who have not been to these places but I have to say you're doing a pretty good job - keep up the good work oh and happy birthday Richard for the 20th June! Will be able to check in regularly now and enjoy all the giggles! Don't worry about the bad language nana's not averse to a few choice words herself!