days 10 and 11, when Rome became Florence, Italy became cheaper, air con forgot how to air con and public transport didn't beat us

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So yesterday we made it to Italy. Last year Italy was infinitely more expensive than anywhere, road tolls stretching into millions meals on the thousands etc etc. This year France tried to bankrupt us, Italy so far has been very kind financially which initially motivated us to see more so, we headed towards deepest darkest Italy, intending to stop at a beach. Apparently there's no parking anywhere at Italian beach resorts so after a futile half hour drive ( think wacky races if you want to know what Italian town driving is lie, I'm still not sure if they caught the pigeon) round a resort, we gave up and kept on going. We made it through the stupidly bad Italian motorway drivers, (many blokes trying to out do each other on total twatishness and no concept of correct lane discipkine) through a couple of wee stops to a supermarket near our next nights hotel. Having realised that this shop was out to get us through some quite big electric shocks from trolley, freezer cabinet and each other, ash decided chasing me round to try and re shock me would be a good plan. It wasn't......it hurt!! ( and I suspect we're on Italian you tube now or something!!) Arriving at the hotel which was at a spa, we felt very much like we were checking in for a colonic and, in all honesty, my feelings towards this hotel only got worse and a colonic would have been better. As we got into the room ( a studio no less) it became very clear that even though there was air con the room was a humid hot box. The reason? Air con unit placed facing up directly under a window. All it cooled was the windowsill. I was not happy. We watched two star trek films, ate tea and I was still not happy. All night, I was awake and not happy. At six am I got up and wrote my trip advisor reviews, still not happy. As ash eventually checked out for us, I went outside and realised I'd have been cooler outside all night.....great. Putting it all behind me with a nap while we drove, we headed for Florence. Florence was supposed to be Rome but a few days ago, we realised that a non-air conned train on a boiling day plus long walks round Rome in 38 degree heat would make for very sad ( grumpy, bad company) Fay. So instead we went to Florence. The tolls were about a tenth of France in cost, the city was lovely and the pizza cheap and exceptionally good. The public transport from our park and ride was quick and appeared to be great. For one stop at least then we were forced off the Tram by the scary driver. So, assuming another would come we sat at the station. Alone. Then we used our very good Italian ( ok we saw others doing it) to figure out that there were works on the tram line so we had to catch a bus then get back on the tram. Which we did. On the way back, we were seasoned pros and were back in the car and on our way by late afternoon. After some interesting roads we arrived at a monastery. Not my natural home but this is where the sat nav brought us. We said hotel and reception to the car park man, he shouted at us to park and pointed us up the hill.... But things didn't seem right and I was getting hotter. When we saw an actual monk staring at us, things seemed even wronger. A quick check of the sat nav and we realised we had been led on a merry journey to the wrong side of the valley. So with the eyes of a monk burning into our backs we headed back the other way and into glorious countryside. We eventually found the hotel car park but sadly just not the hotel. By this point I was hot and bothered and falling out with Italy again. Eventually a call to the b and b and a gate opened into what is apparently Narnia with bells on. The room makes up for everything Italy had thrown at us. It's in a castle. An actual castle. The air con is correctly placed ( high wall, pointing downwards, it's basic physics Italy!!!!) and child. The bed is just right ( just call me goldilocks) and the room phenomenally lovely. We*may* have forgotten about tea but have enough snacks to keep us going through watching the Olympics opening ceremony. And relax.......

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