Rome 23rd -29th Sept

Hint for people traveling to Rome, If you are going to arrive on a weekend book in advance.
Matt and I didn’t so we ended up in this dodgy “hostel” that was really some extra rooms in this woman’s’ apartment that she rented out at €20 per bed (and she had 12 beds in 2 rooms) so a nice way to pay of the mortgage. Luckily we managed to move into a much better hostel after the weekend and were ecstatic to find the first form of self catering since Berlin.
Yes folks this hostels kitchen consisted of …a microwave! Never had I been so happy to have a supermarket soup in my life. (It’s the simple things in life that you miss when traveling.)


Rome the city is a pretty amazing place.(With possibly the worlds longest zebra crossing.) We had made a rough plan of what to see on Friday: St Ignatius (the church where they ran out of money and had to paint the dome on), Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps, but while we were walking back to our hostel we could see out of the corner of our eyes the colossuem and forum that we planned on seeing on Saturday.





Luckily for us on Saturday the colusseum was free so we could afford to do the guided tour, which was fairly informative, although the guide was very hard to understand.

I had read in my guidebook that the Vatican is free on the last Sunday of the month, which was pretty cool. So Sunday morning Matt, I and about a thousand other people queued up for 2 1/2 hours to see the Vatican museum. It’s strange that once inside a lot of people go straight to the Sistine Chapel and miss all the really cool stolen artifacts. Part of the Vatican is built from the bricks used to build the Colosseum.



Our favorite exhibit would have to be the micro mosaics room, which is right at the end and a lot of people miss it.
To be honest I was a little disappointed by the Sistene chapel, it could be ‘cos we just saw sooo much stolen art.






Monday we went to check out the castle, only to find that it’s closed on Mondays, then to Santa Maria della Concezione de Cappuccini where monks used the bones of friars to create art. It was a little bit disturbing but well worth seeing. Next we went to checkout a Pyramide, its only 37m high and surrounded by the city.






On Tuesday arvo Matt and I met up with my friend from Oz, Lisa. As we were asking how her flight was some people came back to the hostel and said that the Vatican was free again, so we quickly went down there and joined the queue and managed to get into the Vatican about 15 minutes before they stopped letting everyone in. It was a bit of a rush, as we got lost in an entire wing of stuff we had never seen before, and by the time we got back to the main track they were rushing people through and had closed off a lot of the side galleries.

On Wednesday, Matt, Lisa, Justin and I did a self made walking tour of Rome and managed to see most of the Major sites. It was heaps of fun, although it was very hot that day so we had to cool down by consuming massive amounts of Gelato.






On Thursday morning we did a free guided tour of St Peters Cathedral and boy is that place big. We learn’t so much stuff,. had a quick wander round and stopped by the train station for Pizza Cones, which are a brilliant idea. Pizza in a cone shape so they’re super easy to eat. I wish they had them everywhere.
In the evening Matt and I caught a super cheap flight to Glasgow Scotland.

Sicily 20th-22nd sept

Did you know that Sicily is rotating anticlockwise?
Neither did we until we got there. We went for a guided tour of Mt Etna which was really cool as the guide knew heaps about volcanoes.








Also hidden away in Catania is the best Gelattoria in Italy they had so many flavors, and while Matt and I were trying to decide what to get the guy behind the counter kept pushing samples at us, and they were all so good. I’m still not sure why the elephant has an obelisk on his back, but it does make a nice statue.

Sorrento and Pompeii 18th- 19th Sept

Working our way south through Italy (skipping Rome as we were meeting a friend on the 27th) our next stop was Sorrento. We really wanted to see Pompeii, and then we planned on going to Sicily to see Mt Etna.
Unfortunately Sorrento does not have much choice in Hostels so we ended up at this dodgy place outside of town and they kept asking if we wanted to pay for the extra beds in out room.



On Sunday the main street is closed to traffic so we had a nice wander around and then took the train to Pompeii. Pompeii is very very big, I knew that it was a town that had been preserved by a volcanic eruption, but I had no idea just how big it was. If you ever go here allow yourself quite a few hours (and don’t wander around town before hand.) A lot of the buildings and remains are very well preserved, and some of the murals still have colour.

Florence 16th-19th sept

Ah Florence the home of Michelangelo’s David. We had to queue for an hour and a half at the Galeria Del Acadamia to see the statue, and we weren’t allowed to take any photos. (A better option might be to go to Piaza de Signora and see all the copies of famous statues for free.) although is was good to see a few of the unfinished states to see how they were made.
We had a nice wander around the city over a few days and soaked in all the culture.

On Thursday we went to an exhibit of `Leonardo da Vinci which was brilliant as they had made a lot of his inventions and they were very hands on so you could try them out and see how they worked.

While wandering around we also saw the coolest knife-block. (unfortunately it cost €300 so we couln’t buy it)

We also saw one of the pest street performers I have ever seen, he really did look like a statue and being in Florence he didn’t look out of place.

Bologna 12th-15th sept

On Monday we took the train inland to Bologna. The town is really beautiful with nice red brick buildings. I really liked the way that they had modernized some of the really old buildings like one of the bookshops in the main square.


We visited the museum of surgery, which had some very intricate carvings.





While we were traveling around we did notice that the Italians are very fond of Nutella, but we didn’t know just how crazy they were until we stumbled across this café that sells only Nutella based products.



While in Bologna we took the bus to Lambourghini to check out the display of cars they have there. We both really like the new model (in yellow ☺)

Cinque terre

To take a break from all the hustle and bustle of being tourists we took a few days off and relaxed in Cinque-terre on the west coast of Italy.
We stayed at Manarola, one of the largest of the five villages.


While we were there it rained quite a lot of the time so we relaxed and read out books for a while. One day it was sunny enough for us to venture outside so we took a train to Pizza, Unfortunately our first train was delayed for over an hour. (It was only an 8 minute trip.)
Piza is a very dodgy town and I really wouldn’t recommend making a special trip there. Yes there is a tower that leans, but there are towers in Florence that lean more (although they are not as visually impressive.)



We also walked a lot of the walk along `Cinque-terre although some of the paths had been closed due to slippery rocks. The walk had some very beautiful scenery. Although walking up the steps to Corniglia was pretty tough. But we were rewarded with some absolutely amazing pizza at the end and some gelato to give us strength for the next trip.

On Saturday the weather cleared enough for us to lounge around on the beach, but the water was too cold to swim in.

Venice and the Regatta Historica

Venice 4th-6th Septempber
We took the overnight train from Munich, so that we could get to Venice in time for the Regatta Historica. The train was surprisingly good. We splashed out for couchettes so we got plenty of sleep.



Venice was absolutely packed and so we found ourselves some nice viewing spots for the regatta early. Then all the gondolas started going up and down the canal which was heaps cool as many of the people were in old costumes.


We had lots of fun in Venice just wandering around the small alleyways getting lost and then finding our way back.

We saw a lot of the touristy sites like St Marks Cathedral and some other museums around St Marks square.

Munich

In Munich we stayed at Wombats which was a very nice hostel. With our own en-suite. And on a side street from the hauptbahnhof.
We did a free walk of Munich by the same company as the Berlin tour, but it was nowhere near as good. The tour guide gave out a lot of misinformation and couldn’t even answer simple questions.

On Monday (the 29th) we visited the English Gardens, which were absolutely huge. It was nice and sunny and a few people were sun baking by the side of the creek that ran through it. In the Afternoon we went to the climbing gym which was awesome!

On Tuesday we visited the Deutches museum which was good, but I thought that they had a bit too much stuff. It would take quite a few visits to see it all, and it was hard to figure out which exhibits to see.

On Wednesday we took a trip out to see Schloss Neuschwanstein the traditional fairytale castle.
The train out there took 2 hours and we were worried that it might have been closed due to the flooding that was happening. But the trains were running fine. When we bought out tickets for the castle they had a tour time on them and we had to walk 30 minutes to get to the castle which was a bit strange. While we were waiting for the tour we saw some hang gliders soaring around in the sky. The castle was very impressive but the guided tour was very quick and it felt a bit rushed.
There was another castle there but we decided to only do one and stroll through the forest the long way back to town.

On Friday we did a bit of shopping (Matt picked up a new Play station portable to keep us busy on train journeys and stuff).
Our German is now good enough that we can order food and train tickets completely in German, so I guess it’s off to Italy to learn Italian.