Thursday 6 September, 2001 (Rome-Florence)

This morning we caught the train to Florence from Rome. It was pretty easy actually, a lot easier than catching the Metro to Vatican City! The train ride was interesting - the rolling hills of Tuscany and all that. We got smoking seats, Mark sat down with a book and I turned on my newly acquired minidisc and puffed away in semi-rapture for 3.5 hours. When we got there, we headed straight for the long queue at the hotel reservations desk. A guy approached us trying to sell us a room in his pensione for ITL160,000 ($160) but that was out of our budget and didn't have a shower anyway. Another old guy approached us offering 120,000 with shower, and I don't know why but he immediately put me at ease so we followed him to go look at the room.

The room is in what appeared to be an attic. The furnishings could best be described as Italian-antique-crap, but its clean and cheap. It looks like a really dodgy add on to a house, and by Australian building standards, should probably be condemned. But, its close to the train, the markets and the great Duomo.

After we got settled in and took a token walk to find some food, we were pretty exhausted and had a little nap. Kev called us about 8pm and we met up at 9 for dinner. In Florence there's a ristorante or trattoria on every corner, so finding a place shouldn't have been too difficult. The problem was that they all seemed to cater for the American tourist whose dollar is much stronger than ours. Eventually we gave up and just picked a place.

We were starving so we decided to have primi and secondi for dinner. I had spaghetti with clams for primi (the clams were still in their shells!), Kev had the same, and Mark had spaghetti with garlic and olive oil which looked pretty damn good too. For secondi, Kev had escalopes and mushrooms, and the bit I tasted was just so good I was instantly jealous. Mark and I both had deep fried seafood which was sort of like a fisherman's basket except smaller. This too was delicious. Topped off with a glass of house red and we were all happy. (Although, the bill was a scary ITL 130,000!)

After dinner we took a walk to a gelataria and had some of their finest. Then it was time to bid goodnight with a promise to meet in the morning for breakfast.

Friday 7 September, 2001 (Florence)

Today we met up at 9.30 and went into a café/bakery for our cheapest meal yet. I had a proscuitto omelet which was served in a bread bun, a chocolate croissant and a huge cup of coffee. We ate standing up at the bar, Italian style, and the whole thing cost me less than AUD$10. After that we walked to the famous Duomo which was beautiful. On the way we walked through the local markets which I'm planning to revisit this afternoon. The boys wanted to climb the 400-odd stairs to the top of the bell tower next to the Duomo, but I preferred to stay on the ground, so we split up. Naturally we had no plan to reunite anywhere or at any time specific, and the place was swarming with tourists. Eventually we found each other a while later and headed off for the local supermarkets to get some lunch.

We went in and I bought too much, as always. I think we might have spent an hour in there just looking at all the foreign grocery items. We walked down to the river to find a place to sit, and ate our food with the pigeons. We had plenty of bread left over so I started throwing bits around Mark's feet and legs, to which the birds happily flocked and covered him which was pretty funny. The boys wanted to go off and see the Ponte Vecchio but I'd had enough of sightseeing for one day, so we agreed to meet up at 6 to plan for dinner.

At the moment I'm sitting here in this tiny attic room, having just made a cup of coffee (bought the fixings whilst at the supermarket), smoking cigarettes and resting my sore feet. Its very warm up here and I can hear the sounds of vespa motorbikes going up and down the many sidestreets in this maze of a town they call Florence. Its one of those moments in life where I'll never forget how I felt, right then.

I'm going to go to the market now, as I spotted some things that would make great presents for the people back home. Tomorrow we leave for La Spezia (the start of the Cinque Terre) and we'll take in Pisa along the way. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Florence, Italy

Straw Duomo replica, Florence

Feeding the pigeons in Florence

Pisa's claim to fame

Saturday 8 September, 2001 (Florence/Pisa/La Spezia/Monterosso/Levanto)

I was really sick last night. I felt a bit feverish and my body felt really sore. I went downstairs with Mark to meet Kevin for breakfast but found myself way too tired to join them so I went back to bed.

After breakfast and my sleep, we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Florence. We got off at Pisa which is on the way to La Spezia and took some snapshots of the famous leaning tower. It was smaller than I expected, Mark said he thought it was about 7 stories tall. We had lunch in a typical tourist restaurant and it was nothing worth mentioning except the price (expensive). We got back on the train to La Spezia and ran into Kevin so we sat with him until our stop. We missed the connecting train to Monterosso by 2 mins (typical!) and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one.

By the time we got to Monterosso it was about 8 or 9pm and we were exhausted. We wandered along the main waterfront (Monterosso is very small!) but could find no hotel or hostel with rooms or a bed free. Kevin called us to see if we'd had any luck finding accommodation. He had booked a bed in a hostel in nearby Levanto so we headed off on the train there to catch up with him.

Unfortunately, everywhere in Levanto was booked solid. Kevin (bless his heart!) called or visited every hotel, hostel and camping ground in the local tourists guide looking for a room, but no joy. Eventually, we sat down and had some dinner and traipsed down to the beach.

I'm sure I will look back on that night with fondness - maybe years later. But for now, it was cold and windy and there was a danger that if we got caught we'd get kicked off the beach. The only place on the beach that seemed "hidden" in the shadows was right under a nightclub which played crappy techno all night so we didn't get much sleep.

Sunday September 9, 2001 (Levanto/Milan)

Waking up this morning sucked. We had to get up and moving by sunrise to catch the train to Milan. We probably could've gotten a bed in Levanto tonight but I wanted to get the hell out of there. We had some breakfast and hiked to the train station. My video camera fell out of Mark's pack and smashed on the ground which put the icing on the cake for the worst 24 hours of my life.

We got to Milan tired, sleepy and irritable. I hadn't had a shower since Florence and I felt disgusting. We arrived at the train station and Mark went to the hotel reservations counter to find us a hotel. He picked one based on its close proximity to the train station and off we went. The room was very expensive (around AUD$285 per night) and was pretty sub standard. However, it had a roof, running water and a flat surface to sleep on which was a thousand times better than last night.

We didn't really do much tonight, so tired we were from the Levanto mess. Mark the saint went out for McDonalds and I had a nice long chat with my mum on the phone.

Bus pass to Como

Monday 10 September, 2001 (Milan/Como)

We spent the morning today running around town looking for a store that sold video cameras. Of course, because it was a Monday, stores did not open until later, so we hung about Garibaldi electrical for an hour waiting for them to open. Finally, they opened, we picked one and rushed back to our hotel. I bolted to the train station to catch the train to Como, and Mark grabbed both packs and was following me shortly after. It was about 45 minutes to Como, plus another hour on the bus to get to our hotel in Rezzonico. The lake was beautiful and we shot a lot of video on the new camera.

That night we ate in the restaurant downstairs in our pension, which was a bit expensive but the food was good. Still no soft bread though.

Tuesday 11 September, 2001 (Como/Mennagio/Bellagio/Villa Carlotta)

We got up early this morning and trooped up to the bus stop to catch a bus to Menaggio, where we would spend the day sightseeing around the lake.

We could up with the ferry and crossed the lake to Bellagio where we wandered the town for a bit and hopped on the ferry to the next town. When we got there, we walked the length of the promenade and filmed big sections of the lake. (And I got intimate with a seagull!)

Lake Como (top), me and a friendly grasshopper (bottom)

We ate lunch at a small pizzeria with rude waiters and no soft bread. After lunch we headed down the promenade and I stopped at Bar Lido for a toilet break. The toilets there were quite possibly the foulest, smelliest toilets in Italy.

Mark bought some "Teen-Ager" (brand) potato chips and we sat for a while before heading back to the ferry.

By this time it was mid-afternoon and I was quite exhausted. We decided to make a token effort to catch the ferry to Villa Carlotta, and when we got there we decided against paying the ITL10,000 admission fee to look at a bunch of plants, instead opting to visit a restaurant which was actually a boat. Its main claim to fame was that it was sunk by US/British fighters in world war II and remained underwater for 4 years before being restored and made into a restaurant. I don't know if I believe all that, but they made a damn good grasshopper!

We took a bus from Villa Carlotta back to Rezzonico and whilst waiting at the bus stop my sister sms'd us to tell us of the WTC disaster. I was completely shocked, and I wasn't sure it was as serious as she made it out to be until much later.

We got back to the hotel and decided to have a siesta before dinner. Our room did not have a tv in it, so we couldn't find out what was going on in New York. As was our habit, we accidentally slept through dinner.

Wednesday 12 September, 2001 (Como/Milan/Verona/Venice)

Luckily for us we had bought our bus tickets back to Como the day before so in our mad rush to get out of there the next day, we were sort of prepared. We wolfed down breakfast and made a quick exit.

The bus should have been at 9.18. It didn't come. The next one should have been at 9.50. It also didn't come. By this time, our good humor was running out and when the bus finally rolled up at 10.24 we were pretty annoyed. We had to cross half of Italy in less than a day and the pressure was on.

The bus rolled into Como and we got to the train station and caught a train direct to Milan with no real problems. From Milan to Verona was pretty relaxing as well. Stopped off in Verona to have a look at Juliet's balcony and for photo opportunities. There were tonnes of people there and everyone felt the need to grope Juliet's breast. (You could see it had to be re-bronzed several times). Mark kissed her and the crowd laughed. From then on it was a frantic dash to the train to get to Venice, where we arrived at about 6pm.

We met up with Mark's sister Tania and her friend Nana at about 7 for dinner in St Marks Square (Motto: "More pigeons than tourists!") and took a water bus to our hotel. I don't remember what we had really, usual proscuitto (I'm getting so sick of that!) and hard Italian bread.

The girls were going to drive to Pisa that night, but Tania really wanted to go on a gondola ride. Unfortunately, it was dark by then so we decided to do it early tomorrow. We said goodnight and trotted sleepily back up to our hotel room.

Me and Miss Juliet (no Leo in sight.. damn!)