A brief encounter with Florence and Nice

Bus-ing about

After the bus picked us up in Rome we headed to our first stop Aviano.
Aviano is a cute little town on the top of a very large hill. So large in fact, that you can only get up by Funicular. It's a cable car thing that goes up the side of a hill.

A cable car full of hot hungover types is probably the last thing I needed.

No, I don't know why Sam isn't wearing shoes.. stop looking at his feet, look at that view!

The town itself was beautiful, it was the Italy I had always imagined. Windy cobbled streets, old buildings and beautiful Italian food.

I had the best coffee I have ever had on that (very large) hill, followed by the tastiest gelato imaginable. Hangover cured.

We headed on to Florence and made friends with a chap named Alex. We all decided that we should have wine and cheese when we got to our accomodation.
When we arrived at reception, they mentioned it was 38 degrees, and the rooms were tents so therefore had no air conditioning.
There was only one thing that could lift the mood.
Wine and Cheese.

Cheeese!

Alex had a theory that we should only drink bottles of wine that cost 1 - 2 €.
So that's what we did. We drank a few bottles of Italy's finest (cheapest)  - and ate about four blocks of cheese.

I've never met a man more excited about cheese

Throughout the evening our table became longer.
Alex, Sam and I met an Irish couple Gavin and Avril who were at the bar to watch Ireland play in the Euro Cup.

Then met another couple Chloe and Beau who jumped on to our table.
Then another Aussie couple Cassie and Rob from Queensland who also had a cute black dog they were missing terribly.
Then a group of about six English girls joined the end of the table. It was clear to us then that we had to play a drinking game. And that we did. With red wine..

At the end of the night I got lost trying to find our tent and lost Sam in the process. This is what skulling red wine will do to you.

The morning after cheese and wine night was as you would expect.

But we had to put that behind us because we were on the bus to Nice with a whole different group of people.

The journey took a detour at the leaning tower of Pisa so we could take ridiculous touristy photos.

I'm trying to flick it so it's straight again.. get it?

We drove on through Monaco and discovered its pretty bloody hard to move there. Just a lazy million euros to apply and even then you might not get in. Might just stay in Barwon Heads for the moment.

We saw Grace Kelly rock, where princess Grace's car went over the cliff.

And then we arrived in Nice, a picturesque beachside French town.
We didn't see a lot of Nice, but I promise we were there!

We went to a tiny restaurant La Mamas, where the owner only spoke French. It made me excited to head back to Paris again!

The next day we were on the bus to Barthelona..

Athens

Athens

We didn't get off to a great start in Athens, our plane arrived safely and we got on the train (we learnt that lesson in Munich!)

Our bags were in the luggage storage area and we were sitting a few seats away, as we got closer to the center of Athens the train became really crowded and some undesirable types were loitering around our bags.

With only a few stops to go we decided to get our bags and get ready to get off. The undesirables didn't want to move, one off them grabbed my arm and tried to escort me off the train at the stop before ours. I explained to him that this was not my stop..

Whilst all this was going on there was a chap pressing himself against Sam's back. Not in the 'it's a busy train I can't move' way, more 'I'm pressing myself up against you so you don't notice I'm stealing items attached to your person' way.

Sam politely asked the gentleman to refrain from stealing his wallet and that was that.

No, actually Sam told him off in a way that is understandable in all languages, the chap didn't move and his mate was pushing against my suitcase so I couldn't move either.. The train doors opened at our stop and we both got away with all of our things. But we also felt a bit yucky.

We stepped out of the train station and were welcomed with a view of the acropolis, maybe this place isn't that bad after all.

The view of the Acropolis from our hotel

Our hotel was a short walk from the station and the receptionist was lovely she gave us a map and put a big cross the the area where the 'bad people live'

The forbidden zone..

I was desperate for the Greeks to be all My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so you can imagine my excitement when we were walking past a restaurant and the spruiker says "you come you eat Grik salad, you share, you drink.. No problem, where you from? Australia got alodda Griks, come sit no problem" all in the same sentence.

Grik salad, no problem..

You can imagine Sam's excitement when he saw they were showing the Euro Cup.

The food was amazing, (I feel like I need to start using another word to describe great things, I've used amazing a lot) and they put the bill on the table before we had even started eating, so we got another bill for the next round of drinks, and the next and well..

It's about 35 degrees everyday and the air conditioning in our room is on the fritz, so we have been leaving the window open at night. And man is it noisy! There are loud bangs like really loud bangs out on the street at about 2am.. I'm longing for Santorini where hopefully our air con works and they bang things in the street at a reasonable hour.

The thing about Athens is it's all about the acropolis, and it's fantastic, one of the best bits was when we saw a tortoise! I know, it was awesome! We did appreciate the statues and the old buildings but a tortoise! Who would have thought!

After we had climbed the hill - in thongs (if you do visit the acropolis wear sensible shoes, there is slippery marble everywhere - DO NOT wear thongs) and taken all the photos we weren't really sure what to do next.

Its not OK that I'm whiter than ancient ruins...

So we went for a wander and saw the changing of the guard at the grave of the unknown soldier, they do a procession with a lot of kicking and marching in their traditional uniforms. They must be so hot!

We went for a drink before dinner and I decided to have some local wine and this is how they served it, that's not a wine glass!

Our second day in Athens was spent shopping, it was very hot and we felt like we had run out of touristy things to do.

Sam got really good at sitting outside whilst I went shopping.

We went back to the restaurant we visited the first night, not that it matters I'm pretty sure they are all in it together. We asked if they had Baklva tonight and they said 'yes of course - no problem' and showed me the menu of the restaurant next to them and sent the waiter next door to get it.

'of course, no problem..'

After two stinking hot nights without aircon, on our final night in Athens it decided to work. God it was cold, we had to get the blankets out..

We waved good bye to the acropolis at 5.30 (am!!) on our way to catch the ferry to Santorini excited for a cool breeze and the beach!