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..

Rome

I really wish I knew more Italian, I know bits and pieces but no where near as much as I'd like to.

It's meant that all conversations in Rome resulted in us speaking broken English with an Italian accent in the hope that they understand us better than regular English, when really the end result is sounding like the count from sesame street and know one knows what you are on about.

After we got to Rome from the airport we were chatting to figure out which direction to head in to get the hotel, when a guy (who we thought was American) shouted "you guys are Aussie right? Can I buy you guys a drink?"
Turns out he was from Adelaide and he had that weird accent that all South Australians have.. And he was smashed.
After we finished our first drink we went to leave he begged us to stay, He was waiting for his train and didn't want to drink alone. We stayed for one more drink but that was about it, his South Australian accent was getting thicker and thicker with every sip and we could hardly understand him.

Our hotel had a rooftop area overlooking the city. We were that excited to be in Rome, so after dinner we bought a bottle of red and headed to the roof to plan our next day.

I wanted to see the Sistine Chapel so we headed to the Vatican to get a look, and then we saw the line.

Technically we had seen the Vatican so we decided to skip waiting in line for hours and go to the colosseum.

There was another line at the colosseum but it was no where near as long, which was good news given it had cracked 35 degrees.

We were fortunate enough to be standing next to a group of Americans who were loudly being loud and we spent almost an hour listening to their waffle.

The colosseum was, well colossal. It was huge and all the stories about what went on we're fairly intense.. Russell Crowe will give you the gist.

But my god was it hot! All the stone and loud American banter meant that we quickly saw everything and went to get some shade and some lunch.

Grandma told me I had to get some leather boots in Italy. Challenge accepted.
We wandered around the main shopping strips near the Spanish Steps and I didn't find anything I liked.

Disappointed And bootless, we had dinner near the Trevi Fountain. Well what we thought was the Trevi Fountain until we realised that it's a bit bigger and more popular.

That's not a fountain..

THIS is a fountain



After finding the right fountain (these people have fountains everywhere!) I did the typical tourist thing and threw a coin in so I return to Rome, I'm hoping when I come back it's not so hot. Hopefully the fountain will hook me up.

The next day we headed to Trastevere to hunt boots because it's meant to be THE happening place, and well let's face it.. We're happening kind of people.

We took the train and then started walking, in the wrong direction. For an hour.
We were no longer on the map we had and google couldn't even save us.
I won't lie, walking in the heat with no idea where we were and taxis not pulling over wasn't the best time.

We finally got a taxi to pull over and got dropped off in the right spot.

Trastevere was magical, after a tense journey there it was clear that wine, pizza and pasta were the key to happiness.

And then we explored the back streets, it was the cutest place.

I found a shop called Carlo Cecchini, I knew I was I the right place to find my boots, it smelt of leather. Not in a weird way, in a exciting boot challenge kind of way.

I picked out a pair and declared the challenge a success.

They wrapped the boots and gave me a ridiculously large bag to carry. I loved it!

We then had to head out to a new hotel just outside of Rome where the bus was picking us up the next day.

Getting public transport with a suitcase and the massive bag o boots was not fun. Repacking was happening, as a matter of priority.

The place we stayed was a camping ground that had a lot of youthful types drinking cocktails from buckets.. When in Rome..

Let's just say that getting up the next day and the bus ride to follow wasn't a great experience.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam would like to be known for tulips and canals rather than coffee shops and the red light district.

As I looked around the bus when we left Paris I had the feeling that no one was going to Amsterdam for the tulips, but then neither were we. I wanted to see prostitutes in windows and eat a space brownie.

We were on a Bus About bus, kind of like a tour. Our guide for the trip was Amy, a girl from Brisbane who told us we'd be stopping in Bruges on our way to 'the damage' (which apparently means Amsterdam)

After about an hour and a half we got there for a toilet stop and to pick up some other people - one of whom was a friend from home, crazy to run into someone you know in Bruges!

I came out of the ladies to see Sam with a Belgium beer in hand.. It was delicious.

Amy had been very clear that you've got to be on the bus when it's meant to leave or it will go without you. So after finishing the beer we walked back towards the bus. Until we saw a windmill, and started taking photos..

Then we hurried along to meet the rest of the group but were held up at a canal crossing.. For 15 minutes (those boats do not move quickly) thankfully the bus didn't leave..

As we drove into Amsterdam Amy gave us an overview of the city, activities and the nightlife. She even handed around literature on prostitutes (which Sam read, in depth)

We had all decided to meet up for a drink later that night, after heading to the wrong hotel we finally got to our room and headed out.

Amsterdam is cool, everyone is trendy and the buildings are amazing. It was great to walk through.

But my god, watch out for the bikes! We got into the habit of yelling bike at every crossing to remind ourselves - they don't stop for you. Ever.

We met our new friends from the bus at a hostel and had a few beers and got to know everyone. There were a lot of people from Melbourne, a few from England and one guy from America.

After a few hours of drinking and deciding who were the most annoying people that we needed to avoid, we went to a coffee shop.

I shared a brownie with one of the girls and Sam had a smoke.. Words can't describe the atmosphere at that point, these pictures will give you the gist.

Brownie time..

The look on my face says it all

And this is the part where shit started to get weird..

After the coffee shop we all decided to head to a sex show.. When in Amsterdam.

It wasn't great - it was disturbing.
The final act involved a middle aged couple loving each other, on stage..

And at this point in the show two Norwegian guys were standing behind me shouting messages of encouragement to the man on stage.

Time to go...

We ended up back at the hotel eating McDonald's at two in the morning.

I was planning on going for a run the next morning, needless to say that didn't happen.

We slept the night off and were going to hire bikes and make our way around the city. But it was raining, so we bought an umbrella and wandered around the winding canals and little alleyways.

Since it was raining we decided to go to Anne Frank huis. The line was enormous, so we found ourselves a pub and waited until the rain stopped.

When we returned the line was smaller and the sun was out.

The tour of the house is incredible, everyone is silent as they walk through. On the walls are excerpts from her diary and the house looks as if it did back then.

That was a must see for me, really interesting especially since we are going to a concentration camp when we get to Munich.

Our last night in Amsterdam was tame compared to what we'd gotten up to the night before. We had a big dinner and then headed to another coffee shop, I wanted to go to Bulldogs, which is a recommended one and Sam wanted to go somewhere less touristy..

When we got to Bulldogs I got another brownie and Sam had a smoke, then we were on the hunt for Poffertjes, small Dutch pancakes that my mum makes. We found a place and got some to go. When we got to our hotel room we opened the box and it was one big pancake. The effects of the brownie masked the disappointment and we got stuck into the massive pancake.

On our last morning I went for a run around vondelpark a massive park in the middle of amsterdam. Apparently it's legal to fornicate in the shrubbery here (why you would want to I don't know) I decided to stick to the paths.

Sam managed to find me some Poffertjes for breakfast and then we were off to the airport.

Two days was not enough in Amsterdam, if we had more time we probably would have gotten to know more about tulips and canals and to explore the city some more.

If I came back I certainly wouldn't see a sex show again.. But I'd love to learn all about the tulips.