Romantic Venice (Italy)

Venice has been slowly sinking into the marshes that it was built on, but fortunately we arrived in time to see it still afloat. We couldn't quite believe just how much Venice looks like all the pictures. It was amazing to see that everything really is done on the water - take any vechicle you'd see in a normal city, and Venice has a boat version. During our short stay, we saw water taxis, gondolas, delivery boats, garbage boats, fire boats and even a police boat - complete with lights and sirens - speeding to some emergency.

Our hotel was a former palace right by a canal, only a short walk from Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square). After looking through the Basilica (completing our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tour of Italy with a Donatello sculpture), we walked around the square, decided not to have €13 coffees at Cafe Florian (where Casanova used to frequent) and contemplated buying some original Picasso and Dali works on sale at a gallery.

We delved into the heart of old Venice, and spent a lovely evening losing ourselves amongst the picturesque streets, canals and bridges. We made sure not to miss Venice's best gelati (finishing our "best gelati" tour of Italy), Karina got a new bag to match her new shoes, we took a ride on a very shiny black gondola (getting ourselves in lots of people's Venice photo albums), and had dinner at another wine bar.

The next morning we had just enough time to head up to another square (surprisingly off the main tourist track) for some morning tea, before taking the boat-bus down the Grand Canal and back to the train station. Venice was a lovely way to end our time in Italy, and before we knew it (for once, the Italian trains seemed to be on time), we were heading for France.

Under the Tuscan Rain (Italy)

Well, we did make it to Tuscany eventaully, despite the GPS doing its best to send us around in circles, through construction sites, and off the freeway into the farmland below. The villa we were staying at (you can check it out at http://www.borgoilpoggiaccio.it) had a lovely restaurant - which was fortunate because the villa was in the middle of nowhere - so we decided to have dinner there to recover from the journey. Donato, the lovely Italian Maitre'D, looked after us like royalty, saying 'Don't worry, trust me!!'. He proceeded to bring us lovely bottle of Chianti wine (which we hoped was not the €280 bottle off the menu), lovely Tuscan cuisine, and lots of smiles and stories.

We had four days in Tuscany. Unlike Santorini, the weather was bleak and rainy pretty much the whole time, but like Santorini, we figured one activity a day was probably enough. There was a designer outlet mall only an hour away, so we spent an afternoon looking through discounted Gucci, Armani, La Perla, Marni and Burberry stores. Despite being prepared to walk away with armfuls of clothes and shoes, we didn't end up with anything! At least Karina still has her Gucci bag from Rome!

The next day we went on a winery tour through the Chianti region, visiting two wineries (one small family-owned, one large commercially owned) and a few small villages. Despite us only having 20 minutes in the last village, Karina managed to find an Italian shoe store, find a pair of shoes she loved, tried them on and buy them. Simon thinks it must have been a reaction to not buying anything the day before.

Not wanting to waste the brief period of good weather (and feeling the need to at least try and work off some of the food we'd been eating), we decided to go for a walk through the woods the next morning. We followed what was marked on the map as a "mule track" up past an old castle (in the process of becoming a hotel school), a pond full of frogs, and came to the top of a hill with a fantastic view of the country side. In the afternoon we headed to the village of San Gimignano, and looked around the galleries, shops and old buildings (and tracked down the award-winning, best gelati in San Gimignano).

On our last day, we checked out the town of Siena, which was bigger but not as enjoyable as San Gimignano. Apartly Siena is the safest city in Italy. Simon thinks this is because of the pigeons. What thief is going to stick his hands into your pockets after a pigeon has pooed into it (yes, this did really happen to Simon). Karina managed to leave her camera in an Internet cafe, but fortunately it was still there a few hours later when she realised. After all our adventures, we ran out of time to climb the Siena town hall tower, so instead we went back to our apartment and sat by our log fire all afternoon.

The Tuscan food was good, but Karina did inadvertantly manage to have spaghetti bolognase three times (apparently once with duck, once with beef and once with wild boar - but we couldn't tell the difference). On this trip, she has now eaten Bambi, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and Pumba. The mysterious wine Donato served us on the first night was so good we decided to buy a dozen bottles. It cost us as much to ship home as the wine itself, but since the villa owns the entire 2003 vintage, and you can't get it anywhere else (and since it was the nicest red we'd ever drunk), we thought it was worth it.

Despite our concerns about how long the drive back to Florence would take us, and where the GPS would send us, we made it without any trouble, and with more then enough time to catch our train and head for Venice.

One Fleeting Day in Florence (Italy)

As our train came into Florence, the little Italian Nonna sitting across the aisle from us gestured that she needed some help getting her bags off the train. Simon was happy to help. Six bags and two cakes later, Karina was on the platform surrounded by luggage and Simon was being chucked under the chin by the immensely grateful old lady.

Yet again we decided to drag our bags from the station up to our accommodation, and instantly noticed the difference between Florence and Naples - both much cleaner and much safer. Our conversation with the lady at the B&B upon arriving went something like:

Karina: Do you speak English?
B&B Lady: No, do you speak Italian?
Karina: No, do you speak French?
B&B Lady: No, do you speak Spanish?

We decided to give up before getting to Japanese, but managed to get by with a lot of nodding and smiling, and the Lonely Planet's Language section.

From the our first taste of dinner that night, we knew we were going to love Florence, and that one day wasn't going to be nearly enough. Karina's rabbit and Simon's steak were both amazing and we had our first taste of the famous Chianti red wine.

The next morning we joined yet another queue, this time to look through the Uffizi Gallery to see such famous paintings as The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. We past the two hours of waiting talking to a friendly and very interesting American named Ed. The gallery was good, but didn't leave us much time to see the rest of Florence. We grabbed a quick bite for lunch, after crossing the Ponte Vecchio (a bridge filled with gold and silver smiths). After briefly poking around the quaint streets, we had just enough time to track down Florence's best gelati before heading off to pick up our car.

The drive out of Florence wasn't too bad - Simon's now used to driving on the wrong side of the road, and much to everyone's surprise, Karina can actually read a map! But the drive to the airport to pick up a GPS was an eye-opening introduction to Italian drivers. Still, it was less chaotic than Naples...

We were really disapointed to have had such little time in Florence. It really felt like we barely scratched the surface. Yet another place we'll have to come back to!

The Sights & Smells of Naples (Italy)

Despite the many bad things we'd heard about Napels, we were determined to visit, both to see Pompeii and to see the city itself. We got off the train just before dark, and couldn't decide if it would be scarier to walk the 250m from the station to our B&B (through the very dodgie neighbourhood), or try dealing with a possibly very dodgie taxi driver. In the end we decided to brave the walk and haul our bags through the drizzle. Once safely inside, we discovered the B&B was exactly at the owner had promised - perfect on the inside.

We know that in most places in Europe people drive on the other side of the road from in Australia, but we couldn't work out what side of the road they drive on in Naples. And as far as the scooters were concerned, there was no difference between the road and the footpath. We did learn how to cross the road Naples-style - when you get to a road, don't look left or right, just walk straight across and hope for the best!

We discovered while in Rome, that Pompeii was closed on the 1st of May - the day we had set aside for our visit. But thankfully the B&B owner set us straight at breakfast on our first morning, and since it was a public holiday, we only had to pay €1 instead of €11. Pompeii was great - it wasn't very crowded, the weather was (mostly) nice but not too hot and we had an excellent day exploring the ancient town. We finished the day with a dinner back in Naples at a cafe-come-bookshop-come-publishing house in the quirky Piazza Bellini.

The rain seemed to have washed away a lot of the grime of Naples, but had unfortunately left many of the more "characteristic" smells. We wandered the backstreets, checked out the catherdral and had lunch in the old fishing village at the harbour. The harbour, especially the area where the big cruise ships were docking, was noticably cleaner and had a much stronger police presence. Although, as we walked through, a man emerged from an alley and asked if we were interested in buying his "beautiful laptop".

We really enjoyed Naples, but we were very pleased to be back on the train with all our possessions, albeit with very grubby jeans and smelly shoes!

Rome: The Eternal City of Waiting (Italy)

They say that it takes a lifetime to see everything in Rome, so we knew that we could barely scratch the surface but we were determined to hit the ground running and see as much as we could. We arrived at our guesthouse in the funky Trastevere district of Rome around lunchtime, and immediately set to work helping the owner (Sylvie) carry some big charis up the thousand stairs to the roof-top terrace. While recovering on the roof-top, Sylive gave us a bird's-eye introduction to Rome, a sight she doesn't normally share with her guests.

We then headed off to the Roman Forum, and then to the Collosseum. After taking in the exterior, we joined the end of the 90 minute queue to get inside. However we were very quickly set upon by someone offering to get us stright inside, and give us a guided tour, followed by a guided tour of the Paletine Hill. Remembering all the stories of con men fleecing tourists, we decided it couldn't possibly happen to us, and handed over the money. It turned out to be an excellent decision, and we discovered that the guided walking tours were a fantastic way to see Rome's major sites in a short period of time.

Despite the claim that all the guides were native English speakers, our guide for the Colosseum was an Italian guy who spoke like a machine gun and didn't quite know when to stop with the stories, but was very entertaining nonetheless. Then we were taken up the Palentine Hill and back to the Roman Forum by "Geoff from Georrrrrrrgia". It was bizarre to learn about Roman architecture from a cross between a modern-day cowboy and Indiana Jones. We had dinner at a restaurant near out guesthouse in Trastevere, which is a great old part of Rome, filled with picture-perfect twisting alleyways, shuttered windows and ivy-covered buildings.

The next morning we got up early to find that on Sunday mornings Rome either goes to church or just sleeps in! We wandered the streets for an hour before we found somewhere open for breakfast and Simon accidentally ordered a jam tart and a chocolate chip biscuit - that's what you get for attempting to order the unknown! Karina went for the safe option of a cheese and ham croissant, and Simon is very pleased that at least espresso is the same in all languages!

We walked over to the allegedly amazing Italian shoe market, to find that it doesn't open on Sundays, so instead we went to the big flea market, which only opens on Sundays. Karina came out with a "genuine" Gucci handbag, that she had bargained down to almost half price - she paid about AU$25! Determined to track down the famous pear and blue cheese pizza that we'd heard about, we combed the streets of Trastevere for the resturant, and then we waited 15mins for a table. When we finally sat down, we were told they didn't have any pizzas (our Italian didn't stretch to finding out why)!

That evening we joined with another walking tour - a twilight visit to some of the sites on the streets of Rome. We visited the church Michaelanglo had his funeral in, the smallest church in Rome (an exact copy of St Peter's Bascillica), the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the best gelati in Rome. We ended the day with dinner at a cool winebar and a fantastic meal including buffalo mozzarella.

We liked our last guide - a young, charasmatic Italian-American guy named Alex - so much that we decided to do his Vatican tour the next morning. Unfortunately, Alex was having a very bad day at work. After arriving late and obviously already a little frazzled by whatever had delayed him, he took us and the group to join the entrance line - normally about an hour long at this time of the morning. We had to walk almost back to St Peter's to find the end of the queue, which was the longest Alex had ever seen it in his 4 years of tours. After four hours of waiting in the rain, dealing with pushy tour groups, dangerous umbrellas and frustrated visitors, we all finally made it inside (just after 1pm).

Somehow Alex managed to maintain his good humour and enthusiasm - despite having to cancel a lunch date with his wife - and gave us a fantastic tour of the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basicalla.

Since we had a 5:30pm train to catch, and our luggage was still at our guest house, Alex put us in a taxi after the tour finished. We flew across Rome - our plans for the afternoon in tatters - grabbed our bags and collapsed on to the train for Naples, glad to finally be off our feet. Two days will never be enough to see Rome, but if you must try, make sure you don't go near a national holiday!