Madness in Italy!

Venice:

We sadly left Interlaken and went by train to Zurich and then onto Venice, in Italy. Were slightly worried about missing our connecting train from Zurich (we only had 9 minutes up our sleeve) but as usual, the Swiss were excellent time keepers and our connections went very smoothly! An Austrian guy who lives in Zurich sat opposite us and inevitably bought up the America’s Cup (they had just won it)…grrr…so I proceeded to tell him that about 11 of the crew were kiwi’s anyway; I don’t think he was too impressed with that comment. He got off in Milan and an Italian man living in Vancouver got on with his younger Hong Kong wife and kid (second marriage) and proceeded to ply us with wine - very nice!! We arrived in Venice at around 7:30pm and promptly got lost thanks to the shocking directions for the hotel…and the fact that we didn’t have a map…the following day we travelled into Venice (the island) and spent the whole day wondering around this crazy place. The tourists! The rubbish!! The expensive Gondola ride (had to be done)!!! The weather was sweltering so we just took our time wandering around slowly, getting completely lost in the little alleyways and indulging in a long lazy lunch and rewarding ourselves with refreshing gelato in the afternoon. That night, clean washing had reached desperation point (for Derek anyway, with his four t-shirts) so we walked around the corner to the Laundromat and befriended some Korean lads who we managed to convince to join us for dinner. We exchanged emails and web addresses and have since heard from our new friend Hyuk who says that meeting us was the highlight of his month overseas. How awesome are we. The following morning we bid a not so fond farewell to Nice Hotel (yes, that’s right, not wonderful, not fantastic, just Nice) where the man in charge was the grumpiest and surliest Italian man you could ever imagine), hoofed it to the station and caught a train down to ROMA.

OMG Rome is nuts:

We had a wild introduction to Rome! We made our way to a taxi stand where a massive argument ensued over us between two taxi drivers. We chose a taxi and then proceeded to have the scariest taxi ride of my life! The other taxi driver caught up to us and they started to argue between the cars at each other, in the middle of Rome! Our driver’s blood pressure reached boiling point and many. many dodgy overtaking maneuvers, taking corners at high speed and yet another America’s Cup conversation thrown in for good measure (he had calmed down by this stage to have a chat with us) later, we arrived at our hotel, relatively unscathed! The following morning we got dropped off at The Vatican where we spent many hours. The Vatican is very impressive, and the Sistine Chapel is an absolute must see in my books. The Egyptian Museum was one of the most interesting - it had a 3000 year old mummy! The next day was another BIG day, but luckily it wasn’t as hot as we had a lot of walking to do! We got dropped off at the Metro and took the underground to the Colosseum. It was amazing just walking out onto to the street and there it is, right in front of you! We also visited the Roman Forum, the Pantheon (Raphael is buried here amongst others), Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. What a day; the camera took a bashing! This was our final full day in Italy - next up Spain!

Tricks and Tips:

Taxi drivers enjoy ripping naive tourists like us off. Luckily, we only got mildly ripped off by the hot blooded taxi driver and after learning from the hotel staff how they like to operate, we actively avoided taxis and used public transport or pounded the pavements instead. If you call for a taxi they will start charging from the phone call and then add at least another 2.50 Euro pick up fee or something, when they arrive. Keep an eye on the meter. Our driver turned it off before we had a chance to see what it cost (we were just so relieved we made it alive!) and then said it was 39 Euro “including luggage”. Hmmmm. We were later advised that we should have run into the hotel, double checked what the cost should be and then have it out with the driver if it’s too excessive. Our ride should have cost 20 - 25 Euro.

Restaurants in the hot spots often add a ‘table charge’ to your bill so don’t feel bad about not leaving a tip, if you can still afford to after eating at these places! Well, we didn’t anyway!

We recommend buying the audio guides which give you information on all the things you’re looking at.

Ladies; throw your no-carb diet out the window with reckless abandon! It’s pretty hard to avoid pasta and bread over here, let alone the cheese, cheese, cheese!

H