Nilhotel Florence

... Anyway after much driving we met a local who understood English… unfortunately he seemed only able to say he understood English .. And with us asking for the sea and him agreeing with everything.. It was more sea..si sea.. Si….very confusing…anyway put feet in a creek which seemed to be heading for the sea… and called it quits…..

The rain picked up again and it was a bit of a difficult drive for Geoff to make it to a town ...

... br>
Later that night was probably the most interesting part of my time in Cinque Terre. I went out at around 9 to find something for dinner, and as I was walking past a café on the main street in Riomaggiore, I came across an Australian I had met over two months earlier in Hamburg. That is a long time and a long distance. Europe is way too small…

But thankfully the Australians are back. I feel much safer now.

... was incredible, and the people I met there were some of the best I’ve met on my trip so far. I can guarantee that I wouldn’t have enjoyed Florence as much if I hadn’t got with this group. Italy is off to a good start.

Still no Australians though. Its like when all the birds fly away before an earthquake or something… kind of eerie.

California is the new Australia.

... too, and it really contributed to the experience. We also toured the Pitti Palace and stumbled upon some famous art we didn't even know was there. Among the cheap wine and free food, we learnt cool facts about this medieval place and the ruling of the Medici family. Also, (we didn't go into any) but Florence most likey has the best shoe shopping in the world. And a shoe museum. Just saying......Italy was off to a sweet start.

Now.. your Rome update!

Jus and Mur

... do it for us, even in the best of times and we think it is pretty easy to say that this is definitely the best of times.

Our BREAKING NEWS! As we may or may not have told you we have decided to stay in Italy with Dino's family until at least January (Yeap you heard us right). We had planned on travelling through only summers (we didn't plan very well), so we have minimal winter clothes and with us ...

... gave us a birds eye view of the city, and the basilica, so we weren’t very sad about it. The stairs up the tower were windy and marble, and we could definitely feel the way the tower was leaning when we were hiking up and down the stairs. It was also extremely hot, so that walk was a workout!! We learned in Pisa that nobody is sure who the architect of the tower is, which is strange, since almost every other building in Italy was marked ...

Version française plus bas After an unexpected stopover in Thessaloniki (thank you Alitalia for not telling us that they were not flying at all from that airport anymore, if we had had to guess where plane stuff up would happen, we wouldn't have bet on Europe), we finally landed in Florence to visit Joel's sister Hélène. She's an art student there, which reflects on her way of life (in her case, you don't say that the apartment is messy, it's just ...

... cultural brilliance doesnt have much of a night life. Great beautiful place though, and still perishingly hot. As with Rome, most of the middle of the day was spent finding shade or air conditioning to prevent vaporisation by the sun. Dom and Gavin moaned a lot about peeling sunburn. :) xxx

... you enter the city is the baptistery, which has a unique (at least to me) half peaked/half domed roof. Just to the side of the baptistery is where we heard another couple of stories: The story of how the area was once a swamp (sounds like another of the worlds greatest cities, Chicago. The greatest, actually. It's science) where two great rivers collided. The mist used to be so great at this conjunction that one could not see the other side of the river(s). It was a great opportunity ...

... the bakers here like to use salt. I haven't found Florence to be as beautiful as people say it is. I have met quite a few people that say Florence is their favourite Italian city. Perhaps I will think differently after I watch a sunset from the top of Piazza Michelangelo. There are things that I like so far, but I can't say that it would be my favourite city in Italy. I do find that Florence is nicer at night than during the day. Went to "Vivoli" for gelato - supposedly the best in ...