THURSDAY - ROME

Hi everybody. We are now comfortably settled in at Instituto il Rosario in central Rome, a ten minute walk from the Colosseum. The view from our window is a bit limited but the location is perfect.

We arrived here at midday after eventually negotiating our way through the outskirts of Rome to the motorhome base. We elected to follow the directions given by the GPS rather than those given by the motorhome people which was a mistake. The GPS sent us by a route which involved a low bridge we couldn’t fit under. As is not unusual, we saw some parts of the city we weren’t expecting to see but all’s well that ends well.

I had some negotiating to do about the charge for the extra mileage on the motorhome because the speedometer over read by about 10% but we came to a mutually satisfactory compromise. If anybody wants to rent a motorhome in Italy, we highly recommend them. Their vehicle was excellent. We did 2,500 kilometres in the 17 days we had it.

As you would expect, we spent this afternoon at the Colosseum and the adjacent Palatino. We joined an English speaking conducted tour which enabled us to avoid the extremely long queue to get in. What can one say? Rome is all about the history of the Romans which started more than 2000 years ago and the prolific Roman ruins reflect that.

 Tomorrow we are off to the Vatican. We have our tickets and hope the experience won’t be too challenging. We can apparently expect to be part of a very large crowd.

WONDERFUL ASSISI

Hi everybody. Today was another enchanting day. We had no idea that Assisi is as impressive as it is. To top it off, we are camped “in the bush” at a camping ground a few kilometres east of Assisi. While it is a normal camping ground, there are so few people here and the sites are spread among the trees such that there is no other camper within sight of us.

You know that you are off the beaten tourist track when the man at reception speaks very little English and the man in the shop speaks no English. I had no trouble however communicating to him that I wanted a bottle of his local Umbrian chardonnay.

Today was a very saintly day. St Francis, St. Clair, St. Peter and a number of others all of which have grand cathedrals or churches dedicated to their memories.

We finished the day at Eremo Delie Carceri, the cave not far from here tucked away in the forest where Francis used to come for quiet reflection, now a Franciscan retreat venue – very picturesque and very peaceful. It started out as a cave but now has a building built over it through which one enters a series of rooms used by Francis cut into the rock. Hopefully some of his saintliness has rubbed off on us.

Well that’s it for the motorhome adventures folks. I hope you have enjoyed reading about them. We have certainly enjoyed experiencing them. According to the GPS, we are 149 kilometres from the motorhome base. We hope to be there by 10:00am tomorrow ready for our assault on Rome. We have tickets for the Vatican for Friday. It’s the first time in almost three weeks that we have had to be at any particular place at any particular time.

On Saturday, we head to Positano for the very significant birthday parties for the ladies turning 60! We will be very busy having a good time but I will hopefully find the time to keep the blog updated. Keep an eye on it at http://kylefun.blogspot.com/

TUESDAY IN FLORENCE

Hi everybody. What an energetic day. We walked 220 steps down to the town, 441 steps up to the top of the Cathedral tower and down again and, at the end of the day, 220 steps back up the hill. We never did find the right bus stop. I am now sitting under the shade of a tree with my shirt off. The temperature’s about 30 degrees and am I having a well deserved beer.

One reads stories about horrendous queues in Florence and we experienced one. We started out to wait in the queue for The Uffizi Gallery which, as we joined it, was about 100 metres long . There was an initial burst of activity but then no movement for 20 minutes. After fielding a number of proposals which, for a cost significantly exceeding the 11 euro entrance cost, would have enabled us to avoid the wait, we abandoned our interest in visiting the Gallery.

We have no idea how long it would have taken us to get in but people have apparently been known to queue for four hours. You would have to be very keen to see it.

From there we went to the Cathedral where the queue to get in was substantially longer than we experienced yesterday. The photo on the right shows the queue which went almost all the way along the side of the cathedral. Perhaps we were lucky yesterday. In any event, our plan today was to climb the dome or the tower. There was no queue for the tower so up we went the 441 narrow winding steps. Well worth the effort.

From there we headed for The Medici Chapels . On the way, we went into any interesting doorway that we passed including the Basilica of St. Lorenzo. We saw quite a lot of interesting artwork, statues, churches, historical and religious artefacts etc. but with no queues!

We even did some shopping at a variety of street stalls and made a small purchase at one of the Ponte Vecchio goldsmith shops. For something different, we treated ourselves to a horse drawn buggy ride around the town.

The decision is made. Tomorrow we head for Assisi where they have a special 18 euro deal if you email them in advance which we have done. They have plenty of availability which hopefully, from our perspective, means there will be nobody there. From there, we will return the motorhome to Rome on Thursday morning.

As you would expect,Lady Elliot Island is not the only place where golf buggies are used for purposes other than golf.

The sad side of life in Florence. The lady in the long skirt is begging. It is said that they are gypsies about which one is warned with respect to pickpocket activity but we have seen no evidence of it yet.

FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE

Hi Everyone. Last night I experimented with some night photography on the cruise ships we could see from our camp site. One of the photos came out quite well.

We are now in Florence camped in a delightful spot among the trees at Camp Michaelangelo, from which it is a very pleasant 10 minute walk down the hill to central Florence. It’s a somewhat longer walk back up the hill but there is a bus which we are yet to work out where to catch. We have tickets for the bus but couldn’t find it. We survived the walk back up and it is probably better for us.

Hidden among the trees in the foreground is our campsite.

We got away to an early start this morning (8:30) and spent a couple of hours on the motorway to get here.

This afternoon we checked out Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s oldest bridge with its very impressive array of goldsmith’s shops. Given that I have already bought Trish’s birthday present at the Murano glass factory, we couldn’t afford to buy any gold products.

From there, we went to Palazzo Vecchio to see how the Medici family lived in the fifteenth century after which we found ourselves at the Cathedral, the world’s fourth largest, completely covered on the outside with green, white and pink marble.  What was particularly interesting was what has been unearthed underneath the cathedral, previous churches on the same site dating back to Roman times.

We hope to master the bus system tomorrow so that we don’t have to walk up the hill again. We will spend the day exploring Florence and stay here tomorrow night. We then have to decide whether to go back to Rome via Sienna or Assisi.

We won’t have time to do both unless we hurry and we have forgotten how to do that. I suspect it will be Assisi. It looks quieter and is closer to Rome.

 

LAST DAY IN VENICE

Hi everybody. As I type this I am enjoying an afternoon’s entertainment watching Sunday boating Italian style, probably no more entertaining than watching Gold Coast boaties getting their boats in and out of the water at a busy boat ramp but the method is very different.

We are camped at the water’s edge looking across at Venice at the entrance to what is obviously the local boat storage area. This morning it was hive of activity as boats were brought from the parking area on their trailers by tractors obviously kept here for that purpose, lifted off the trailers by three cranes and lowered into the water. There are no boat ramps.

This morning it was quite orderly but it’s now 6:00pm and they have all come home at the same time! We have a typical Italian traffic jam but this time it’s boats waiting in line for the traffic to clear. Obviously very few people in Italy have room to store a boat or a vehicle big enough to tow it so their boats live in storage yards adjacent to a launching facility. I wonder how many months a year they can use them.

We have had another great day exploring the back streets and waterways of Venice. We saw an exhibit of the works of the artist Dali, a very spectacularly unusual church and a typical 15^th century palatial home, each of which we were actually able to find. Navigating the streets of Venice is quite challenging and great fun as long as you don’t have to be at any particular place at any particular time. We were also hoping to see the naval Museum highly recommended by June but it’s closed Sundays.

Probably the most impressive sight of the day were the two very large cruise ships which made their way slowly down the main channel  between Venice and the island immediately to its south. To see the two massive ships, each assisted by tugs majestically make their way through the ferries, water taxis, gondolas, commercial boats of all shapes and sizes and the private pleasure boats was truly impressive. What was even more impressive was the fact that, in all the waterborne chaos that is Venice, we haven’t seen one incident. How they keep out of each other’s way is impressive. Boats don’t have brakes but, on the ferries at least, reverse gear gets a serious workout.

Tonight for the first time since arriving in Venice, we are eating “at home”.

We have now been away for two of our four weeks and are starting to make our way back towards Rome where we are due to give back our wonderful motorhome on Thursday. Tomorrow we’re off to Florence.

The vaporettos get a little crowded!

You are likely to see anything cruising the canals.

Don't tell Trish but, thanks to the Murano glass factory, the birthday shopping is done.

A BUSY DAY IN VENICE

Hi everybody. What can one say? Venice is truly special, so special that we are going back tomorrow for a third day.

We now have a fair understanding of the place and have just about mastered the vaporetto (water bus) system but have yet to make any impression on the numerous museums and exhibits which one could spend many days seeing but we will try and see a few tomorrow.

As you can see, I have succeeded in uploading a few photos to give you a bit of an  understanding of the fun we are having. 

THE WONDERLAND OF VENICE

What can I say other than thank you to Gino and June for sharing some of their beloved Venice with us. It is now Saturday morning and we spent a fascinating afternoon exploring some of Venice yesterday. We are heading back there shortly for a full day.

We are camped right on the water at Fusina, on the mainland looking over towards Venice, a 20 minute ferry ride away.

I am intending to let the photos tell the story but I have run out of time to upload them. We have a ferry to catch so that will happen later. Sorry about that.

Ciao

THE DOLOMITES

Hi everybody. There is only one word for today, enchanting, and the enchantment continues. As I am typing this the thunder is rumbling and the rain is bucketing down but the water tank is full, the waste tanks are empty, the electricity is plugged in, the gas is turned on, the beer and wine are cold so I don’t need to go outside for any reason.

Today has been overcast and drizzly all day so we weren’t able to do much walking. We have had a very leisurely day visiting Austria as anticipated.

We got away to an early start this morning. We were on the road by 9 o’clock! We had a quick look at Merano but, as usual, couldn’t find anywhere to park so moved on to Bolzano. The longest cable car in the world is located in Bolzano so we were hoping to check it out but, as a policeman told us in no uncertain terms, there is no parking for motorhomes in Bolzano. (We assume that is what he told us. We couldn’t understand what he was saying but got the message loudly and clearly).

From there we headed north to Bressanone where an interesting looking road headed east into Austria towards Lienz. We didn’t go as far as Lienz. We found an even more interesting looking road which took us into the Dolomites and eventually south back into Italy. The area we passed through was truly enchanting, mountain passes, deep valleys and very quaint little Austrian villages.

Unfortunately the clouds meant we couldn’t see the Dolomites in their full splendour but we caught enough glimpses to understand how spectacular they are. We are now camped beside a very picturesque lake near not far north of Undine.

In northern Italy, Switzerland and Austria, there is a lot of German spoken so, thanks to Trish, our communication ability has been somewhat improved.

Tomorrow we head for Venice for a couple of days. Needless to say, there won’t be any motorhome parking in Venice but we have our preferred campground programmed into the GPS and will be commuting by ferry from there.

WEDNESDAY - THE GLITZ OFST. MORITZ

Hi everybody. After the idyllic campsites we have had over the last few nights, we are forever spoilt.

Tonight we are at Latsch, still in the north of Italy, but a little east of where we were last night, in a reasonably crowded campsite, although I must admit that the only sound I can hear at the moment is the rushing of the river nearby.

We were late getting away from Piuro. It is in such a deep valley that the sun slept in. We didn’t wake up until 7:30. We were then distracted by Peter Rau’s attempt to communicate with us by Skype. He could see and hear us and got a look at the campsite and waterfall behind but we couldn’t see or hear him.

As planned, we headed north into Switzerland and went to St. Moritz. They must have heard we were coming because most of the cable cars and many of the businesses were closed. It was a combination of our being there at siesta time and the fact that it is a quiet part of the year, which suited us nicely. Last night I identified the tallest mountain to which a cable car goes and, after some navigational difficulties, found our way to the base station only to find that it has been closed since April and will open in TWO DAYS TIME!

We did however find our way to the one that is open and had to be content with an altitude of 2700 metres, not the 3000 I was planning on but, we did get a great view of St.Moritz and the spectacular snow topped mountains surrounding it.

The beautiful people didn’t seem to be there.

From there we drove north to Zernez and headed east back into Italy. The roads we travelled today, both as we headed for St. Moritz and east from Zernez were as spectacular roads as we have ever seen from the perspective of the views encountered along the way.

Where to from here? Don’t know yet. Generally east towards Venice via the Dolomites, another apparently spectacular part of the world, but I am yet to work out a specific route. Austria’s not far north of here. Having been to Switzerland, we might drop in to Austria as well.

 I added some extra photos just to show  the driving fun we have had.