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Trip Start May 14, 2011 Previous
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  Rome, Lazio, Italy
Thursday, June 9, 2011

so, we have spent 14 days in Italy. We have spent an insane amount of money and have done Italy to death.  Nice place if you stay away from the cities.  I am not going to go through our whole intinery, basically be cause it has been near impossible to find any internet points, that don't charge you like a wounded bull. but after saying that I will talk a little about Rome.  The Vatican, the St. Peter's Basillica and it's museum are a must.  Be prepared to stand in crowds of up to 5 plus thousand to get in, and make sure you wear good walking shoes.  Once you are in the Vatican Museum, there is only one way out and that is at the end of the tour route. You should allow four hours at the least.  Simply amazing though, and we will never forget it. Make the most of your trip, rent a local appartment (it cost us 350.00 Euro for 4 nights), cheaper than the nasty cheaper hotels in the wrong areas.  This way you have a kitchen, so you can properly experience the local markets and cook your own Italian food.  In our case this turned out better than anything we could buy anyway.  Before you leave home for your trip to Rome, make sure you have plenty of room to move on your credit cards....Via Del Corsa will give them a work out for sure. This is an enormously long shopping street, it stretches for miles, and there are brands and bargains in every store.
Camping in Italy is great, in fact it is not at all like camping at home in Tassie.  In Italy you have showers, hot water, mini markets, laundry rooms, pools, bars, night clubs, some times wireless internet and always power all for an average of about 20.00 Euros a night ( they will charge per car, per tent and per person).  Charges sometimes apply for the wireless and hotwater and things, but camping gave us the freedom to move where we wanted to on a daily whim.  Use the local markets and supermarkets (these are huge), sort of a cross between coles and bunning on steriods.  We purchased camping stoves, billy, fry pan, Bbq, folding table and chairs and Al's new best mate(a basil plant) from supermarkets.  We even found an inverter for the car for about a quarter of the price of at home, so we could recharge the laptop, cameras and my razor.  and the scenery you will encounter on your drives between the hundreds of camp sites, will nevver stop to take your breath away.  1 minute you will be driving in low flat and fertile countryside farm land, and the next you are winding your way into the thousands of meters above sea level into the italian alps and the snow (yep snow in summer, and look out for bears) and then down again into the most spectacular pine filled rain forests you will ever see. the rivers are amazing, fresh clear and clean when you are up stream from the cities, and the fish are visible just at you feet.  Both trout and salmon, small and large are swimming and jumping in the waters of most of the rivers and streams, no matter the size.  And breaking up this incredible scenery are the old world fortified cities and towns.
Park out side of these, and put your walking boots on again.  don't, what ever you do drive in these things, not even if your cars GPS system tells you there is a path.  You will get stuck.  They are rabbit warrens of extremely tightlanes and streets, the laneways and streets of these towns are the size of footpaths at best and most of them are two way streets, and even worse some of them will be patrolled by giant tourist busses (somehow squeezing in). Like giant killer sharks, these things jump out and try to squash you when you least expect it. I am surprised these buses are allowed in, they are deadly. And then there are the scooters. Do some home work, and just pick a few of the castles and fortified cities that you want to see, if you try to see to many, they will all start to look the same, and you might find yourself getting bored.  buut the Architechture is great, the locals are mostly friendly and the bakeries (pastiseries) and wineries are to good to be true.
so that is Italy in a nut shell (a small nut shell), the only other advice I can give is, don't do to many museums and tourist sites.  You should definately do Pompei (but most of the victims have been moved to other museums), and you should probably try to get to the Egyptian museum in Turin. These are awesome.  But if entering a city, either try to park and catch a bus, or be prepared for traffic like you have never seen......Any way it's off to France for us now, so we will catch you on the other side of the border.

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st peters	st peters	funny looking guard   Comments!	sistine chapel
sistine chapel	sistine chapel	fruit n veg market	market
pantheon	rome	trevi fountain	coloseum
trevi fountain	coloseum	sorrento	camping
camping	camping	amalfi coast	amalfi coast
amalfi coast	amalfi coast	amalfi coast	amalfi coast
pompei	pompei	pompei	pompei
pompei	wine bar	pompei	pompei
umbria	UMBRIA	camping	umbria
umbria	umbria	umbria	umbria
leaning tower	tuscany	tuscany	phil can fix anything
tuscany	pisa	tuscany	yeeeeeah baby
tuscany	mountains	mountains	mountains
mountains	mountains	our little home	cute caravan next to us
venice	venice	venice	venice
murano	venice	venice	lake garda
wine on tap at the super market	white swans	lake garda	lake garda
mountains	mountains	mountains	mountains
mmmm	best hot choc ever	snow country	road side snow
lake iseo	the main road

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