Long time no post

I´m sure everyone at home is wondering where I´ve been and what I´ve been doing so before any more time passes I´ll try fill in some of the blanks starting with Italy.

The week long trip to italy was a definate highlight since I arrived in germany. There were so many new things to take in and I was glad that I didn´t have to do the driving. It was just over 50kms to the border of Austria and I could see the Alps so clear from the autobahn and the snow covered peaks looked unreal like a postcard dream.

Driving over the border into another country is weird the first time as I expected something more than just a sign saying, ´welcome to austria! I thought there would be a seemingly endless ocean and then an entirely different culture with different plants and animals.

Apart from cheaper fuel and road tax I couldn´t tell we were in Austria and 110kms along the autobahn we crossed the border into Italy and we could say goodbye to cheap fuel and hello to pay by the kilometer toll gates.

We spent the first night in a patch of forest somewhere in the mountains around brixen where we actually wanted to take a skii lift high up into the mountains. It took us hours to find a camp spot and you would think we could do better than park next to a pile of composted cow shit!

It was only 183 kms to the Riva del Garda and we spent the better half of the day walking through the narrow town streets admiring the old stone houses which were built so close together letting almost no sunlight into the surrounding passages.
The lake itself was enormous with a length of 50kms and 346 meters deep in one section but the surrounding mountains and the italien architecture is what made this place.

From the Gardasee we made our way to verona the first roman city I´d seen. We walked through millions of passage ways stopping to marvel at things like the Roman amphitheatre or Juliets balcony and the many statues and palaces with the highlight being the lookout point from which we could see the entire city.

Some of the things I´d found inbetween sight seeing were that toilets are hard to come by in italy. With so many people walking around you´d think there´d be a public toilet somewhere. That an 80km stretch in italy is like 400kms of driving in australia and memorizing street names is impossible.. The ice cream is awesome and conversation doesn´t happen in supermarkets. Very few fatties and not many fast food chains.


Driving from verona to the Cavallino peninsula we found a free camp spot directly by the beach but unfortunately I can´t say many good things about the beauty of the Adriatic sea. The ferry took us from Punta Sabbioni to the city of venice.

People replaced cars here but the traffic wasn´t too much in the morning. St Marcs cathedral was our first destination and it wasn´t hard to find we just had to follow the crowd. It vwas so cool to be in a place where the only means of transport is by by foot or by boat through the hundreds of tiny canals cutting through the city replacing the streets in a conventional town. Ofcourse I had to try one of the gondola´s out and it was awesome to sit back on a cushy chair and not to have to walk for half an hour.

I couldn´t believe our luck on the way back to the ferry! There were so many people crossing over one bridge I thought it´d break through and the traffic jam just kept getting worse. I was pretty happy to catch the ferry out of there and head further south towards florence.

Florence itself wasn´t anything special for the effort especially on Antonia´s part driving around looking for a car park put me in a state of confusion and antonia into shock. Here we saw the famous statue of michelangello or atleast a life sized replica. Here I paid to use a toilet for the first time in my life and still can´t help but feel robbed but I figured cleaning out my jocks would have been worse. Although there were plenty of churches, palaces and statues to see here I was already comparing everything to the previous cities we´d been to and after spending a few hours here we got moving to Pisa to see if the leaning tower was still standing

The town itself was average but the tower made it worth the visit which stands 5.3 meters off center. As usual we had trouble finding a place to sleep and a crappy 1 star hotel cost about 150 aussie $ for a night. We found a caravan park near the city and still paid $40 for a tent site per nite.

Just when I thought the trip through Italy was losing its fun factor along came Cinque Terre. A national park right by the sea with tiny fishing towns nestled in between the hills and vineyards planted in the surrounding hillsides. There was a train line running through the hills from one village to the next so we bought a ticket and walked as far as we could through the national park and planned to catch the train back later. I loved the peace and quiet in the small towns and the oceans deep blue colour with ripples pushing up against the rocky shore reminded me of home.

We didn´t have anything planned to stay and spent a few hours driving around looking for somewhere to park for the night. As we drove through the hills the surroundings started to look a little similar to the rainforests in australia with vines spiralling up the surrounding trees and ferns growing on the forest floor. I never would have thought we´d find something like this in italy and it was even cooler when wild pigs crossed the road infront of us.

You´d think that having come this far without any car trouble we´d make it home without any problems. We´d just driven from our bush camp through hundreds of tunnels cutting through the mountains and then couldn´t work out how to get off the autobahn to the Comersee. Once we´d made it off the Autobahn the exhaust came loose and the old Passat suddenly sounded like my Barina. What was left of the day looking for a peice of wire to fix the exhaust. I even tried to ask an italian mechanic but he couldn´t understand my hand signals or my italien. Looking for a peice of wire, toilet and restaurant left bugger all time to check out the lake but no drama.

Feeling the 3 course dinner from the night before and having had next to no real sleep we headed home in our mustang sound-alike. Over the border of switzerland Antonia was already nervous about driving through the Julier Pass with here car but we got through even with the uphill stop so I could take pictures of the snow surrounding the street.

I think that´s everything from Italy. Hope all is going well back in Oz.