What have the Romans ever done for us? (Italy)

Sun 4th February – Monday 12th February (8 nights)

Turin, Italy – Almalfi, Italy

Well for a start the Romans built a pretty damn impressive city and in particular one of the most impressive stadiums that we have ever seen! But more of that later.

We all know the Romans were actually quite an impressive bunch and came up with plenty of good ideas and Italy is still a damn good place for food, wine, historical buildings, art and much more but despite building the roads they DID NOT teach the Italians how to drive! They really are quite unbelievable and we have been lucky that Bula has not ‘squashed’ a number of eyeties in their Fiat Pandas! I am now actually beginning to enjoy the ride as we are some what bigger than most! On the subject of Bula, she continues to be absolutely fantastic, though we are now down to just one windscreen wiper…..but Clare doesn’t need to see where we are going any way!

Having recovered in Parma we have meandered our way down through Tuscany and Rome to the Almalfi Coast, south of Naples. The weather has been on and off, with some lovely days and some extremely wet ones! Highlights have been many and started with Florence which we both loved, and spent two days being ‘cultural’. For anyone who has been to Florence try and picture Bula arriving in the main pedestrian street in the centre of town having ‘negotiated’ the many narrow streets! We got plenty of stares and much interest from both the public and in particular the police, but all ended well and we eventually found the hotel. The scenery through Tuscany has been spectacular, though a bit to windy in places for Clare!!!

From Florence we traveled to San Gimignano, reputedly the most picturesque and well known village in Tuscany, before heading on down to Lake Trasimeno and to a recommended self catering apartment off the beaten track. What a fab recommendation, thanks Susan and Sally, as it was a lovely spot which finally allowed us to be self sufficient for a night (though G wasn’t too good with the fire, and succeeded in smoking us out!), you cant beat a bit of home cooking! We stayed two nights and on the second night we ventured into the attached restaurant – FANTASTIC – log fire, 7 course set meal, all traditionally cooked from local ingredients, and topped off with a huge selection of local grappa, though the chili one nearly blew our heads off!!!!

Having got the taste of being more self reliant we headed south and decided to stay about 30 miles north of Rome (G didn’t fancy taking on the Roman drivers on there own circuit!) but this time in a B& B. Run by a mad Italian woman who spoke absolutely no English we had a hoot. Taking the t

rain (50 mins) into Rome each day we got more of a ‘flavour’ of Rome and ended up having two very different days in the city. The first we got absolutely drenched! Having sto

od in line for over 40 mins for the Sistine Chapel they

decided to close it; so thought we would try a bus tour but too wet to sit up top and to steamy to see anything from inside!! What to do? It was Saturday and a Six Nations Day so find an Irish bar an

d watch the Rugby! We did however have a good wonder around after the game seei

ng most of the important sites including the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks who have used the bones and skeletons of over 4000 monks to decorate the cells – all very morbid but quite fascinating. Day 2 we had glorious sun shine and spent most of it in the Colosseum and

surrounding Roman ruins – very, very impressive even if a bit barbaric– over 10,000 men & 5,000 animals killed in a 100 day celebration of the opening of the Colosseum……that’s a lot of killing but still a very impressive stadium!! However, Clare could not find Russell Crowe!!

From Rome we have continued south in the rain, skipped Naples and have spent today trying to kill ourselves!! The Sorrento and Amalfi coasts may be beautiful and spectacular but the roads (with their crazy drivers) were not designed for Bula…..built on the side of cliffs & extremely twisty!! However she was great and we are now having a laugh about it but in the sanctuary of a bar with a large beer!!

So the Romans have provided us with a great and extremely diversified week which we have thoroughly enjoyed; weather has not been perfect but this has not managed to spoil one minute; we seem to have avoided staying in any more brothels, have eaten and drunk too much and are both agreed on coming back to Tuscany sometime in the future.

However, we are also ready to move on from Italy as the budget continues to take a hammering and we are eager to get on with the ‘main adventure’, Africa! Though we do still have Greece and the Middle East in between which we are sure will ‘throw up’ a few interesting exploits on the way – we can’t wait!!!!! We have now been on the road for a total of 31 days and traveled over 4000 miles but are still only in bloody Europe, so definitely time to move onto another continent.