Day 44 Rome – Perth:

Well, that’s it. This morning we leave for Rome airport for our plane flight home. It has been a fantastic adventure and one we will not forget for a long time. It feels like we have been away for ages but no doubt once we are home it will feel like we have only been away for the weekend. We do feel like we are ready to come home but not ready to go back to work. We certainly wouldn’t be opposed to heading off to another destination but obviously that can’t happen. We have been to some amazing places and seen some amazing things. We all agree though that London was our favourite city. It’s a fantastic place and it always helps when everything goes to plan as it did here. The accommodation in London was probably the best as well. Even though the accommodation in Florence was fantastic, it was let down by the constant noise which eventuated in a serious lack of sleep. We all agree that Paris was the most beautiful city and it also had the best tourist attractions. We all voted Switzerland as our favourite country. Switzerland was a massive surprise packet and it just blew us away. It has the most amazing views, beautiful fresh air, lots of things to do and the people there were very nice. We think it would be a bit of a toss-up for the nicest people between Munich, Switzerland and London. Unfortunately, the rudest people can be shared between the Parisians and the Italians. We all agreed that Rome has the best churches including the most amazing church, St. Peters Basilica. The history in Rome is beyond comparison and this place makes you feel very insignificant given the fact it has been around for so long. Unfortunately for us though Italy probably didn’t live up to expectations in other areas. Rome seems to be a city of contrast; it’s either black or white here. You can walk into a shop and get rude, arrogant service and walk into the next shop and have some of the loveliest service you’d ever get. You can go to a restaurant and get bad food and walk next door and get amazing food. It didn’t help that not a great deal really went right for us in Italy right back to the first time we stepped on a Trenitalia train for our journey to Milan. We have also had problems with the accommodation in Italy starting back in London when our Florence apartment got cancelled on us. The massive crowds of people and the hawkers shoving stuff in your face can take the gloss of some things as well. But all in all it has been a great holiday and one we have all enjoyed and we just wish we could fly back to London and start it all over again.

Day 43 Rome:

Well it was our last full day of our holiday today and what a fantastic day it was, one of the best days we have had. We wanted to get out of Rome on a day trip today but we were undecided on what to do. We did initially want to go to Pompeii but once we found out it was a 5-6 hour round trip we changed our mind. We got talking to a very friendly Indian guy in the souvenir shop we have been to a few times downstairs near our apartment the other day who claims to be Harbhajan Singh’s cousin. I said “That’s amazing mate, because I’m Ricky Ponting’s brother!!” Anyway, he told us about Ostia Antica, a place of ruins that used to be a thriving port town back in the first century AD with reports of 100,000 residents. We did a bit of research and the place sounded interesting and it was only 45 minutes away via a couple of trains. So we get walking up to the main train terminal which is about a 20 minute walk to catch the metro to the Pyrimide station which is about 4 stops. We follow the signs to our next train on the Lido line and this takes about 20-30 minutes to get to Ostia Antica. We had no idea about this place before being told and the only half decent info we could get was from Rick Steve’s website. We followed “Ricks” instructions and got there with ease. We started wandering around this place and our initial impressions were “this looks like it could be a little bit boring”. But as we continued on this ancient city that dates back more than 2000 years to the times of Christ just starts to appear in front of us and we are gobsmacked. We really felt like we got a great feeling for what it was like living back in this time. The awesomeness of this place cannot be explained and it’s one of those “you have to be there” sort of things to really appreciate it. For us, this place was so amazing that we reckon it is as good as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, that’s how good it is. We even enjoyed it more than the Colosseum and that place is amazing. We spent pretty much the whole day there and could have stayed longer but it was getting late and we didn’t arrive back at our apartment until about 6pm. So we clean up and head out for dinner to our favourite Rome restaurant, Grill & Wine. Another fantastic meal and we get a snap of the kids with their favourite waiter. When we go to this restaurant the waiter always serves us and he calls Mia “princess” and Tyler “champion” and they lap it up. We leave there and go down to see our mate Valentino. We get our usual fix of gelato before getting a group snap with him as well. After that it’s off to our other mate, Habhajan’s cousin to buy a few more kg’s for the suitcase and then it’s off to the apartment to pack. It was great way to round off a great day and a fantastic holiday.

Day 42 Rome:

Today we are booked in for a tour of the Vatican at 10am. This is going to be pretty special we think. We opted for a “skip the line” tour because every time we have gone past the Vatican on the open top bus the line has been ridiculously long. This will ensure us of “no waiting”........just to repeat that.....“no waiting” to get into the Vatican museum and St. Peters Basilica. We leave the apartment for the 40 minute walk to St. Peters Basilica and get there in 25 minutes (way to go team!!). We find the meeting spot which is just outside the tour office about 400m from the basilica entrance and we wait. We had to be there 20 minutes early but we arrived with an extra 10 minutes up our sleeve. At this point the penny drops and I’m thinking if I’m doing a “skip the line” tour why am I sitting here waiting for half an hour??? I might as well be waiting in the queue with all the other people trying to get in. It gets to 10am and there is a heap of people waiting out the front of the office but no tour guide. At 10:10 some bird with a yellow sign walks out of the office and just starts walking in the direction of the Basilica, she doesn’t say anything, just starts walking. Half the people follow and half just hang around. We are thinking “is this our tour?” We’re looking around like idiots as are some other people and we ask this stupid, horrible woman from the tour company who is standing outside the front of the office if that was our tour and she just doesn’t answer us, as if we’re not even there. By this point the group have disappeared into the crowd, god knows where they’ve gone and we are still none the wiser. We go inside to ask for assistance, along with some other people and get told after about a 5 minute wait that “yes that was your tour and you need to find them and catch up”. There are a bazillion people out there how the hell do we find them??? We go running off but we have no hope of finding these people and Kris and I are absolutely fuming. We storm back to the office and we let rip and the lady behind the desk, who was actually quite nice, told us we didn’t actually have to be with the group and we could just go around to the entrance and we could go straight in. That was great but what about our tour guide, isn’t she meant to talk to us along on the tour and give us some info or something??? The woman behind the counter gives us directions to the entrance and it ends up being a 10 minute walk around the back of the Vatican. We get moving and make our way toward the Vatican entrance and the entire time I’m just about to explode like a kid with turrets syndrome. We get there and we go straight in and once inside we realise, that was the tour. These people slugged us to guide us from their bloody office to the front bloody entrance. They don’t take you on a tour through the Vatican, THAT WAS THE TOUR!!! And, we waited over an hour for the privilege!!! Kris turns to me and says “I’ve just about had it with this flipp’n joint” (note: some words were changed to accommodate the ‘G’ rating). This to us has just been another example of how they do things in Italy, they love taking your money but hate providing a service, or at least a good one. We continue on and try our hardest to calm down which takes a good half hour or so. We decide that we can’t let these people beat us. We walk through the Vatican on our way to the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican and the Sistine Chapel end up being amazing. It was a fantastic walk and a really amazing experience. We end up taking the tour guides exit from the Sistine Chapel. This is something we read on the internet. It takes you straight into St. Peters Basilica instead of the standard exit which takes you outside and back to the line. We enter the basilica and wow, this is special. What an amazing church. We wander around for a good while, go underneath the church floor to see the tombs of past Popes and we take the exit. What a fantastic experience that was and well worth all the hassles we had to go through. We decide to pop into Piazza Novona for lunch on the way home and get to enjoy the clown from last night doing his thing here as well while we eat. We walk back to the apartment and as like yesterday we whack a movie on for the kids while Kris and I have a kip before heading out for dinner back down at the Pantheon. Again, we head over to Valentino’s for gelato and back home to bed. A pretty good day in the end.

Day 41 Rome:

Today we don’t have a great deal planned so we are just going to walk around and see where we end up. We start off by walking down to Piazza Novona to see if we can find some paintings to bring home. This Piazza is basically where the artists sell their gear and it’s all pretty good stuff. We manage to find some cheapy paintings and we are on our way again. We decide to go over to Campo dei Fiori which is literally down the road. On the way we pass this bakery, Il Fornaio and decide to stop in for a snack. They sell some amazing cakes and biscuits and Kris and I spot these cakes that look a bit like an Apple Strudle type thing.......we think. We ask for one (to share) and the lovely lady starts telling us in her Italian English that they are beautiful and straight out of the oven. She comes over with one and grabs the back of Kris’s hand to put on the cake to show her it’s warm and keeps telling her “Beautiful, beautiful”. I quickly tell the woman we want two because I’m not sharing one of these little baby’s with Kris! We buy the kids something and we also indulge in a couple of varieties of biscuits as well. When we go to pay the lady throws a couple of other biscuits in for the kids for free. When we walk out we try the freebies and they are gold!! We can’t believe a biscuit can taste so good. We make our way into Campo dei Fiori and this place has come alive with fruit and vegie markets with old Italian men selling their stuff, it’s fantastic. We decide to hoe into our apple strudel thingy while it’s warm and this thing is amazing, I’m just about wetting myself it’s that good!!! We continue our walk and decide to head along the Arno river and up to this spot on this hill called Aventino. This hill gives you wonderful views over the river and the Trastevere area to St. Peters Basilica. The thing about this spot is it’s very quiet and not many people are here, a very pleasant change. We continue on to try and find the Bocca Della Verita or “the mouth of truth”. This is a marble face sculpture and if you put your hand in its mouth and don’t tell the truth it will cut your hand off (or something like that). So Kris and I are telling the kids on the way that after they stick their hands in we will be making a trip to the hospital to have their hands sewn back on and they’re pack’n their dacks. Tyler’s like “I’m not doing it”. We had a bit of a hard time finding it for a while and when we did find it we realised we had passed it in the open top bus about 3 times before. We leave there and we are all a bit shagged. We have walked miles today so we decide to walk home and the kids can watch a movie and Kris and I can have a good lie down. We get moving again around 6ish and down to the Pantheon for dinner. There is another demonstration going on (these people are always demonstrating) and the noise is unbearable so we decide to keep going and find somewhere else to eat. This proves harder than we think so we continue walking down to the Colosseum so I can take some photos of the Colosseum at night. The Colosseum looks amazing at night so I grab some snaps and we head back to the Pantheon. The demonstration has finished so we get some dinner. While we are eating, some busker dressed as a clown out in the piazza is doing some really funny stuff taking the urine out of people as they walk by so it ends up being a pretty fun night. We drop by our mate Valentino for gelato on the way through and then its home to bed.

I still can't get the photo's to work!

Day 40 Rome:

Today we are going on a tour through the Colosseum. We are pretty excited about this one so we decide to get up, have breakfast and get moving around 10ish. The tour is at 1pm and we have managed to get tickets for the underground section and up to the top level. This has only been open for the last year or so and it is only open for 6 months of the year. Places are hard to get so we feel very fortunate. We decide to walk down and take a look at some of the ruins along the way. The ruins are amazing but it can also be hard to stay attentive because you are always forced to look at bits of rubble and then try to imagine what was there. We grab a snack before going in and grabbing our tickets. The guide rocks up and we get moving. We are taken over the reconstructed section of the arena. This is a small section at one end of the Colosseum to try and give visitors an idea of what the arena looked like. A standard ticket to the Colosseum doesn’t allow you to walk on this section, even though we were only allowed on a small roped off area and we were not allowed to stop, it was worth extra dough. We head down underneath the arena level to where the gladiators and animals would have entered from. Even though the Colosseum was built back in 80 AD it’s still in pretty good shape. You get a good feel for what this place would have been like back then. They had some amazing engineering in this place. Something like 80 lifts were used to raise the gladiators and animals through trap doors in all different areas into the arena level. We continue on and back they way we came in and head around the “standard ticket” route before taking the stairs up to level 3, the upper level. From here you can get a real feel for what the atmosphere would have been like, more so than from the lower levels. It’s fantastic because it is only a small group of people and we have plenty of time and space to look around and take some snaps. This is rare in Rome as you will normally be sharing your immediate sq/m with about 600 other tourists and locals. The tour ends around 3pm and we take some more time to look around at the lower levels before heading out around 4pm. This was a real highlight and we would recommend that if anyone was going to do visit the Colosseum that they do this tour. We head back to the apartment and rest up before heading back to the restaurant we ate at last night, the Wine and Grill restaurant. As we were leaving last night I saw a couple order the chateaubriand for 2 and the waiter brought it to the table to ask them if it had been cooked to their satisfaction before moving to another table to carve it up. He then presented their plates to them complete with grilled vegies and this thing looked awesome. So I said to Kris we had to come back because I wanted that!! So it ends up being another magnificent meal and we leave shaking everyone’s hands again. On the same road is as the restaurant is “go to” gelato guy, Valentino, so we pop in for ice cream again before continuing on and back to the apartment.

Due to the internet connection at this apartment being ridiculously slow I am having a hard time uploading photos, so rather staying up till 1am like last night trying to get it to work I have opted for sleep instead.

Day 39 Rome:

Today we decided to do some walking. We are going to walk to the Spanish steps, then to Piazza del Popolo and then on to the Vatican which is about a 5km walk. We get started around 9:30 and it doesn’t take long to reach the Spanish steps. Our immediate impression is “Ok, there are some steps!!” We think that maybe there is some cultural significance relating to the steps or maybe there was a battle for the steps or something dramatic like that. Apparently not. It appears they were put there to help people get from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill. Wow. Sorry but this one falls under the boring category for us and we only give it about 10 minutes of our attention. We keep moving toward the Piazza del Popolo with a detour into the gardens (with the word gardens used loosely). We wander for a bit until we come to a lookout point looking over the Piazza del Popolo. We take a few snaps and then make our way down to the Piazza. This is quite a nice Piazza with a large fountain in the centre. We notice of to the right of the Piazza is a church, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo with a very unassuming facade but we decide we will go over and have a look. We walk inside and this church is amazing. Like most churches in Rome, the front facade gives nothing away to its incredible interior. The good thing is the kids are loving the churches as much as we are which makes it easy to spend some time in them. We look around for a while and admire the works. We take the exit and start our walk along Via Cola di Rienzo toward the Vatican. This is a beautiful road and it looks pretty clear to us that there is probably a bit of dough up this end of town. We turn left into the street that leads us to the Vatican entrance and like everything in Rome, you can’t take 5 steps without being hassled by someone wanting to sell you something, shoving something in your face or constantly approaching you like this particular group of guys trying to sell us tours of the Vatican. There is all sorts of guys shoving something in your face while you are quietly going about your day here in Rome, particularly the Asian morons trying to sell us absolute rubbish, there’s the “squashy ball guy”, the “scarf guy”, the “bubble blower guy”, the “handbag guy”, the “squishy face guy”, the “glass cube guy”, the “sunglasses guy”, the “umbrella guy” the “hat guy”, the “musical toy guy”, the “dancing mice guy”, the “dodge the paintings on the pavement guy” the “glow in the dark flick the thing in the sky guy” and it goes on and on and on and its relentless and beyond annoying. We finally make it past the gauntlet of morons to find ourselves at the front of St. Peters Basilica. What a sight from the outside this place is. We are looking forward to getting the opportunity to have a look inside. We didn’t plan to go inside today but just to come up and have a look and the queue is huge anyway so we decide we will catch the open top tour bus back to our apartment and grab some lunch. Once back at the apartment we decide to grab a drink along our street. We find a nice cafe, order some toasted sandwiches and a beer and wine and we are set for an hour or so. We are feeling a bit bushed so it’s back to the apartment and the kids watch a movie. After that it’s out for dinner. We are becoming sick of pizza and pasta so we need to order something different. We walk past the Trevi Fountain and up this street where there are heaps of restaurants and we find this restaurant that looks pretty good. This proves a great move. We all have something different and Kris has this steak that we all agree is better than anything we have had at Hippo Creek. It was very expensive but the food was fantastic and we walk out of there shaking everyone’s hand, the waiter, the owner and the chef. We head back down the street and pop in to see Valentino (he's our "go to" gelato guy) from Valentino’s Gelato and the kids get an ice cream. Then it’s off home to bed.

Day 38 Rome:

Today we wake up to a beautiful Rome day, a clear blue sky but it is just a little bit chilly. We have breakfast and get ready to leave the apartment and head down to catch the open top tour bus. We have done this in every city we have visited that has open top tour buses because it is the best way to get an immediate overview of the city and it helps us decide what we want to see in more detail later on. We get on the bus at the bus stop about 200m from our apartment and get moving. One thing becomes very apparent very quickly and that is we have a lot to try and see before we leave on Saturday arvo. This place is one attraction after another and there is no way we are going to be able to see it all before we leave so we are going to have to work out what we want to see and what gets missed out. Rome reminds us of Paris in the fact that there is just so much here. It is no way as pretty as Paris and it is not structured as well as Paris and I can only described it as an architectural grave yard with ruins and archaeological sites everywhere. But that is understandable when you realise that Rome was founded back in 753 BC. These guys were living here for 3 times longer than Australia has been around and that’s before we get to the AD part of time!!! That is extremely hard for me to grasp. The fact that there are so many ruins here makes the place look a little weird but it must be hard to build a city around so much history. Another thing that is very evident to us is there are a lot of little things scattered around the place like a statue on the corner of a building or a sculpture carved into a wall or a painting on a wall in the middle of nowhere and they are all still intact. I could imagine in Perth that some knob head would have smashed it or put graffiti all over it but it’s almost like even the knob heads over here respect the ancient parts of the city and it’s a no go zone or something. We finish a full route of the bus tour and decide to get off. We grab some stuff at the supermarket and take it back to the apartment. We don’t hang around we just change into warmer clothes because it is still chilly and head straight back out. We grab some lunch on the go and wander down to Piazza Navona. This is a great spot with lots of restaurants and artists selling their stuff. We just wander around before backtracking toward the Pantheon where we see people filing in through the front door so we join them. The Pantheon has this incredible front facade but the rest of it looks a bit like ruins so we were expecting the inside to be similar. The inside is in fact the reverse with amazing marble columns and the dome on top is massive. We sit and admire the place before getting out of there and moving on. We kept walking and decided to walk down and catch the green line of the open top tour bus. This takes you further south and out a bit further from the main centre. We walk to the stop which is about10 minutes away and ask the guy how long until it comes. He says around 35 minutes so we took a walk up these huge stairs around the back of this monument that lead to a church. We decide to pop inside and my god, we can’t believe this thing, it’s amazing. You would have had no idea from the outside that this church could be so amazing. We walk out and back to the green line bus only to realise our ticket doesn’t cover the green line, damn!! Never mind, back on the original bus for a spin until we decide to get back off again to go and explore the Trastevere area. This is an area on the other side of the river and it was very nice and worthy of another visit later we reckon. We head back and by this point we have covered some km’s. We get ready for dinner and head back down to the Pantheon to try and find a restaurant. We find a very nice spot at the front of the Pantheon where the food is great, the wine is fantastic (the red wine in Italy is the best we’ve ever had) there is entertainment in the piazza and we get an icecream before heading back to the apartment.



"The kids are pro's at this now, they know the best seats...."



"That is a very bad hair do dude.......I mean dudes"

"Piazza Novona"

"The beer and wine is starting to kick in"

"The Sprite has definitely kicked in!!"

"The beer and was HAS kicked in"

Day 37 Florence - Rome:

Today we leave Florence and make our final train journey to our final destination, Rome. The day starts with me getting out of bed to see the kids dressed and giving the place a bit of a clean up. They have also made themselves a platter of goodies and they are tucking in. Good onya kids. We need to pack again today and one thing is for sure, this is never a fun exercise. It’s getting harder and harder to fit all our gear into the available luggage space. We get that done around 10 but we don’t need to be out of the apartment until 11:30-12:00 so we head out for one last look at Florence. After that we head back to the apartment and grab our stuff and make our way down to the train station for our 12:40 train to Rome. Of course the train is running late, all our train journeys either within or into Italy on Trenitalia have been late. We were 2 minutes late in total on all the other train services we have used on this holiday but the best Trenitalia have managed so far is 15 minutes late on the Milan to Venice route. In addition to that we continue to get crappy advice from anyone wearing a Trenitalia uniform as we get directed to the wrong carriage and then directed back to where we were in the first place. We get on and someone is sitting in our seat so we tell the old codger to get out, (he’s managing to use all 4 of our seats) we are experts at dealing with these people now and it’s a 10 second exercise for him to pack up all his gear and move on. The train journey is a good one with wonderful views out of the window of the Italian country side and all its farms and vineyards. We have decided to treat ourselves on this leg and have a driver pick us up at the train station and take us to our apartment because we are sick of lugging this heavy load of suitcases around. We get to Rome and wait in the spot we had arranged with the apartment people and all we need now is to see a guy with a sign saying SCROOP! We wait.....and we wait..........and we wait. No bloody driver!! We take two seconds to realise where we are and then we remember, we are in Italy and it seems these people can’t get anything right. So half an hour goes by and we are none impressed so we decide to catch a cab. We approach a cab driver and we tell him where we want to go and he informs us he can’t do it, there is a demonstration on today and it’s too hard for this guy to get us within a 50 mile radius of our apartment. Italy is starting to wear thin with us about now as we realise we have to take the underground train. We lug the 6 ½ ton of luggage back down to the metro station, and carry it all down the stairs because escalators are post 1356 and god knows it’s too hard to whack a couple of those in. We find our train and get on board and exit at our stop smack bang in the middle of the demonstration as it’s making its way down the street. We battle the crowds down the street with all our gear and finally reach our apartment. We get greeted by the apartment owner’s parents who are a wonderful elderly couple who speak very little English but they go about giving us the run down. The apartment is tiny compared to what we have had in previous locations but it’s neat and tidy and has everything we need. We drop our stuff and head out and have a look around and because we are only 30m from the Trevi Fountain we thought we’d start there. It was hard to see the Trevi Fountain over the 51,345 people (I counted them) so we decide we will leave that for a week day. We buy some groceries at the supermarket just around the corner and drop them back at the apartment and we head out for another wander and look for a place to have some dinner. We find ourselves at Campo de Fiori and pick a restaurant. The food was rubbish but it was a good night and when we were done we made our way back via the Pantheon for a quick look (that thing is awesome) before heading back to the apartment and into the sack.

Advice to the homeless beggar:

We are walking along a cobbled street when we see a homeless beggar about 10m in front of us. This poor soul is kneeled down with her face almost touching the pavement and with one hand outstretched begging for her life, clearly doing it tough and in obvious anguish........or is she???!!! Just as we approach we hear this sound “ring dingaling, dingaling, dingaling”. It’s an almost Dukes of Hazard like sound. The poor homeless beggar with her other hand slowly reaches into her dress and turns her head inwards slightly so she can discretely check who it is that’s ringing her on her smart phone!!!!! Maybe whack that on silent hey love.......

Day 36 Florence:

We wake up this morning around 7:30 but this is our second time. We got the 4am wakeup call when an alarm decided to sound outside in the street for about half an hour. Unfortunately we are still having no luck with the early morning noise. We are going to wander around this morning and try to see the things we haven’t got around to seeing yet, the Uffizi, Piazza Santa Croce, the statue of David and the Duomo Museum and Cathedral. We start off by walking to the Uffizi via the Ponte Vecchio and do the walk under the raised path built to allow the king to wander Florence without having to mix with the rabble below. We get to the Uffizi and go to the entrance to get a ticket. The very unpleasant lady at the desk informs us that it will be 44 Euro to get in. The kids have to pay 11 Euro each because the live outside Europe. Kris and I think old paintings are a bit of a bore and at 44 Euro we continue walking. We head to Piazza Santa Croce, made famous by the Florence game of Calcio Storico. This is a very violent game of no rules football played between teams representing there area once a year. It’s not on today of course, but we just want to check out the Piazza. We get there and see this incredible Church at one end. The exterior is one of the best we have seen yet with amazing carvings in the huge timber doors and the marble facade and better still there is virtually no one here!! We head around the corner and see an entrance. They are only charging 10 Euro for all of us to go in so we grab some tickets. The inside of this church is incredible. As we are wandering around we realise that this is the church that houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo to name a few. The gear in this church is beyond comparison and we think it has surpassed the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Paris. We walk out of there pumped and head across the Piazza toward the Accademia where the statue of David resides. Most things in Florence are pretty close to each other so walking around is relatively easy. We get to the Accademia and the queue to get in goes around the corner. We decide that the 300 replica statues of David we have seen so far on most street corners will suffice and keep walking. We grab some lunch close to home and when we are finished we head up to the apartment to google some restaurants. We want to try and find a place that dishes up more traditional Tuscan food for dinner as opposed to the touristy rubbish they dish up around the main attractions here. We see a couple of restaurants on the net so we head back out to see if we can find them and check out what the menu looks like. The first one we come across looks fantastic. We figure a good sign to a traditional restaurant is that the menu is only in Italian with no English translation. The restaurant is closed at the moment as it closes between lunch and dinner but a bloke that works there helps us out by translating the menu for us. We reckon it sounds a bit of alright so we make a reservation and leave looking forward to tonight. Now we are off to see the Duomo museum with the tickets we got the other day. This museum proves to be a winner with heaps of amazing sculptures. Kris and I both like the sculptures and the architecture side of all these old places and for 22 Euro we got to walk to the top of the Duomo the other day as well. Heaps better value than the Uffizi we reckon. We get out of the museum and head over to the Duomo Cathedral which is free to get in. There is always a massive queue at the entrance of this place but because it is 10 minutes from closing there is no queue, awesome. The Duomo is a massive highlight for us so we walk in all excited and.......the bloody things a dud!!!! We look around and it’s stark, lifeless, no paintings on the ceiling, apart from the dome section which you can’t access due to it being roped off. We get ushered out 10 minutes later but we feel that’s all the time we needed to see this thing anyway. The facade to this building is incredible, amazing and you get the feeling that when you get inside you are going to see something special. I said to Kris, it’s like picking up a chick in a hot dress with this awesome cleavage hanging out and you’re thinking, yeah baby and you get her home and she whips off her bra and there’s noth’n!!!! Never mind, we missed out on some things today but we feel what we did see made up for it 10 fold. We head home and get ready for our big Tuscan dinner. We get moving for our 10 minute walk to the restaurant named Il Latina. We walk around the corner into the street the restaurant is on and BANG, there is like 50 people all standing outside the front door. We walk down and I ask some Italian women if they have a reservation or are they just waiting to get in. She responds in Italian so I’m none the wiser. A bloke is standing there at the entrance happy as Larry checking off reservation names and inviting them in. We are at the back of the bunch at this point and it looks like it’s going to be a while before we get in. I’m waving my hand like a crazy man trying to get his attention without luck. I look back to see where Kristine is and she’s not there??!! I then hear the man from the restaurant say “Yes, Kristine, 4, come in” I’m thinking “someone has stolen our reservation” but in fact Kristine had muscled her way to the front and before you know it we are being shown to our seat. Even though there was a huge crowd outside the restaurant is packed. There are no menus and there is a big 2 litre bottle of Chianti wine on the table. We get served entrees within minutes (we haven’t ordered anything) and it’s a mix of meats, cheese, salad and some other stuff I’ve never seen before. The waiter says to drink the wine and we only charge for what you drink. We do exactly that and we start eating. When we are done with that the waiter tells us what’s up for grabs in the next course and we chow down again. The waiters aren’t dressed like waiters and actually, it feels more like we are in someone’s home. People come and go and people are seated next to strangers, it’s fantastic. We have an awesome meal and finish up and the owner, some old Italian bloke, comes around to our table and the waiter just sort of tells him what we had for dinner, he looks at our bottle of wine and guesstimates how much we have had and then he just starts scribbling stuff down on his invoice book like he’s pulling it fair and square out of his clacker. We are willing to pay anything really so we don’t really care what the cost is but at the end of the day it was pretty cheap. Apparently this family have been running this restaurant for 100 years this year and they have pretty much been doing it the same way all that time. It’s about a quarter to ten as we get up to leave but we have just as much trouble getting out as we did getting in because there is still a huge crowd waiting to get in. This has been an absolute treat for us tonight and was exactly what we wanted. Although the meal was good, I’m not going to say it was the best meal I have ever had but it was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

“A section of the front door of the church at Piazza Santa Croce”

“Some of the amazing detail in the church door”

“The doors in full. The little round thing above Kris’ head is the previous picture”

“The kids lighting a candle in the church”

“The tomb of Michelangelo. Smile in front of the dead man, kids”

“This Pulpit was the highlight for me. Unfortunately this picture does not do it justice”

“The front facade of the church in Piazza Santa Croce”

“You better believe it, Tyler”

“That’s us......with prosciutto hanging above our heads”

Day 35 Florence:

Today we wake up to our first day in over two weeks where the sky is not blue. We’ve had a great run with the weather but today apparently, it is going to stay overcast and cloudy. We are going to do a day trip to Siena today but Kris and I aren’t ones for the whole tour group thing so we are going to go down to the local bus depot and catch the regional bus instead. We get ready and make our way to the bus depot which is not far, just next to the train station. We get on the bus and head off for the 1 hour and 15 minute ride over the Tuscan hills to Siena. It’s a fairly bumpy ride even though we are travelling major roads. The roads look like they too have been around since the 1300’s and are in serious need of a bit of restoration. The overcast day was short lived and by half way into our journey the sky is clear blue. We get to Siena and make our way down to the Piazza del Campo, the main square in Siena. This is the location of the famous Palio which is a medieval horse race run twice a year.  The first thing that hits you is the massive bell tower, the Torre del Mangia. This bell tower which sits right next to the town hall dates back to the early 1300’s and we are going to walk up its 400 steps to the top. Our mission on this holiday is to walk up 1 million steps and I reckon we should crack it here!! The climb up is very tight. The stair access is only designed for 1 way traffic and I also think it was designed for a 4 foot man as some of the arches above the stairs were quite small. The view at the top is fantastic with a view over Siena and into the rolling hills. We climb down again and decide its lunch time so we find a restaurant in the Piazza del Campo and order. We are fortunate enough to share several cigarettes with the wrinkly old bag at the table next to us while having lunch. Nothing better than enjoying a cigy with your pizza! We leave there with a couple of years taken off our lifespan and go and buy tickets for the Museum, Cathedral & Duomo and Battistero box set. The museum is awesome with some works dating back to the 1200’s. We moved on to the Cathedral & Duomo and this thing is spectacular, a work of art in itself. This reminds us a lot of Westminster Abbey in London. The detail in the walls and ceiling is mind blowing. We move onto the Battistero and this is basically a mini cathedral with incredible paintings on the ceilings. We decide it’s time to go back to Florence and we make a dash for the bus station. If we miss the next bus we will be waiting an hour for the next one so I order the troops to double time it! We get there on time, get on board and do the whole sleepy nod back and forth thing all the way home. We are going to stay in tonight and eat at the apartment. We are still not getting a lot of sleep so we are going to call it an early night and hopefully when the noise starts up at 4 in the morning again we will have had our 8 hours.

“Ready for the bus ride to Siena”

“Wandering through the Piazza del Campo”

“The kids ¼ of the way up the tower looking back over Piazza del Campo”

“At the top of the Torre del Mangia”

“The view over Siena”

“Some of the detail at the entrance to Siena’s Cathedral”

“Some of the detail inside Siena’s Cathedral”

Day 34 Florence:

Today we all had a bit of a sleep in; I think it’s got to that point where we are all a bit shagged again. We go through stages where we go hammer and tongs for a few days and then we fall in a heap. The only fault with this apartment is that the markets outside get removed every night around 10 and they set back up again around 4 in the morning. The noise of removing the markets and then setting them back up is ridiculous. The one thing that has been consistent on our holiday has been noise. Sleep has been at a premium and it is no different here. We finally get moving around 9:30 and it’s straight to the Duomo. We fork out the 22 Euro which allows us to climb the Duomo to the top and this also includes entrance to the museum which we are going to leave until Friday along with entering the cathedral. The walk up is fantastic. Tight little access stairs and spiral staircases lead to the final section, the dome. When you approach the stairs of the dome it’s spectacular. We reach the top and the views over Florence are just what you would expect. We spend a while taking snaps before making the climb back down. Once out we make our way home to pack our lunch as we are going back on the open top bus tour to have some lunch up at the Machiavelli lookout section we visited yesterday. On the way to the bus we buy a cheap rugby ball from the markets so we can have a bit of a kick after lunch. The ball is an Australian rugby ball in the traditional colours of red, white and blue. I did say it was cheap!! We get to the lookout and take a walk looking for a suitable spot. We find a chair on the side of a hill overlooking Florence and have our lunch. As we did yesterday, we cut up bread with ham and cheese and a bit of salad and fruit. After lunch we find some grass where Tyler can re-enact the 2011 Preliminary Final, with a different outcome of course. After that it’s back on the bus and back to the apartment for another rest before heading out for dinner. We Walk down streets we haven’t been down before and find ourselves walking along the Arno River toward the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s’ most famous bridge. This bridge dates back to 1354 and even during World War II the Nazi’s couldn’t bare to blow this thing up. After a while wandering over the bridge we head back in the direction of the Duomo before deciding to go off the beat’n track. This proves a good move as we find a quiet street with a restaurant that looks more traditional than the ones in the touristy areas. The food and wait staff in this restaurant are fantastic and we end up having a great night. It’s getting late so we stop off for gelato on the way home before going back to the apartment and it’s pretty much straight to bed.

“The ceiling of the Duomo”

“Walking up inside the Duomo”

“A view from the top. Our apartment is at the front bottom left of the big green roof”

“Coming back down the dome section of the Duomo”

“The view from the Ponte Vecchio”

“The kids on the Ponte Vecchio”

“Walking over the Ponte Veccio”

“Mmmm, Spaghetti”

“Trattoria Antico Fatto, the restaurant where we had dinner”

Day 33 Florence:

We decide today we will get back to familiar territory, the open top bus tour! We have some breaky and pack our bag with ham and cheese, a loaf of crusty bread and some fruit and make our way down to the start of the bus tour. This is a very easy 300-400m walk. The location of our apartment is fantastic. It seems we are within a short walk to most of the main attractions and this makes getting around simple and quick. We board the bus which will take us on the blue route. It’s a bit chilly on the top of the bus but we are expecting it to warm up soon. We complete the route and see some fantastic stuff along the way, mainly up and around the Machiavelli where we are high up on a hill and have great views over Florence. We jump off the bus and grab a coffee and some cakes and get back on the red route bound for the small town of Fiesole (pronounced Fee-ez-o-lay). This route covers the Machiavelli again but in reverse which was great before taking off toward the hills on the other side of Florence. We wind our way up the hill and have fantastic views of Florence from the other side. We decide to get off the bus and take a wander through Fiesole and try to find a spot to stop for lunch. We take a walk up some very narrow roads higher up the hill until we get to a spot overlooking olive trees and an awesome view of Florence. We sit on a wall, cut up our bread and chow down. It is quite warm now and it has become a beautiful day. We finish up and decide to walk back to the bus as it only comes every hour so if we miss it, it will be a bit of a wait. Our timing was perfect as we get to the stop just as it arrives to take us back. We head back to the apartment for a rest before heading back out again around 4ish. We start off by going through a handbag shop and then decide to find somewhere to eat just as we exit our 95^th and last handbag shop. One thing’s for sure, I need a drink! We find a restaurant in the same piazza as last night because the 3 piece band is back playing again. The restaurants here have guys out the front showing you the menu and talking it up so you will eat at their restaurant, a lot like Lygon Street in Carlton. We order some wine and some food and the old guy at the front of the restaurant comes over and gives the kids a ticket each for a ride on the carousel in the piazza. We enjoy a beautiful night with lots of wine when the old guy is back with a free lemoncello for Kris and me. We’re not huge fans of lemoncello but we can’t offend the old guy so we drink up. We are feeling pretty sloshed at this point so we decide on grabbing some gelato on the way home before hitting the sack.

"Back on the bus"

"The Ponte Vecchio"

"What do you call that. I know what I call it, I call it a JOKE!!!"

"The man with the dudie is very funny"

"I think we feast here, what do you reckon Tyler?"

"Kristine preparing the feast"

"Our views while we feast"

Day 32 Florence:

Its 2:45 and we have just arrived in Florence and in the words of George Costanza “I”M BACK BABY!!!! This place is FANTASTIC. We get off the train and it’s about a 400m walk to our apartment entrance. We are greeted by the agent, Mine (pronounced My-Knee) and she takes us up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. We are greeted by another person, Stefano (we think he’s the owner) at the door. Mine shows us through the apartment and this place is superb, the best apartment we have been in so far. This was the apartment we had to book last minute when we were in London because the previous apartment became unavailable. It just so happens that the previous apartment was also managed by the same dude as the Venice apartment so we are feeling pretty smug right about now. While Mine is showing us around, Stefano has gone back down the four flights of stairs and carted all our luggage up to the apartment. Now, Kristine has been on a bit of a shopping spree over the past 4 weeks so these bags are bloody heavy, but no probs for Stefano, what a guy! They go through all the finer details with us and then Stefano presents us with a gift wrapped bottle of wine. We are sobbing with joy at this point....just kidding, but it was pretty awesome and this vindicated they way we felt about our Venice apartment. We throw our stuff in the rooms and head straight out for a wander and some late lunch. Literally outside our door is a hive of activity, street markets, shops, restaurants, bars, you name it. We go no more than 100m and we get ushered into a restaurant by a very enthusiastic man telling us that his brother is the best chef in Florence. The food wasn’t the best but it was very cheap and it was a very entertaining afternoon. We continued on and find a supermarket just down the road so we stocked up with fruit and groceries. By now it’s around 6ish so we head back to the apartment to shower up to head back out again. We get moving again around 7ish and head of for another wander. We walk no more than 200m and bang, the Duomo is staring straight down at us, what an awesome sight. This is the reason we came to Florence, the Duomo. I can’t wait until I get the opportunity to go inside. We continue on and come across a little square, the Piazza Della Republica where there is a three piece band playing. One guy is on the double bass, another on guitar and the other on violin. They are playing all the Italian classics so we sit and watch for a while before deciding to fork out the 10 Euro for their CD. We like the music so much we take a seat at one of the restaurants in the Piazza and order some wine and we sit and listen for an hour or so. We finish up and take the short walk home. This is what we thought Italy would be like, the people here are very friendly, they’re enthusiastic and we love the joint.

"The Duomo"

"The kids standing in front of the Duomo"

Day 32 Venice:

I have made up my mind; I will never, ever, ever come back to Venice, ever! This place has been an extreme disappointment. The day started off quite well, we woke up and went out for a wander and a coffee. There are some things we cannot complain about regarding our stay in Venice, the weather has been fantastic, the food has been wonderful and the coffee is the best I’ve had. So we get to the coffee shop and buy a couple of coffees and some lovely Italian cakes and we do the whole stand up thing (because it’s cheaper than sitting down, we’ve sort of mastered that now) and enjoy the passing parade of people and the amazing coffee. The other thing we cannot complain about is the honesty and the friendliness of the tourists. Although there have been a lot of them the ones we have met have been great. After we left the coffee shop we kept walking and it appeared to us that the amount of people in the streets had halved. It automatically made the place a lot more likeable. We think that because we arrived on Friday night and are now leaving on a Monday that maybe we hit the weekend tourist crowd. Not sure, but it was a lot more pleasant. Anyway, we are wandering around enjoying ourselves when I realise I don’t have Kris’s camera on me which I definitely did have before. I check with everyone else and yep, I’ve left it at the coffee shop. We make the mad dash back through the maze of streets to try and find the coffee shop we went to. We finally find it and some honest tourist had handed it over to the coffee shop staff, phew, what a relief. The morning walk and getting our camera back has helped us form a better impression of Venice and we are starting to feel better about the place. It’s nudging 10:30 so we have to head back to the apartment to grab our stuff before catching the waterbus back to the train station. On the way we grab some waterbus tickets because they don’t have a ticket machine on our stop. We get slugged 26 Euro ($36) for the 2km boat ride which is obscene but hey, that’s Venice! We get to the apartment and grab our bags and head down to our bus stop. When we get there an Italian couple from Florida informs us that the waterbus service is on strike today and there will be no waterbus. You think they may have put a sign on the very busy ticket machine at the waterbus stop we bought our ticket from wouldn’t you, but hey....that’s Venice! We agree with this couple (who had also bought tickets and are equally infuriated) that we can share a water taxi at 80 Euro ($110) so we head back to the couples hotel where they order one.  While we are waiting another couple ask for a water taxi so it’s agreed with the hotel staff that they can share with us. That’s great the 80 Euro cost of the water taxi can now be split three ways so the price is coming down. We all get on board and this thing takes about 10 minutes to reach the train station and the thieving, stinking, water taxi guy demands 170 Euro ($240). 170 EURO FOR A 10 MINUTE BOAT RIDE.....you filthy, stinky, dirty thief!!!! It is costing Kris and I and the kids a total of $118 Euro for the 2 hour train ride to Florence and he wants 170 Euro!!!! But hey..........that’s Venice and unfortunately, that will be our memory.

Day 31 Venice:

I don’t know what it is that gets everyone is so excited about Venice because it has certainly been lost on me. There must be something good about this place though given the 28 million tourists walking around these streets. Another day here has not improved my impressions of this place. It is seriously over crowded, the place smells, the locals are rude and I have just about had it with the herds of sheep clogging up the streets every 30 seconds as they follow behind their tour group leader who’s holding up their little “follow me” marker! The rudeness is something that has taken us by surprise though. I saw Kristine get angry with an ice-cream shop lady today because of her rudeness; I haven’t seen her get this worked up at all on the holiday so far. Kristine paid the money for the ice creams and when the lady handed back the change Kristine said to her “you are rude, you’re a very rude person”, it was hilarious. Some of the main attraction areas like Piazza San Marco are just a nightmare due to the huge volumes of people and this has been extremely disappointing for us. We’ve had to put up with crowds everywhere we have been so far but here it seems different and maybe that’s because the place is so small and everyone is confined to small alley ways. Unfortunately I also think my Venice experience has been tainted a bit by the disappointing accommodation. The apartment is very clean and it is in a great location but it’s obvious to us that the people who own the apartment and the people managing the apartment do not care at all about our holiday experience and only about lining their pockets. We’ve contacted the lady who we met when we arrived in Venice first thing yesterday morning about some minor issues that needed attending to and we are still waiting for a response. We got slugged 50 Euro ($70) up front for a final clean. We will effectively be in this place for 2 ½ days and they slug us 50 EURO to clean the joint!!! Normally Kris and I and the kids would do a pretty thorough clean before we leave an apartment but we will not be doing that here. I’m telling you now the skid marks on the toilet bowl are staying put when I walk out this door tomorrow! I’m convinced though that Venice is not the real Italy and that this place has become some sort of contrived Italy based purely on tourism, well that’s my hope at least. We get to find out tomorrow as we leave here and head to Florence.

"The coffee standing up experience"

"Hello signore, would you like your pizza by the slice?"
"I don't think so signora"

"She better not be eating my pizza"

"The family shot"

Day 30 Venice:

After a full on day yesterday we are hoping for a better day today, our first full day in Venice. The first thing that is apparent is the apartment is nowhere near as good as any of our previous accommodation. When renting holiday accommodation there are a few simple things that you should be provided with like, a hair dryer, globes that work when you turn the lights on, dunny roll......how about 1 spare dunny roll!!!! At all our previous accommodation we would open the pantry and there would be basic provisions, some cereal, jam, band-aids, tea, coffee, soap.......a spare bloody dunny roll!!!! Not here, it’s like some dude has just been evicted and the place has been stripped of anything useful. They have a 14” TV!!! Who in the hell still has a 14” TV????? And, the bloody thing doesn’t work. They have no instructions for anything in the apartment and they have no information about Venice at all. When you are staying in holiday accommodation for 2 or 3 days you need an immediate leg up regarding tourist information so you can hit the ground running. In Munich for example, the owner had a huge map with about 50 coloured pins in it describing where all the restaurants were, shops were, pharmacies were etc. Fantastic!! She had tourist brochures, books about Munich, public transport information, exactly what you would expect in holiday accommodation. Not here though. Also, all our other accommodation has provided free WiFi and not having it provided here has made it even more difficult to get quick and easy information about Venice. This apartment is fair dinkum shizenhousen!!! This has increased my disappointment with Venice and Italy at this point so it’s time to get amongst it and try and resurrect my impression of the joint. We leave the apartment and go for a wander and basically try and get a feel for the place. Kris is in love, she is instantly taken by the place and this is one place she was really looking forward to but I’m having a hard time with it all and at this point Venice is sitting at the bottom of the pile as far as destinations I have been to so far. I’m finding the place to be a bit same old same old. It seems if you’ve been up one little alley way you’ve been up them all and if you are sick of walking up alley ways there is bugger all left to do, not to mention the place is on the pong!! I think that maybe I’ve been spoilt by all the amazing places I have seen so far and I need to view Venice in isolation. We go back to the apartment and I wash my brain of all previous thoughts and we head back out for another go. We find a place that sells pizza by the slice. Beautiful stuff, that’s more like it. We walk down to the Grand Canal and eat it while watching gondola’s float by. We continue walking and we come across a place selling gelato and we all give it a shot and this stuff is beautiful. We give the kids the reins and they lead us to god knows where because this place is like a rabbit warren. We get lost numerous times before we eventually found our way back to the apartment. We managed to find a place selling take-away wine on the way so we grabbed a bottle for home. We set the kids up in front of a movie on the computer and Kris and I set about guzzling this bottle of wine on our balcony overlooking the canal. This proves to be a bit of a turning point and when that’s gone we get ready to head out for dinner. We walk for a while but end up back at the same restaurant as last night just around the corner from our apartment. We had a fantastic meal and we all sat around talking and cracking jokes and we all laughed so hard that we were in tears and I nearly spat red wine all over the place I was laughing so hard. It was something we all needed because 4 weeks of travel together had got us all a bit stressed. Tomorrow we will be going on a gondola ride so we are looking forward to that.

"Kris and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Me and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Wndering around the Canals"

"That's not a pizza, THIS is a pizza"

"Eating the worlds best pizza down at the Grand Canal"

"You can't have the worlds best Pizza without having the worlds best ice-cream"

"Out for dinner on the canal"

"Mia's having a bad hair day at the restaurant"



"Tyler's hair day is not much better"
(Mia is behind him and she has thrown her hair over Tyler)