So I'll start where I left off all the way back in Italy :)
We left at 7am on friday 6th August (wow that really was ages ago). We made a quick stop off at Audrey's cousin's place to collect them and then we began the epic two day drive to Tuscany. So we spent that day in the car talking, reading and listening to our ipods, and in the case of Audrey and I (I'm not ashamed to say), lip-syncing to some of the pop industry's finest :P
So we were just chillin' in the car looking at the french countryside out the window when all of a sudden the scenery pretty dramatically changes and we're now looking at all these wooden houses, that more resemble cookoo clocks than buildings, nestled amongst gigantic mountains with waterfalls streaming of the edges of cliff faces. Incredible! Even the Macdonalds looked all cute and wooden :P
We arrived at the lodge where we were staying (near Mont Blanc), dropped off our stuff and then headed out to the little town nearby. This place was like something from a fairytale, with little wooden shops, stone bridges covered with flowers over the little streams that ran through the town, they even had people driving around in horses and carts just in case it wasn't storybook enough! (ironically there were carts that had disney fairytale characters painted on the back). And it would look even more amazing covered in snow! So we stopped for dinner which was cheese fondue. This is the first time I've ever tasted cheese fondue and I have to say I'm a fan. It even comes with the added entertainment factor of cheese wars. This is where you try and steal someone else's bread or sink it in the cheese. So you could do this, or if you're Audrey you could amuse yourself by covering everyone around you with cheese strings and cheese juices... Yum... Afterwards we were pretty exhausted so we headed back and crashed in our rooms. So Audrey, Robin and their cousins are close, and they must be in-tune with each other or something because I woke up in the middle of the night and they were all talking in their sleep at the same time, except Audrey who was groaning but she made up for her lack of ability to articulate in her sleep by ending this weird noise making affair by elbowing me in the chest. Nice one.
So Saturday we woke up at 6:30am (I know, ew, but it was totally worth it to see the sun rising over the alps, and as the sun hit the tops of the mountains it sent these rays of light shooting out over the top, so pretty!) As we drove up to Mont Blanc I got to see les neiges eternelles which was awesome and would be even more awesome in winter :) We continued through the Mont Blanc tunnel and into ITALYYY!!!! After that exciting milestone it was just another day of sleeping in awkward positions, reading, talking, listening to Ipods and bad lip-syncing with occasional added dance moves :P
When we arrived at the place where we stayed it literally took my breath away, I thought I'd walked into a postcard! It was exactly what you'd expect to find in Tuscany, it was this big traditional looking stone house that overlooked the rolling hills and little clusters of houses below (check out photos on my facebook). Not only this, it had a gigantic bright blue swimming pool! It looked so good and the weather was so warm and sunny. That night we went out for dinner and I tried my first real italian pizza, exciting stuff! :) Afterwards we hung out on deck chairs in the garden looking at the stars which were so bright (and I saw like 4 shooting stars! Which if you know me you would realise that this would have been as exciting to me as lollies are to little kids) So if you look at the map below we stayed near Perugia.
Sunday, our first full day in Italy, was a pretty chilled out one, we spent most of the day in or by the pool, doing the usual pool shenanigans; racing, trying to dunk each other, battling on each others shoulders etc etc..
In the afternoon Robin began to teach me how to play Tarot (which as I discovered didn't involve anything to do with reading my future..) this actually took a good hour because it's complex and I'm rather stupid sometimes :P But eventually I got the general rules. But little did I know the seriousness of this game. Some epic concentration went into this game, everyone was counting the cards, making calculations, making judgements about the next person's move and generally putting on severe expressions. Everyone except me of course who 1. still didn't quite get it and 2. has little to no patience or love for card games, so I pretty much just put down any card, much to the frustration for everyone else who was guessing what cards I had and what well planned strategic move I was going to make and then being confused or annoyed when I did something completely random and idiotic. Their mistake was assuming I would be clever, oh how very wrong they were... however I did manage to win a few games much to the surprise of, well, everyone. Yay for me :)
Monday morning we went to the Market. This took a while because it wasn't where we expected and no one spoke Italian (you can kind of see why we had issues) but we made it eventually. We bought lots of fresh fruit and veg, some drinks, checked out the stalls with odd bits and bobs, and then headed to a lake nearby for lunch. We sat at a park bench right next to the lake which was huge and very pretty. Later on we hung out in the sun at the end of the pier with our feet dangling in the water. While we were sitting we were joking about falling in, and just as we stand up to leave, Robin slips on a wet patch, grabs my sleeve and we both almost fall into the lake. Luckily we didn't otherwise I would have killed him... The rest of the afternoon we spent by the pool at the house.
Tuesday we went to Sienna which was about an hour and a half away. We parked near the Piazza Del Campo which is the place where they have that crazy horse race, check it out its insane --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzbjDEgRt3I
We walked through the bustling streets which have these old stone and terracotta buildings. It was so beautiful, I had one of those moments where I couldn't believe that I (ME!) was in Italy! We reached the Piazza Del Campo and ate lunch in one of the restaurants (which are built into the stands, so cool) and I had my first Italian pasta! Yay! After lunch we climbed the Torre del Mangia which is a bell tower in the Piazza. Its got beautiful views but you have to work for them. To get to the top you have to climb a narrow inclosed stone staircase where there was pretty much no room to move. Claustrophobic people do not attempt this. But its worth it because at the top you can see over all of Sienna and there are these giant metal bells that you can actually climb up and touch. Oh and if i thought climbing up the stairs was freaky, going down them was a total nightmare, especially the ones with little or no railing and a massive plummet to the ground... So afterwards we walked around looking for this special ice-cream place that we never ended up finding, but one member of our little party did manage to discover penis shaped pasta which they excitedly pointed out to me saying "Hey look Miffy! Sexy pasta!", with my response being a little along the lines of "oh, umm, ahh, *confused face*.. cool?". Eventually though we did find an ice-cream place we did approve of and I had my first Italian gelati!! Lemon and some unknown berry favour... Oh also we saw the Duomo di Siena which is a big white and rose coloured cathedral. Twas pretty.
Wednesday morning I was asked the very difficult question of whether I liked vegemite or nutella more. I answered vegemite and Audrey looked positively disgusted. Ahh the French, they just don't understand the greatness of vegemite...
That day pretty much involved swimming and sleeping (not at the same time because that would be dangerous and well beyond my skills) But in the afternoon we went to the town near where we were staying, looked around, climbed a big hill and saw some more awesome nature views. Then we came back to the town and were romanced by an old italian man from his upstairs window :P
Thursday we went to a day spa for the very first time in my life. I felt very sex and the city, but italian style. So basically we swam around in this big super heated thermal pool which you know umm heal you and all that... Clearly I'm a master on this subject. But anyway they had these fountain things on the side which pretty much pummel your back with water and supposedly does something therapeutic, they also had pipes that did this too.. But yeah the pool was super nice! and sooo hot!
We had lunch at a restaurant on the way back and it was this cute little stone restaurant with a super enthusiastic waitress. I ate truffle for the first time! That afternoon Robin made the amazing discovery that he could make a wave pool with the blow up donut. Audrey managed to get inside the donut too, so Robin dragged her around and bounced up and down while she screamed (and for such a small person she can make a lot of noise) ...
Friday we went to Florence!! Whoo! This was another 6:30am start. When we got out the house was surrounded by so much fog it was bizarre... I thought it was just because it was early morning but once we reached Florence the weather was looking pretty grim. We started out by walking through the market but only got about half way through before it started pouring down with rain. We broke up into small groups and Robin, Audrey, their cousin Benji and I went to see the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore which is a cathedral. We walked around the small cobblestoned street surrounding the cathedral, they were so pretty with all the little boutique shops. Even though we all got completely soaked Florence was sooo beautiful in the rain and it was funny watching the hustle and bustle of everyone trying to get around without getting wet. So then we met up, had lunch and set off for Pisa (by the way, I saw a restaurant with a tree in the middle, kind of strange...). And would you believe it, it was incredibly hot by the time we got there, like so hot that you feel like you've instantaneously turned into a sunburnt tomato as soon as you step into direct sunlight. We saw the leaning tower of Pisa straight off, which was much smaller than I thought it was going to be but really pretty and bright bright white. And yes we did take tourist shots of people holding up the tower... Then we walked through the streets in search of another famous ice cream shop which we actually found this time :) I had chocolate fondant ice-cream which, true to its name, melted absolutely everywhere whilst I struggled to maintain my dignity and Audrey took photos... After that we walked around some more, discovered that Duff actually exists (was so tempted to buy one but didn't, maybe next time) and then headed off to a beach near Pisa. Here we watched the sunset over the water, picturesque to say the least, reminded me of Australia :)
Saturday, I pretty much read all day, me being the nerd that I am :)
Sunday we went to Castiglione Del Lago, which is a town next to Lago Trasimeno (really close to where we were staying). This place was really pretty and it was sunny with lots of people about so had a really nice atmosphere. We just walked around the streets looking at all the shops then went for a short walk along the lake and had lunch on the balcony of a restaurant right next to the lake. Awweesome. Stayed here until late afternoon :)
Monday we went to another small town whose name I can't remember but will attempt to find out. This place had some pretty cool old architecture which you can check out on my facebook. Again we just walked around the town soaking up the culture and checking out amazing views of italian countryside. We had fanciful ice-creams at a restaurant in the main square, there was actually an ice-cream spaghetti option on the menu which was exactly as it sounds, spaghetti made out of ice-cream, weird huh? So there's actually so much to see even in the little towns and I can't even begin to describe it all because unlike the big cities I don't know the names of the things I saw and even if I did, well you probably wouldn't know what I was talking about. But I really loved these little town because even though they were still a little touristy and not quite as spectacular as say Florence or Sienna, it was a lot quieter and you actually had the space to take it all in.
Tuesday we just hung out at the house again.
Wednesday was our second day in Florence and YAY it was SUNNY!! So we started off at the Boboli Gardens, which were really pretty (must find new words for pretty but really its not my fault that Italy has so many pretty things) Robin made a song about it which maybe he'll sing for you if you ask him nicely, but anyway, he repeated this song over and over the whole time we were there, much to the annoyance of everyone :P reminds me a little of someone *cough* Llew *cough*... :D
So then we made our way over to the Ponte Vecchio, and saw all the jewellers and little stores there. There were so many people here it was crazy. After Ponte Vecchio we went to the place where the building with David is (though we didn't see David) and there were so many statues (outside), street chalk artists and statue people, it was cool and kind of hectic. We made our way to a quieter street and had lunch (pizza of course). Then we saw the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore again which is sooo bright in the sun you can't look directly at it. Then we went and saw the Church of Santa Croce which is also prettiful (see the slight variation of pretty, go me and my english skills). I attempted to get Audrey to do a touristy shot in front of it which was an epic fail, I don't even know why I even tried... :P After that we made our way back to the car through all the small streets. On the way back home we stopped at a place which over looks all of Florence, it was actually the most incredible view, especially because the sun was setting over the city :)
Thursday another day at the house swimming, relaxing etc etc
Friday we went to another market in the morning, and I saw a man wearing the tiniest short shorts I've ever seen, it seriously made my day to see that fashion disaster. So we got some food for lunch and I saw a dead pigs head that Robin so kindly pointed out to me, I swear I almost cried. Then it was time to pack and tidy the house a little.
Saturday we headed home, staying at the same lodge. We did 13 hours of travel just on saturday, slightly ridiculous. And sunday we were back in Paris. So that means that CONGRATULATIONS you've reached the end of this epic post and I'm very proud that you've made it! Hope you enjoyed reading my blow by blow description of Italy :P and I'll be putting up another about Germany (and a little on France too) in the next few days, photos will hopefully be up tonight, but you know me, I say blog a week but end up writing it 2 months later... Till the next time!! Missing you all! xx
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