Day 63 - Beware overconfidence!

We had been to Rome airport a few times now so felt pretty relaxed about finding our way around especially as we had spent the night less than 10 minutes drive away. We had an early flight and thought we had plenty of time, but things started going wrong when K realised that she had left her good water bottle in the fridge of the hotel, the doors were all closed and reception wasn't open until 8am. After no response from anyone in the hotel (we couldn't even get back in through the front door at this point) we decided to sacrifice the water bottle and drive to the service station to fill up the rental car before we dropped it back. 

The first petrol station we drove to was closed, as it was Sunday nothing local was open yet. We drove to the airport expecting to find something along the way. We found a place, a guy was there so M asked him to fill it up and then went with the card to pay, that was when the confusion started. The machine wouldn't accept the card, the guy kept telling him to check the fuel gauge in the car, it wasn't registering any petrol, M was waving a €50 note around, there was a huge language barrier, and the guy was saying something along the lines of I don't work here, I'm just helping out. Totally confused we drove off, having not paid and not received any petrol. 

We then found another station, and tried to fill up only to find it's also not open yet. By now we have had enough and decide that we will just give the car back empty as we are running out of time. We then missed the turn off to the rental car return and end up on a freeway, having to drive 5km in the wrong direction before we can turn the car around. We finally made it back to the airport, speeding all the way but then entered the limousine drop off by mistake, we have to reverse out then have to do another lap of the airport before we find the right entrance and get rid of the car! That's what happens when you decide you know your way around Rome airport. New rule we have: always fill up the rental car the night before drop off!

The flight to Malta was a breeze and it's was good to find that the taxis were a set price so we didn't need to worry about haggling and being ripped off. There was a slight hassle finding our apartment as the Airbnb host hadn't supplied all the info we needed but we are used to that by now. We are at the point of giving up on Airbnbs because of all the hassle related to check in, some times, hotels are just so much easier. 

Malta wasn't really a formal part of out plans so we hadn't dome any research and didn't know what to expect. It was a pretty easy place to visit, English is one of it's official languages so no language issues at least.

We stayed in Sliema across the harbour from the capital Valetta. We walked around the point seeing the "baths" which were swimming holes carved out of the natural sandstone. M was pretty happy to find an Indian takeaway opposite our apartment run by Indians so that was dinner taken care of.

Day 62 - Yeah, honk your horn, that'll work

Our final day on the Amalfi Coast and we set off on the winding coastal road for Positano. As we approached Positano the road was lined with parked cars for a few kilometers, giving us the impression that parking would be a nightmare. We turned off and started driving down into the town and saw a large carpark on the right hand side which we happily entered, at this stage the gps said we were about a 15 minute walk from the town - then of course on the way down we passed many other car parks.

We could see the small grey beach at the bottom as we wound our way past the endless tourist shops and the accompanying tourists. The beach itself wasn't too bad but still a little underwhelming, the charm of Positano is the views which you need to be up high to appreciate. 

After lunch by the beach we walked back up the hill to the car passing many lovely lunch spots on the cliffs edge with great views, in hindsight it would have been better to have taken advantage of one of those rather than lunch down on the beach, next time we will know.

The drive back kept us on our toes as impatient Italian drivers blasted their horns at poor tourist drivers (no, not us) that they considered too slow and were holding them up, pretty immature behaviour if you ask us, as if honking a horn is ever going to make a slow driver into a confident or a better driver.

It was still a 2 1/2 hour drive back to Rome from Positano, we were staying in a cheap place near the airport so we could easily get to our early flight to Malta the next day.

Day 61 - Coastal road at last

Today we decided to explore the towns of Amalfi and Ravallo and made sure that we took the coastal road this time. The twists and turns of the narrow road make the Great Ocean Road seem like a beginners drive. Meeting buses and trucks was quite hair raising and we could see why many of the cars in the area have bangs and scrapes on them, a lot more than you would see at home.

Amalfi was smaller and seemed nicer than Sorrento, it was in a lovely bay with no big hotels on the water, but there was a car park full of tourist buses. Amalfi seems to be a destination for the day trippers from Sorrento and Positano further along the coast. We found a nice restaurant on the water's edge and had an enjoyable lunch. 

From Amalfi we drove up into the hillside to visit Ravallo, unfortunately so had everyone else it seemed. As great as the view overlooking the cliff faces and the towns was it's not much point if you can't find a place to park so we gave up and let the gps route us through the mountains back to Vietri. 

Back in Vietri we went down to the waterfront where it was so much quieter than the other Amalfi towns, just a few cars, not many people, and and an almost empty beach.

Day 60 - Better than our Sorrento?

We decided to drive further along the Amalfi Coast to Sorrento. We originally planned to take the scenic ocean route along the coast but the gps didn't agree with our choice and took us via the inland highway route, which was probably for the best as it meant we got to Sorrento a lot sooner. 

We've been driving in Italy for a few days now, and had to endure some pretty bad driving as well as a road rage incident that was so dumb it was funny. Initially we thought Italian drivers were crazy, then we decided on dangerous, but there has to be an element of stupidity there as well, as it makes no sense why anyone who wasn't stupid would drive so badly and risk their lives just to get one car further ahead. We also can't understand how they can just park their cars wherever they want, including narrow Amalfi coast roads, that barely fit one car, let alone two and a parked one. We saw that many of the cars have bumps and scrapes, so we're happy we didn't take that rental car upgrade.

It wasn't hard to know that we had arrived in Sorrento as we were met with piles of tourists in groups everywhere, and this is just the shoulder season. We found a car park and followed a walking route, but as it seems that all the upmarket hotels have hogged the ocean cliff faces as there wasn't much coast to see until we headed towards the port areas. 

We did see that there were man made decks on the water with cafes and sun lounges, but it all came across as a bit underwhelming compared to our beaches. We walked down to the old port with its tiny grey beach and desperate sunbathers trying to squeeze a tan out of 24 degree weather while we sat and enjoyed a drink. 

Sorrento certainly is an interesting town but it seems that to enjoy the area you would need to stay at a hotel on the ocean side, so we were quite happy with our choice of staying in our little village of Vietri.

Day 59 - Taking it easy

A beautiful day with clear blue skies and a view of the sparkling blue sea from our apartment window made us feel we could stay here for a week.  

The village of Vietri sul Mare is quite cute, with little squares and restaurants perched on the cliff face overlooking the sea. The town is also famous for its ceramics, and there were lots of shops selling the local wares. Heaven for K, hell for M.

Day 58 - To the coast

We had booked our "non-refundable" flight from Rome to Beirut through one of those online booking agencies but after two days they still hadn't confirmed that they could cancel the flight, all they had really said so far was that they couldn't provide a refund. As a result M decided to contact the airline (Middle East Airlines) directly, and this morning we received the great news that because of the situation they would provide a full refund.

Our original hire car was due back today and we had arranged another we drove back to the airport to drop the first one back and collect a new one. While there we went to find the Aegean Air desk to cancel our flight from Beirut to Cyprus and see if we could get a refund. After dragging our luggage through Rome airport we found the desk, only to be told by a stone faced lady that we had to phone their help desk in Greece. We asked if she could make the call for us but she just said no. Great customer service, not!

We went back to the Hertz desk and found that the car we had booked wasn't available and they offered us an upgrade ... which we didn't want, as we didn't want to drive a big car through the narrow Italian streets. After some discussion we ended up with a small Fiat 500 and drove south past Naples to Vietri sul Mare on the Amalfi Coast.

We checked into a lovely apartment with a sea view, right in the middle of town and and of course had pasta for dinner ... again.

Day 57 - Change of plan

Because of the Lebanon situation we spent most of the day rearranging our plans while still trying to keep some of the accommodation and flights that we couldn't cancel without penalty. Our plan had been to use Cyprus as the stepping stone between Lebanon and Israel, so we looked into all the options we had to keep the Cyprus and Israel parts unchanged. 

We ended up finding flights from Rome to Malta, and then another from Malta to Cyprus that arrived on the same day we had originally planned to arrive from Lebanon, so we only had to cancel the Lebanon to Cyprus leg. 

We needed to spend four more nights in Italy before the Malta flight and hire a car and drive south to the famed Amalfi Coast before heading back to Rome for the flight to Malta. 

After finally getting all that out of the way we went for a walk through our seaside suburb of Fregene to what looked like quite a dangerous beach with very dark sand and quick drop off, with evidence of rips. The beach was quite underdeveloped and not that appealing, it was also the off season so it was very quiet. We wandered back through the quiet town, discovering that nearly everything was closed between 12pm and 4pm.

Day 56 - Third time lucky

This was an important day for K, on our third trip to Italy and our second to Rome, this was the day to finally visit Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. Last time we were in Rome the tour bus took us there when it was closed, this time we had a car and were getting ourselves there. It was an hour's drive from where we were staying, and we made it quite easily with good old Google Maps to help.  

Hadrian's Villa was more than just a villa, it was an estate covering a large area, quiet, well treed and huge. There has been quite a bit of restoration so it wasn't too difficult to imagine how it used to be, not like some other ancient sites we've visited. 

The site is still undergoing archaeological investigations, so they are still exploring and finding new parts. K was thrilled that she finally got to visit and M was pleased that now every time we are looking at flights K won't suggest that we go via Rome.

We had been keeping a vague eye on the protests and political situation in Lebanon but were disappointed to discover that it had worsened and some of the areas of the country we had planned to visit were now off limits. The more we looked into it the more concerned we became. We had booked an apartment in Beirut for a week and now the reports were that the airport road was closed so we could potentially be stuck in the airport or the apartment. The roads into and out of Beirut were also closed. Lebanon was on the verge of economic collapse and the government had angered everyone by introducing further hardship policies, and a proposed "WhatsApp tax" had pushed the people over the edge. Even though the government back pedalled on the tax the people had enough and taken to the streets. Banks, schools and shops were shut down, just when we were due to arrive in two days.

As a result we decided to change our plans, it meant cancelling some "no cancel" flights and accommodation. Our planned accommodation were very nice about it as they agreed to refund us due to the situation, the airlines were not so forthcoming. We also had to figure out how to adjust our plans. Originally we were to spend a few days in Rome, then head to Cyprus, Lebanon and then Israel, so there was a bit of juggling to do.

Day 55 - Back to Rome

A travelling day today as we say left Morocco for a Rome for a stopover on the way to Lebanon. We had heard horror stories about Marrakech airport but we found it quite modern and efficient, nothing to worry about there. We caught a flight to Casablanca and then had a couple of hours layover before taking the next flight to Rome.

Once we landed in Rome we picked up our little hire car to head to our Airbnb near the beach. By the time we left the airport it was dark, something we we usually try to avoid as arriving at a new place at night can be difficult. We stopped off at a shopping centre on the way to look for a supermarket, once we were inside we could have been anywhere, shopping malls look the same all over the world.  The road we took to the seaside suburb of Fregene was very rough and it felt like we were driving through the country even though we were only 20 minutes from Rome airport.

Day 57 Trieste Italy to Rijeka Croatia

We left our B&B in Trieste and drove along the waterfront, there were many people out sunbaking on pieces of concrete early in the morning, which didn't look appealing as it wasn't that warm. We drove on to Koper in Slovenia, thought the border was hard to notice as both countries are in the Schengen area and it was difficult to tell that we had changed country.

Our morning coffee break was in Koper, once our coffee was finished and we were trying to leave we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up driving through the middle of the main square (oops), only to find we couldn't get out on the other side, meaning we had to drive back through again (there was no swearing involved.......). After leaving Koper we crossed the border back into Croatia, holding our breath as we left Slovenia that we wouldn't be hit with a €300 fine over the vignette. The border crossing on our side was easy but the people driving into Slovenia and Italy had a different story with kilometers after kilometers of cars queuing, most of them seemed to be holiday makers with more camper vans and luggage racks than we have ever seen in one place, maybe lots of people were starting their summer holidays that week.

Pula on the coast was our lunch stop where we found a car park right outside the ancient Roman amphitheatre which has been partly restored and impressively resembles a smaller Colosseum. 

After Pula we went on to Rijeka for the night, a port town on the coast, though not as pretty as its name, or many of the other coastal cities in Croatia.

Day 56 Ljubljana Slovenia to Trieste Italy

We started the day with a walk along the river in Ljubljana, there was a Sunday market with lots of interesting knick knacks for sale, a bit different and much more interesting than the ones back home.

From there we headed off to our planned trip to the Lipizzaner Stud Farm in Lipica, the oldest stud farm in the world and where the Lippizaner horses are bred for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

The grounds are quite large but the farm itself seemed quite tired, the paddocks were not in good order and the stables not kept as well as you would expect. The indoor school and the show seemed quite amateurish compared with the one in Vienna, maybe this is to be expected as it is the breeding and early training centre from which the top horses are sent through to Vienna. If you are in the area it's worth seeing but I wouldn't recommend making a special trip to Slovenia to see it.

Our stopover for the night was in Trieste, Italy which is very close by. Trieste is a seaport with the largest square in Europe that opens to the sea. The buildings around the square are architecturally beautiful and ornate but the square itself was very quiet, maybe because it was a Sunday evening.

Day 210 - Flying into a protest

Rome (Italy) to Barcelona (Spain) - Cocoon Apartments

The problem with flying is that although the flying time is short it always takes the entire day. The queues at Rome airport for security were longer than usual, the plane was late, etc - so even though we left our hotel in Rome around 11am, we didn't get to our studio apartment in Barcelona until after 7pm.

We headed out for a quick explore and some dinner to find ourselves in the middle of a huge political demonstration, we suspect it was related to Spain's debt crisis and the austerity measures that were in place. It was a peaceful protest though, lots of singing and dancing in the street, we even joined it for about 20 seconds (while we crossed from one side of the street to the other).

Day 209 - Ancient speed bumps

Rome - Candia Residences

An early train trip to Pompei today (via Naples), three trains and three and a half hours later we arrived, with the still active Mt Vesuvius in the background.

It was a little difficult to negotiate as they had run out of maps and it is very poorly signposted. We wandered around aimlessly for a while, finding some interesting mosaics in a very quiet area, before following the crowds and getting back to the main areas. We then managed to see most of the major sights, including the famous mummified bodies from the eruption. The streets are interesting as the cobblestones are heavily grooved from the carts and have speed bumps on them ... speed bumps have been around for a long time!

We had originally hoped that after Pompei we could go up to Vesuvius (it would have been easy as there were plenty of people outside the station offering their services), but we didn't have enough time, instead we headed back to Naples to have a look around. The vicinity around the railway station seemed a little seedy, but as we had to get our train back to Rome we didn't have a chance to go any further afield.

Day 208 - Worst tour operator ever?

Rome - Candia Residences

We joined the unbelievably long queue to see St Paul's Basilica, which fortunately moved pretty quickly. Once inside we joined another long queue to go the cupola. It was a steep walk up very narrow winding staircases - we're pretty sure the Pope hasn't been up here for a long time. After the cupola it was back into the basilica at ground level, and once we'd had our fill of dead popes and more artwork, we headed into town to visit the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps.

For the afternoon we had booked a tour to Tivoli to visit Hadrian's Villa, something K has wanted to see for a  long time. We had decided on a tour as it isn't easy to get to using public transport, and the temperature in Rome had been very hot. First stop in Tivoli was Villa Este, which had lovely terraced gardens on the side of the mountain, with many huge fountains including one that played an organ.

We finally arrived at Hadrians Villa to K's excitement only to be told it was closed!!! Unbelievable, "on strike" was the explanation given, apparently it's very common in Italy! We had heard that there were riots the night before outside parliament so we're not sure if this was part of the reason. Very disappointing, a waste of money and time. There was no offer of compensation from the company but a group of us did go back to the office and we were given €10 back per person, the company was happy to keep the entry fee for the site from everyone else on the tour!

Day 207 - The real roman ruins

Rome - Candia Residences

We had ordered our tickets for the Vatican Museums online, so we were able to skip the very long queue. As it was quite early we decided to make a beeline for the Sistine Chapel, hoping that the bulk of the crowds hadn't reached it yet. As we eventually found out though, there was no chance of avoiding the crowds. The chapel itself is worth visiting, K would like the job of the person who "shushes" everyone (you are meant to be silent, but almost noone is), she thinks she would be very good at it. We then wandered back to the beginning of the museums and visited all of the other fabulous rooms with all sorts of artwork, having to visit the Sistine Chapel a second time so we could exit.

We then went to the ancient Roman part of the city to visit the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum. We've seen a number of Roman ruins on our travels, we finally made it to the "real" Roman ruins! This took up most of the rest of the day, though we did manage to fit in the Tivoli Fountain on the way back to the hotel.

Day 206 - On strike, but only for you

Florence to Rome - Candia Residences

We left Florence for Rome, but with a side trip to Pisa on the way. We had researched that it was possible to leave our luggage at the station in Pisa while we visited the famous tower, but when we arrived at Pisa station a man outside the left luggage office told us they were on strike because they hadn't been paid!

In the end we took a taxi to the Leaning Tower and took turns looking after the luggage while the other looked around. The tower and accompanying buildings were quite interesting, as was the number of people setting up the trick photo where someone is "holding up" the tower - we didn't try that though. We shared the taxi back to the station with another couple who had been able to leave their luggage at the station, apparently the strike was over less than an hour after we had left!

Our hotel in Rome was very close to the Vatican so we walked up to St. Peter's Square, and were surprised to find it relatively quiet, and that St. Paul's Basilica was still open. We tried to enter but K was turned away because of her shorts and top - knees and shoulders have to be covered.

M then decided we should complete our walk around the outside of the Vatican, K wasn't that keen, but at least we can now say we have walked around the borders of an entire country in only an hour or so.

Day 205 - Art overload

Florence - Locanda de Firenze

We were a little surprised to get to the piazza and see the huge queues for the Basilica, as the previous evening it had been much quieter. We decided to wait until later to see if the crowds would subside.

We had booked our tickets for the Accademia and Ufizzi galleries online, which ended up saving us so much time waiting in queues. First up was the Accademia, the highlight of course being Michaelangelo's David. After finishing there we went back to the Basilica and climbed to the top of the dome, followed by a quick look from the inside at ground level as well. Then a walk over the Ponte Vecchio, before heading to the Uffizi gallery.

Our Uffizi entry was scheduled for 5:30pm, but we managed to get in an hour earlier. There were some amazing artworks in there, by Da Vinci, Boticelli, Raphael. Carravaggio and many more, but it was a little difficult at times to get a good view because of the number of people - way too crowded for our liking. On this trip now we've seen so many works of art that we think we are suffering from art overload, but the really extraordinary and famous works are still great to see.

Day 204 - Next time buy the tickets earlier

Venice to Florence - Locanda de Firenze

We headed straight to the train station to catch a train to Florence but stupidly hadn't thought to buy the ticket the day before, so as the train was booked out we had to wait two hours for the next one. We used the morning for one last walk around Venice, taking special care not to get lost this time.

Eventually we made it to Florence and checked into our hotel where the girl behind the desk said "you must be here visiting relatives" - she recognised M's surname as being from a nearby area.

It was still very hot, so waited until the early evening to do some exploration, wandering into an old church along the way and also visiting some of the piazzas.

Day 203 - A day on the canals and in the Piazza

Venice - Hotel Florida

We bought a whole day pass for the vaporetto (water bus) and travelled to Piazza San Marco, it's a nice cheap way to travel the Grand Canal and see some of the beautiful sites. Nice square, but once again ruined by advertising - must be an Italian thing. We visited the museum in St. Mark's Basilica and climbed out onto the balcony into the hot sun (Italy has been very hot so far), we saved our visit to inside the Basilica for later in the day as it was closed in the morning.

Back on the ferry for a trip to Lido (not much there), then back to the Piazza for the Doges Palace and the Basilica proper. As part of the Doges Palace visit we walked across the Bridge of Sighs, unfortunately there wasn't much to be seen from the outside later on - ruined by advertising again! We walked back to the hotel via the Rialto Bridge and Market - K decided that souvenir shopping was in order, M decided that he'd rather relax and eat some gelati.

In the evening we headed back to the Piazza for the entertainment - there were a number of groups of musicians with piano and strings playing classical music - nice if you like that sort of thing, and it was certainly a lot quieter then earlier in the day, no hordes of tourists to contend with, and the evening trip on the vaporetto gave us great views of the buildings lit up along the canal.

Day 202 - Where did all these relatives come from?

Milan to Venice - Hotel Florida

Today was the day for our visit to M's Dad's home town of Piazzola Sul Brenta, not far from Padua, and of course to meet even more relatives. We set off early for the three hour trip, with Uncle Pietro driving us, doing a great job in the hectic Milan traffic for an 82 year old!

When we reached Piazzola Sul Brenta we first stopped by Villa Contorini, an impressive old "villa veneto", before heading to the house. M's plan was to stop by, meet a few relatives, take some pics and leave again. How naive we were, one glance at the length of the table set up in the garden and we knew this wasn't going to be a small affair! Unfortunately not many people spoke English but many people did their best to try and talk to us anyway.

One thing of special interest to us, when we were at Dakar concentration camp in Munich, M found a reference to a man who had died there with the same surname and home town as M's dad. One elderly auntie at the lunch remembered him, he was a great uncle of M's (i.e. M's dad's uncle) who went to Germany to work and then was imprisoned when Italy "changed sides" during WW2 - a piece of family history saved by chance.

After a traditional Italian lunch in the beautiful outdoor setting, photos were taken and many kisses were given to take back to Australia. We were then driven to the train station in Padua to catch the train to Venice, less than an hour away.

We arrived in Venice and exited the station right on the Grand Canal to find the place swarming with tourists. They say that something every visitor should do in Venice is to get lost - K has an excellent sense of direction so we rarely have a problem in this area. However when we headed off for an evening walk after dinner, it didn't take us long to get hopelessly lost - so it seems K's sense of  direction doesn't work in Venice!