DAY 11

Tuesday 1st July 2008 7.47am Venice

It is a grey and overcast day and the rain has just begun to fall on the bus. It is still warm and the forecast for Rome today is 35°C. I could see lightning from out hotel window earlier. We are sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of our coach and will be travelling all day. I feel tired even though I had a good sleep. Breakfast in the hotel today was crowded as two or maybe three other tour groups crossed paths. We chatted briefly with an Australian lady on another Trafalgar tour.

1/7/08 9.56am

Our morning stop was at a roadside venue in Bologna. We just had coffee then looked at the amazing assortment of packaged cheeses, meats, wines and chocolates. It is warm and muggy with a thick grey haze obscuring the landscape. We have been following the valley where an abundance of fruit trees and maize grow. There are also rice fields. Dane is an Australian with Croatian parents and he is telling Michael about Croatia: the living conditions, history, and geography.

We are about to pass through our first mountain tunnel since arriving in Italy. The Apennines are the mountain ranges that form the “leg bone” of Italy. Meanwhile Deborah fills us in about Mussolini. She is very good at telling the history in a story-like fashion without getting bogged down with dates, although she does include the significant ones.

The landscape has changed now and the motorway is following the mountains. We can look down on the valleys where typical apricot-coloured stone houses and villas nestle beautifully in groups. We are on our way to Firenze (Florence).

1/7/08 10.45am

We have arrived in the region of Tuscany. Olive groves dot this area and the dark pencil Cyprus trees and vineyards of Chianti grapes. There are so many British people living here it is often called the Chianti Shire. We caught a glimpse of the famous Brunelleschi Duomo of Florence in the distance veiled by haze. We aren’t stopping in Florence today but will on our return journey. Deborah read us a satirical diary of a tourist travelling around Spain on a tour like this one. It was very funny and we could all relate to it extremely well. It mentioned the cathedrals, statues, stone walls, strange bathroom plumbing, souvenir buying, currency, postage, and language problems. It had us all in fits of laughter. What a happy bus!

A funny thing I’ve noticed is that all the immigrants who live in Australia now that are on this tour refer to themselves as Australians whenever asked by Europeans we meet. They are insistent when asked where they are from and get a little annoyed and say “Australia!” Even the older Italian Australians on board do this.

1/7/08 12.12pm

Lunchtime was spent at another roadside stop with the same system of buying a ticket then regrouping for the food. We had toasted rolls with cheese and ham, then an icecream. We sat outside in an untidy picnic area under some scruffy trees. We heard the church bells in the nearby town, smelt the animal stink of pigs in a freight truck in the carpark, and hear cicadas buzzing in the trees. Our early stop beat the next bunch of tour busses that unboarded their hungry passengers after us. We avoided the possible crowded confusion like we experienced yesterday. It is good to be once again seated on the air-conditioned and comfortable bus. It is about two and a half hours to Rome. The Etruscans habited this area before Christ. The Romans eventually took over from the Etruscans learning many of their advanced ways of life.

1/7/08 11.05pm Rome

All roads lead to Rome and here we are. Driving into Rome I was struck by the amount of rubbish by the roadside. Also I have never seen so many mopeds and Smart Cars before. It was stinking hot when we got out of the bus in the narrow lane outside the hotel. We received our room allocation, checked it out then went for a walk. There is an internet cafe next door that charges €1.50 for 30 minutes, so I sent some emails to our family. We walked around the block and were confronted with rubbishy parks full of derelicts drinking beer, where the smell of urine was very strong. Just next door was McDonalds and this was beside the luxury Boscolo Hotel on a major architecturally significant intersection.

You have to strut out with confidence in order to cross the road. If you hesitate the traffic won’t stop. It takes practice to get the movement right to convey to the motorists that you do in fact intend to cross.

We met our group and were bussed to a point where we then wound our way along crowded lanes to the famous Trevi Fountain. It is a spectacular piece of sculpture. Tourists crowded around taking photographs and tossing the traditional three coins in the fountain backwards and over the left shoulder with the right hand. We were glad to unload some Swiss francs that we have no further use for. We walked on to the Spanish Steps and again the tourists had gathered and milled around. We climbed the steps, took some photos, and then sat on the steps in the shade for five minutes. Off again we window gazed at the famous brand name stores: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace, etc. Ridiculously priced clothing! We eventually arrived at the Casava Restaurant for an excellent Italian dinner. We started with cold roasted vegetables, then ravioli followed by another pasta dish of penne in tomato sauce. We then had veal topped with ham and cheese with salad. Dessert was a sweet sponge cake with whipped cream and some topping. We had wine supplied and coffee to finish. A man sang and played the electric organ while we ate and talked. We sat at long tables and talked to Simone and her mother Gloria. Simone lives in Sydney and her mother lives in Batemans Bay. Simone is just recovering from serious cancer. She has had a large tumour removed and lost a kidney. They are really lovely ladies. After dinner we walked across the square where Deborah bought single red roses for the ladies from a night hawker. Eduardo met us with the bus and we returned to the Hotel Diana.

We met quite a few of the gang on the roof garden. We bought drinks. I had a Baileys on ice. We laughed and talked and sweated some more in the relentless heat. We have an early start tomorrow as we have bookings to visit the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel in The Vatican City.