Today we are travelling from Venice to Tryol in Austria, so it is another day on bus. Around early afternoon some people have chosen to go white water rafting - I am not one of those crazy people, the water looks cold, and I would no doubt just bounce out of the boat. We make our way to Hopfgarten - a small Alpine town, usually surrounded by snow-capped mountains and pine forests - I can hear the Sound of Music already! You can soon see why Austria is an advent...

Today was a bit of a disaster, there is no way about it, we end up traveling for 12 hrs, leaving early in the morning (8:30), we head out for Venice, but traffic is bad, and then we are stopped by some corrupt Italian police, who delay us for over 1 hr on the highway. They demand to see lots of paperwork, and make up different kinds of fines - adding up to a mere 2000 euro which you are expected to pay on the spot, whilst having collected our passports (I am sw...

Bonjourno - we slept in and gave the early Vatican city a miss - but don't worry, we will return & make sure we have enough time to take it in, today is the free day it is open, and in 40 degree heat, with crowds it wasn't appealing. We take our time to make our way into the city, we head to Spagna to see the Spanish Steps, and they are exactly as they are - steps, but impressive steps at that. Named after the Bourbon Spanish Embassy still located in Piazza...

It's hot (36 degrees), it's early and after a big night it is all a little hard. We have a leather demonstration where we get to see the traditional Florentine method of creating leather & their one of a kind jewellery box. We learn a couple of handy tips for identifying real leather, as the markets here are full of fake pleather, and then are taken into their shop (of course). But we are tempted by the lovely leather bags & both walk out owning some a...

Another bus day as we leave France and head to Italy, on our way to Renaissance Florence. As we make our way we get to stop in and see the famous leaning tower of Pisa, we leave the cool conditions of the bus & venture into the sweltering heat. It is a Saturday and quite busy with tourist, all trying to get "that" photo of picking up the tower. The tower itself is quite small, and defiantly has a distinct tilt, which apparently was already leaning in the e...