Italiano adventure, part one..
Venice the unique sinking city, was our first stop in Italy and from the minute we pulled up at the train station I was intrigued by this city, it's canals and boat culture.. Unfortunately we were 'camping' again, this time though we had a cabin.. I would of paid anything not to spend another night in a tent! When we finally found the camping grounds in the outskirts of Venice down past rape ally and yonder the slums, we could tell that in summer time it would be a cool place to stay and party by the pool with a few cold ones! Although we just wanted to chill get some sleep in a real bed & enjoy what Venice had to offer.
On our first day we took a ferry bus on the ring route through the canals and got off at St Martins square the most touristic place of all in Venice... But it's obvious to see why when you see the beautiful St. Martins Cathedral looking down on you.. Taking the advice of some traveller friends we decided just to wander the tiny narrow streets and get lost in this city by the sea & enjoy some Italian specialties for lunch all the while talking with our hands! Belissimo!
There are a few smaller islands off of Venice and since there didn't seem to be a lot to see or do in Venice itself we decided to take a look at Murano the biggest of the islands, most famous for glass blowing which the shops are just covered in & in all honesty that's about all there is to see.. It takes longer to get there on a taxi boat than for you to become bored of all the same same glass blowing merchandise in every shop!! So it's safe to say after 2 days in Venice we were more than ready to move onto Florence.
It's funny how in your head you always have a picture of what you think something will be like & no matter what anyone tells you it pretty well remains the same until you experience it for yourself.. Just the name 'Florence' sounds so beautiful to me and walking out of the train station into a drab dirty grey city with a big brown ugly Cathedral in my face, wasnt what I expected. The beautiful picture of Florence I had painted in my imagination was instantly gone & a bleak reality was staring back at me. My mum had loved Florence so I guess I expected to instantly love it too but so far it was not the case. After a very short walk from the train station to our hostel we were feeling uninspired by this city so we decided to go to Cinque Terre the following day.
The train journey was long, the steps were steep & sometimes never ending but the little villages on top of the mountains were quirky and the views over the mediterranian, breath taking and totally worth every step! All of the hiking paths were closed due to an accident in summer so we had it pretty easy really, we'd take the train from village to village & only having to climb the stairs to get up to the villages wasn't too bad at all! village number 4 was my favourite (probably because there weren't any steps! Haha) We had some lunch here and took in our surroundings, searched for a T-Shirt for Gordy from his favorite little bar but they were closed! Next time I guess ;)
The following day we booked a day tour of Tuscany & Pisa. Going out into the Italian countryside was really beautiful.. I'm def a country kid, big concrete cities do not compare to small little villages surrounded by green rolling hills! Our first stop was in Sienna a cute little city that has a crazy medieval horse racing tradition that will take you back 100s of years! We had a short guided tour that finished at the Sienna Cathedral.... This was by far my utmost favorite Cathedral in Europe (so far!) the detail on the outside of the building was incredible & the inside was no different. It was quite heavily decorated but it was just amazing, I don't believe in God but I do believe in beautiful architecture and if 'God' had inspired that in someone hundreds of years ago then I'm very thankful for that.
From Sienna we went to an organic farm for lunch where they made everything we ate on site using products they had grown; pasta, tomatoes, beef, wine, biscotti & olive oil.. It was lovely and fresh, with a view to die for! From here we visited San Giovanni to sample the worlds best Gelatti... And I'm not even going to lie we went back for seconds it was that good!!! Mango sorbet heaven.... Mmm.
Onto Pisa in the evening where we were not disappointed at all.. The leaning tower was seriously cool, I took about 4000 photos of it so I'm sure I'll never forget!! Haha.
On our last day we decided we had better actually see Florence! Maybe a statue of David or something like that! The line to see David was over an hour long wait (we don't do hour long lines!!!) well so far nothing has spiked my interest enough to make me wait that long but you never know. Plus with our limited time to get the afternoon train we decided a replica would be fine so we matched off to find one we didn't have to wait to see & part of me regrets that now. The replica was nothing special really but my mum assures me the real thing is amazing so maybe one day I'll have to return to check him out..
Afterwards we went to the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral for a look, she was beautiful from the outside, the same style as in Sienna but much bigger - it was huge! Inside was very plain & basic just a huge open space, nothing special there.. Not like Sienna! We climbed the bell tower to get some nice panoramic pictures of the city & then it was goodbye to Italy for now & time so move onto our Sail Croatia adventure!! All aboard for an afternoon training across Italy & an overnight ferry to Croatia.. ❤