Our final stop on Busabout was completed arriving back in Nice where it all began 10 weeks earlier. It was quite a sad day, however our European adventure wasn’t over yet, three sensational nights were still to be had!
Our first night was spent with a crew from Busabout at the Irish pub for dinner and trivia. It was quite an interesting trivia night as it was compared by both a French speaking and English speaking host. One of the questions which was hilarious to be heard in French was ‘which cartoon do the lines Yabba daba do come from’ the French didn’t get it at all!!
Our second day was spent exploring the local markets for some fresh produce for lunch and happy snaps from the lookout across the bay. We also went on the Busabout excursion to St. Tropez and Port Grimmaud along the French Riviera which is a 2 hour bus ride from Nice. The boat cruise which coincidentally offered bottomless beer, wine and punch also passed through the famous Millionaires bay where the likes of Paris Hilton, Bruce Willis, Geri Halliwell, the Beckhams and Denzel Washington holiday. The cruise also included a tour guide who pointed out a few of the mansions along the Riviera including the holiday homes of Bryan Adams, George Michaels, L’Oreal, Chanel and a notorious importer/exporter who hosted a Red Hot Chilli Peppers gig on his front lawn for his girlfriend...wonder what he imports and exports!
MONACO - As Monaco is only a 30 minute bus ride away of course we needed to make a visit, but first we stopped by Eze Village. Eze Village is a quaint little town famous for its French perfumes and aftershaves. Needless to say our credit card got a work out in Fraganauds perfumery! With bags in hand we made our way to Monaco, the second smallest country in Europe behind Vatican City. It is also the home of the infamous Gimmaldi’s Royal family, flash cars and of course the Monte Carlo Casino. Basically everything in Monte Carlo comes with a price tag! After spending the afternoon exploring the town via a road train we ventured into the Sun Casino (one a little more affordable to us). However, it still came at a price as playing Roulette consisted of a minimum 40 Euro ($AUD 60) buy in and if playing on the outside boxes it was a minimum 25 Euro ($AUD 40) bet! If you were wondering we didn’t leave the casino with fat wallets, but we also didn’t leave empty handed.
Travelling on Busabout has been amazing, we met heaps of people and explored countries, cities and towns we had never seen or even expected to see.
Well that finishes our European summer of a life time, now onward to London town to commence the next chapter of our adventure...
Thursday, September 11, 2008
La Spezia for Cinque Terra (Italy) – 28th August to 1st September
Cinque Terra is known for its five fishing villages that are stretched along 9km of Mediterranean coastline. Beginning with Riomaggiore this is the first of the five villages and also where we stayed for the first 2 nights. On the day of arrival we were greeted at the hostel reception to find out there were three sites and that we were required to trek our way up to the peak of the hill with 20 kgs worth of baggage each in heat in excess of 30 degrees, where we would eventually find our place. After recovering from our climb we were amazed to find that the place we were staying at was an Affittacamere (in English it means private house) with balcony and an amazing view overlooking the bay included. We had our private room, or parents room as some would say, while the other six Busabout crew (including Adele who was with us) stayed in one large dorm room, trundle beds included. This place turned out to be a gem as the people we were sharing with were friends we had met in Florence on Busabout. The place was ours to enjoy some drinks and do what we wanted in it, so that’s what we did, within reason of course. We found some hidden rooms with chairs, a spare trundle bed and lounge chairs and setup camp on the balcony for a night in to drink and watch the sunset.
The following day was the Kakota trail of Italy. Beginning at Riomaggiore we set out on the trek along the coast, passing through the other four fishing villages; Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza and ending at Monterosso. Whilst the walk/trek was quite gruelling at times with endless dirt tracks and countless uneven steps it was all worth it as the views were incredible!! Needless to say we consumed countless bottles of water to rehydrate as it was another scorching day and Dee acquired some nasty blisters as a trophy of completing the trek. As a reward we finished off the day with a swim at the final town Monterosso with a swim at the sand beach (yep not pebbles)!
The following days were spent lapping up the sun lazing on the beaches between the five towns but this time we took the train! A great investment of 3.50 Euro ($5.50 Aussie dollars) was also spent purchasing a blow up tyre to float about in the sea, James also explored under the water snorkelling.
To mix things up our last two nights we stayed in La Spezia (larger town about a 10 minute train ride before Cinque Terra). It was here in La Spezia that we experienced breakfast in the true Italian style. Breakfast consisted of croissants and coffee standing at the counters of the little coffee shops. We felt a little like confused tourists here as the staff didn’t speak much English all adding to the experience. Great strong Italian coffee though!
Cinque Terra was definitely up there for one of the best places we have visited and a must for anyone doing Busabout or travelling Italy in general.
The following day was the Kakota trail of Italy. Beginning at Riomaggiore we set out on the trek along the coast, passing through the other four fishing villages; Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza and ending at Monterosso. Whilst the walk/trek was quite gruelling at times with endless dirt tracks and countless uneven steps it was all worth it as the views were incredible!! Needless to say we consumed countless bottles of water to rehydrate as it was another scorching day and Dee acquired some nasty blisters as a trophy of completing the trek. As a reward we finished off the day with a swim at the final town Monterosso with a swim at the sand beach (yep not pebbles)!
The following days were spent lapping up the sun lazing on the beaches between the five towns but this time we took the train! A great investment of 3.50 Euro ($5.50 Aussie dollars) was also spent purchasing a blow up tyre to float about in the sea, James also explored under the water snorkelling.
To mix things up our last two nights we stayed in La Spezia (larger town about a 10 minute train ride before Cinque Terra). It was here in La Spezia that we experienced breakfast in the true Italian style. Breakfast consisted of croissants and coffee standing at the counters of the little coffee shops. We felt a little like confused tourists here as the staff didn’t speak much English all adding to the experience. Great strong Italian coffee though!
Cinque Terra was definitely up there for one of the best places we have visited and a must for anyone doing Busabout or travelling Italy in general.
Florence (Italy) – 25th to 28th August
Firenze as the Italians call it, is an Italian pearler of a city! The reason being the camping ground we stayed in was like a little communal Busabout village. We all had cabins that were all grouped together so meeting new people wasn’t hard. The other thing that was funny about this camping ground (particularly something James thought was great) was that to swim in the pool you had to wear a swimming camp... James’ thoughts: ahhh brings me back to my Bondi lifesaving days... anyway this meant the pool was really clean, one it stops hair from floating about in the pool, which did happen at the Venice and Rome campsites and two it prevented alot of people from swimming as you had to pay for a cap. This meant a quite pool to relax, swim and bake in! The other rule to the pool was that you couldn’t wear any footwear, inc. thongs, around the pool. Firenze’s have some funny concepts!
So Florence town, well the main attraction is of course ‘The statue of David’. David has nothing on James, but it was absolutely incredible and well worth the 12 Euro ($AUD 18) to get in to Galleria dell” Accademia where it was located. Michelangelo designed what has to be the best statue in the world as the attention to detail is incredible, you can literally see David’s veins (he has really big feet and hands aswell, not sure why because it doesn’t show... for those interested check our blog pictures!) The other big drawcard for Florence is The Ponte Vecchio or the Old Bridge. This bridge is a famous medieval bridge over the Arno river and is known for having some 60 shops on it, with nearly 50 of those jewellery shops specialising in gold. This is also the only bridge in Florence that wasn’t destroyed during the war, rumour has it when Hitler visited before the war began he loved it so much he told his SS pilots to bomb everything, minus The Ponte Vecchio...
The final, and one of the most important drawcards to Florence for Dee and girls alike, is the leather markets & shopping. Dee could finally buy her long awaited leather handbag, for those who were travelling with us they are all too familiar with our “Schmanbag” which was our security conscious, slash proof, over the shoulder, you beaut travel bag worn by both he and she... you may have noticed it in such pictures as “Deesa and Jimmy do Berlin Wall”. The other purchases made that day were scarfs, belts, wallets and other delights. Gelati capped the day... just to full the addiction of a gelati a day.
So Florence town, well the main attraction is of course ‘The statue of David’. David has nothing on James, but it was absolutely incredible and well worth the 12 Euro ($AUD 18) to get in to Galleria dell” Accademia where it was located. Michelangelo designed what has to be the best statue in the world as the attention to detail is incredible, you can literally see David’s veins (he has really big feet and hands aswell, not sure why because it doesn’t show... for those interested check our blog pictures!) The other big drawcard for Florence is The Ponte Vecchio or the Old Bridge. This bridge is a famous medieval bridge over the Arno river and is known for having some 60 shops on it, with nearly 50 of those jewellery shops specialising in gold. This is also the only bridge in Florence that wasn’t destroyed during the war, rumour has it when Hitler visited before the war began he loved it so much he told his SS pilots to bomb everything, minus The Ponte Vecchio...
The final, and one of the most important drawcards to Florence for Dee and girls alike, is the leather markets & shopping. Dee could finally buy her long awaited leather handbag, for those who were travelling with us they are all too familiar with our “Schmanbag” which was our security conscious, slash proof, over the shoulder, you beaut travel bag worn by both he and she... you may have noticed it in such pictures as “Deesa and Jimmy do Berlin Wall”. The other purchases made that day were scarfs, belts, wallets and other delights. Gelati capped the day... just to full the addiction of a gelati a day.
Siena (Italy)– 23rd to 25th August
Sienna was a stop we hadn’t planned on originally, however we decided a few weeks before we visited, that we would stop on in. The 2 nights we spent there were enough, Siena is a town you can do in a day really. We did manage to check out a few sights of course, mainly the town square. Siena has one of the most famous town squares in Italy as it is massive and shaped like an amphitheatre that slopes downwards towards the town hall, it was pretty amazing. It can be hit and miss sometimes when you stay in 2-3 star hotels, some can be great, others can be like this one that is more like a convent or grandmas house with floral bedspread, a desk and that talcum powder smell that always seems to waft around in the room.
A stop to an Italian city wouldn’t be complete without three essential things; pizza/pasta, gelati & a visit to a church... so naturally we did all three. Also of course, travel around Europe in August wouldn’t be the same without running into another festival. We think this was a political festival as there were banners and posters up (in Italian of course) mentioning about the candidates, oh and the fact there were more geriatrics at the festival then there are in my grandmas hostel! Amazingly however, Italy will always surprise and the festival turned from cheap dinner and drinks (one litre of wine for $AUD 3.00) to a battle of the bands concert. Pearl Jam, Muse and The Killers were all tunes belted out by some of the bands. A few too many drinks that night and we were off to Florence the next day, fortunately it was a day stop which meant a 1:00pm pickup, enough time to catch up on some sleep.
A stop to an Italian city wouldn’t be complete without three essential things; pizza/pasta, gelati & a visit to a church... so naturally we did all three. Also of course, travel around Europe in August wouldn’t be the same without running into another festival. We think this was a political festival as there were banners and posters up (in Italian of course) mentioning about the candidates, oh and the fact there were more geriatrics at the festival then there are in my grandmas hostel! Amazingly however, Italy will always surprise and the festival turned from cheap dinner and drinks (one litre of wine for $AUD 3.00) to a battle of the bands concert. Pearl Jam, Muse and The Killers were all tunes belted out by some of the bands. A few too many drinks that night and we were off to Florence the next day, fortunately it was a day stop which meant a 1:00pm pickup, enough time to catch up on some sleep.
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