the florentine tale....

From Rome we traveled by train to Florence, the city that I was probably most looking forward to before starting the trip.  Everyone I had talked to had raved about Florence and I was looking forward to seeing what all the hype was about. We arrived at our accommodation to be greeted by the most adorable Italian boy ever.  His name was Gulio and he was about eight I think.  He followed us down the hall to our room blasting the song Happy, which made us that emotion indeed.

Best. Welcome. Ever

We headed straight into the city and started to explore.  At first we were just wandering around and to be honest I couldn't see what all the hype was about.  Sure the town was beautiful, but I had been to Annecy, a place that knocks your socks off with beauty, and I wondered if my impression of Florence was to be spoiled by the previous experience we had had.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  Florence is a magical city, and we mainly discovered this by our night activities.  Florence at night is when the city becomes alive.  Live music on every corner, street lamps making the streets glow golden, a carousel lit up and statues scattered through the streets all make Florence one of my favourite places this trip.

Some sort of performance we saw while on the bridge

On this particular night we stayed on the Ponte Vecchio where there were two guys playing live music.  We climbed up onto the wall trying our hardest not to fall off into the water and listened.  This is when a group of three Italian guys arrived and Amelia whispered to me that they were checking us out.  We ignored them until I accidentally made eye contact with one of them.  Unfortunately it wasn't love at first sight but it was all the encouragement this gentleman needed to come over to us and start a conversation.  Looking back on how he opened up the conversation makes me giggle a little as he asked us whether we speak Italian. To this we shook our heads.  He then asked if we spoke French. Nope. Spanish? Nada.  So now that he had established that he was talking to two very intelligent girls he then started to talking to his friends... in Italian, or French, or potentially Spanish, we wouldn't know.  One of his other friends then decided to join him in his efforts to chat us up.  The highlight moment was when one of the street sellers approached the boys offering roses for them to buy for us.  So disappointed when they didn't, but nonetheless we had an invitation to Michelangelo's piazza, which we politely declined. They then lost interest as we gained a new interest in something that was occurring on the river just below us.  There was a torch lit gondola with a beautiful woman draped in white sitting in the front.  We thought that maybe she was going to her wedding and got very excited.  Our excitement only grew when we saw a second gondola with a man dressed in white standing in the front.  Was this to be a river wedding? We still don't know, but we assume that it was only a performance as there was a group of gondolas with tourists in them.  Now Amelia has it in her head that she wants to be married in a gondola on a river.  The images of Amelia on the Brisbane river standing in a gondola trying desperately not to fall in, in her wedding gown, gives me much amusement I must confess.  After our excitement died down we decided to wander around in the city and of course get some gelato.

 

The next day we climbed to the top of the Dome in Florence which has incredible views of Florence and where Amelia had a classic moment saying; "we are on a cupola, I don't know what that is but we're on a dome". We bought street art and got conned into buying a caricature by yet another seedy Italian.

However it was that night which actually was my favorite night we've had so far on this trip.  We had decided to get some nice drinks and pizza and walk to Michelangelo's piazza to watch the sunset and Florence by night and that we did! Armed with pizza and mineral drinks we found a seat on a huge set of steps (along with about 50 other people) view of Florence in front of us, and live music playing next to us.  This involved spilling our drinks and then trying to stop the flow before it rained down on the women sitting below us, me almost flinging our pizza onto them chucking the pizza box on the puddle, Amelia trying to catch it in her hands and saying, "wait wait let me get my hand wipes!".  We did prevent the deluge with much laughter and embarrassment and enjoyed the sunset which was stunning.  

 

On Sunday after church we had a date with David which I wish he had dressed up for a little more.  It ended up being very much a one sided conversation due to his stony heart. If you haven't caught on yet we visited Michelangelo's sculpture of David which was incredible! 

The rest of the gallery was a little disappointing due to the fact of poor lighting and crowding of the statues.  But David was stunning.  Apart from a trip up to Frezole where we saw another incredible view of Florence, ate a cheap but dodgy pasta meal and had more gelato that was the end of our time in Florence.  The next day we headed out to our next destination: Venice. 

Hello Georgio...

Ahhh Rome. The city where history is everywhere you look and incredible structures that make your head swim stand next to fairly modern buildings. Where seedy Italian men lurk and where we arrived from Barcelona.  We made the mistake of assuming that our hosts would speak English (even though we had to translate their listing) so when we arrived at our accommodation a game of charades was started.  Through skilful acting and the help of Google translate we finally communicated that 'yes we would like breakfast at 7:30' and 'can we wash some clothes?' This last phrase was particularity desperate as we were down to almost no clean pairs of clothes.  Unless you counted our UK gear which in sunny Rome of 30+ degrees was definitely not going to cut it.  So the lady took our money and took our clothes saying (we think) that she would return them to our room. So we settled in and headed into the city of Rome.  Just to get really boring here; but if people are planning on traveling to Rome, get a Roma Pass.  We picked ours up at the airport and it gave us unlimited public transport and passes to two sites.  So helpful.  

Anyways we headed into the city to see if we could visit the Trevi Fountain.  We walked in to find that it was completely hidden by construction. 

We were sad... 

We then roamed the city, purchasing some gelato and wandering the long way back to the metro station. We also had another London moment where we found a lovely old building and the question was asked "I wonder what this building is?" to which the answer we speedily found was; "The pantheon. Only one of the most famous buildings in Rome." Yay for another super intelligent moment!

 The Pantheon

 Ice cream of course

The next day we were up and raring to go. We had a desperate moment where we didn't know where our clothes were (the ones we had given to our host to wash) and we literally were wearing our last pair of clothes. When we went to breakfast we saw them still in a washing machine and groaned knowing that we would have to wear our dirty clothes. Yay for traveling! Our plan this day was to do the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and that is exactly what we did.  Because we had the Roma pass we were able to skip the queue and walk straight into the Colosseum. What a structure that place is.  It is hard to reconcile such a brutal history with such a beautiful architectural structure.  It shows how beauty can be so corrupted and that the human sinful heart is so present even in the most beautiful of places.  What I found really encouraging was the placement of a large cross on one side of the terrace.  It gave such a visual reminder that Christ is still Lord over all and that even in the darkest of places, he is present and his sacrifice applies for all.  I loved that reminder in the midst of that incredibly touristy place. 

 After the Colosseum we then headed next door to the Roman Forum, an area in Rome where they have left ruins in tact and are actually still currently excavating sites. What a privilege it is to be able to see the history of such a rich culture. 

 After the Roman forum we then walked to the Mamertime prison, a prison where Paul and Peter were said to be have held captive.  This is also where it is reported that Paul wrote 2 Timothy so that was really awesome to be in the same room as that piece of history. 

After that we waited around for a free walking tour to start.  It was supposed to start at the base of the Spanish steps so we decided to get gelato around there and then find a park that was supposed to be at the top. 

 

The tour wasn't Sandeman's sadly as they didn't run tours in Rome but nonetheless we were determined! We waited in a park for hours taking selfies and talking about silly things before heading back to the Spanish steps where we were supposed to meet the group.  We made it to the first church before deciding that we would be better off on our own so we headed off to find the Pantheon again.  We found it and successfully identified it this time before deciding to go to dinner.  Now I know I promised not to feed you every single detail of our lives but this is a funny story so hang in there for me.  

A friend of mine (who has also been traveling) wrote on her blog about seedy Italians.  Now if you are Italian and reading this blog please do not be offended as I am sure that this a small population of a wonderful nation, however there are some very seedy Italian men. After the Pantheon we were persuaded to go to a certain restaurant due to a particularly beautiful looking Italian man who promised free champagne (which Amelia enjoyed as I don't drink).  This particularly beautiful looking Italian man's name was Georgio and he was a waiter trying to real in customers for the restaurant. Georgio took quite a liking to Amelia and he started hugging her and asking for a kiss (to which she politely refused), then started to give her a shoulder massage asking her if she would like him to massage her in her sleep (that escalated quickly).  At this point Amelia was looking very uncomfortable and repeatedly told him that she didn't want that to which he didn't seem to quite understand.  He kept going until his boss called him away to which we are fairly sure he got into a little bit of trouble.  Despite that and being charged for bread that we didn't order, the gnocchi that we ordered was delicious and we finished our dinner quite pleasantly.

The next day we were going to the Vatican! We made it to St Peter's square with only one harassment from the "tour guides" wanting to sell us tickets to the Vatican (which we had already purchased online).  We hung around the square in front of St Peter's Cathedral wondering things like, "I wonder what the pope wears to bed? Does he have special pope pajamas?" and, "I wonder if this water from the water fountain is holy water?" We don't hold back from the deep questions. We then went to MacDonalds to try and get out of the heat and to get some food before going into the Vatican.  Fast food over here in Europe is not fast.  We experienced this at the Barcelona airport where we paid a fortune for Burger King thinking it would be quick before our flight.  Wrong. Slowest fast food ever.  Rome is exactly the same. We ended up having about 15 minutes to eat before we needed to head off.  So off we trotted to the Vatican (which technically was another country).   Again I would recommend buying tickets ahead of time as we walked straight into the Vatican museums. 

Amazing.

Just stunning the art work and the rooms of the museum. We walked into one room called the Hall of Maps and I actually got emotional with how beautiful the room was.  That has never happened before, almost being brought to tears by paintings. The photos do not do it justice at all. 

The hall of maps

 

Then there is the Sistine Chapel.  We actually stayed in the Sistine for almost an hour, doing horrible things to our necks but gazing at this masterpiece.  No photography was allowed in the Sistine Chapel so I don't have any pictures but no picture that I could take could do the master piece justice. 

We were very tired from the heat so we then headed home and that was the end of our Rome stay. Next stop was beautiful Florence where it is currently storming. 

Ciao!

Tapas

We left L'isle sur la Sorgue with very few issues (apart from Amelia getting stuck in the train doors) and headed off for Barcelona in sunny Spain! This was a big day of traveling for us, catching three trains and taking 9 hours to get there. However eventually we arrived in Port Bou Spain. Here we had a bit of a wait until our next train and so we stopped to eat our yogurts that we had purchased in France. Because of my experience with Spanish I was nominated to go ask for some spoons. Unfortunately I couldn't remember the word for spoon and even more unfortunately the lady serving didn't speak English. After me acting out eating with a spoon several times the lady thought to ask someone else to help. This Spanish woman heard what I asked and nodded confidently, promptly getting me a knife and fork. As I was too embarrassed to ask again, we then proceeded to eat our yogurt with a fork. My Spanish was about as effective as Amelia's French. Nonetheless by some miracle we caught the right train into Barcelona and made our way to our street. One of the consistently frustrating things about our stays over here is that the hosts often leave out very important information such as what apartment number they live in. So there we were, standing in front of a locked door with Italian men walking by giving seedy looks. We tried asking shops keepers, we asked to borrow a phone but nothing worked. We however did not have to sleep in the street as an angel of a Spanish woman who lived in the building came to our rescue. She buzzed up, and even unlocked the door for us! We then met our host; Josè. He was lovely helping us with our bags upstairs and giving us a tour around the apartment. 

 View from our accomodation

We made ourselves comfortable and headed out for a night on the town. We ate at a real Spanish restraunt where we had a small sample of tapas one of which was a devine Porchetta with honey mustard source. So good. We also continued our tradition of wooing European men by receiving free bread and olives. Amelia accomplished this when we were offered some bread (she had already ordered olives). She turned and asked if we had to pay for the bread to which the Italian waiter winked and patted her arm. "Don't worry," were his words and we both celebrated inwardly at more free stuff! We also recieved another arm rub and a wink from the bartender. After dinner we ventured through the narrow streets of Barcelona to a Jazz club where we bought some overpriced soft drink and sat down to listen to some live Cuban Jazz. They were wonderful and it was so much fun to watch the Spanish people dance the night away with incredible rhythm. Amelia and I did attempt it but I feel that our awkward shuffling was not quite up to the same standard. Nonetheless it was great fun and we ended up leaving at 1am. 

 

Jazz club shenanigans

The next morning was church and this week we headed to the International Church of Barcelona. Here we were welcomed most warmly, worshiped with a dozen other nationalities and heard a wonderful sermon base in Acts. It was such a good experience of fellowship with other believers. 

That afternoon we went on another Sandeman's tour. This one wasn't as good as the guide only had two weeks of experience and he insisted on basing us in the sun rather than the shade. This aside we did buy tickets to the Sandeman's tapas tour for the following night. That night was the World Cup final and we found a bar that was showing the game  and got some seats. We arrived an hour early which was fortunate as the bar became packed as the game started. We watched the game between continuely asking people not to stand directly in front of us and I began to see red when the guy who was standing in front of me blocking half the screen when he started to make out with his girlfriend. However I wouldn't have changed the night for the world. We ended up being in a corner with 5 other Australians and were surrounded by passionate Germans and passionate people who were going for Argentina. Our chosen team lost after an amazing game but the cheering and excitement were more then enough to satisfy us! 

The next day we decided to head to the beach, excited about swimming and getting some sun into us. The worst thing about being Australian is that when you grow up with some of the best beaches in the world, everything else is disappointing. Barcelona has an 8km long artificial beach that was made for the Olympics. The sand was Egyptian sand and they have to pour more sand onto the beach every single night. There are no waves to speak of and the water isn't anything to sing about. So disappointing. Yet we swam, wondered about how someone could lose their swimmers in the very calm ocean, and went and ate calamari and chips. Because food actually makes everything better, even Egyptian beaches in Barcelona.

The beach.

That night was our tapas tour and it was so great! We went to three different tapas bars and drank from pitchers in true Catalan style! We met some interesting people including a dozen Australians! Seemed to be the place to be if you were Aussie. A walk along the beach and a desert of lemon sorbet served in a lemon finished our night with class. 

 Drinking water from a wine pitcher

 Barcelona streets

Our stay in Barcelona was finished with a very confusing airport experience where we waited in lines only to be told that we were in the wrong line and sent to stand in another very long line. However there was a small victory celebration when we weighed my bag and it was exactly 15kg! Hurray! Next stop, Rome! 

Adios! 

P.S I apologize for the poor picture placement in previous posts. That's what happens when you upload it from your phone apparently. 

P.P.S More pictures! 

 Barcelona port

 Parc de la Ciutadella

Bubbles... giant bubbles

 The cathedral in Barcelona

The benefits being a girl while traveling:

Hey friends! Tonight I am blogging from a room in Rome full from a dinner of gnocchi and camera full of pictures of the colosseum. But you will have to hear about it another day as I still have to catch you up on both L'Isle sur la Sorgue and Barcelona.

So L'Isle sur la Sorgue.... Amazing. Another place that is out of the way and yet stunningly beautiful! L'Isle sur la Sorgue is in the Provence region in France and it is the "island" of the Sorgue  river. The river runs throughout the town and lanes with water wheels swirling around. We actually stayed in an artists house that had a functional water-wheel out the front. 

I actually felt a little nervous while on the train to L'Isle sur la Sorgue as we were passing all these run down looking towns, and I knew that L'Isle sur la Sorgue wasn't a huge tourist attraction. Also on the train were two French guys who kept looking over at Amelia and I and laughing and making comments in French. Unfortunately for them their beautiful pick up lines were wasted on us who do not understand the language of love. Breaking hearts again. We actually ran into these guys again when they spotted us as we were walking through town. One yelled out the window of the house he was in and Amelia, not understanding French, assumed he was yelling at someone else an ignored him. Me, I was trying hard not to make eye contact and giggle. 

To return to my original point; L'Isle sur la Sorgue did not disappoint at all. Beautiful water ways, sunflower fields, and springs were only some of the attractions! We finally had our first real summer days as well! 

The first afternoon there we wandered around town looking at all the lovely shops and marveling at the crystal clear water of the river. We eventually had to find dinner (most places didn't open until 7) and we ended up having Italian food! This was then followed by pizza the next night due the copious amounts of Italian restaurants. But to redeem ourselves in regards to cusine, we did eat a lot of pastries from patisseries. 

The following day was I think one of Amelia's favourite days! We decided that we were going to walk out to Fountaine-de- Vacluse which was a small town about 5-6km away that possessed the source of the Sorgue, a spring from the mountains. We had resigned ourselves to not seeing any lavender or sunflower fields as it was just too hard without a car but we embarked on our adventure with cheery hearts! 

We had walked just out of town when Amelia starts behaving like a kid who has just been given the keys to a lollie shop, or an adult who has just seen sunflower fields! There they were, in their glorious splendor, fields and fields of them. Of course we frolicked through them, took copious amounts of photos and basked in the beauty of creation! We sadly had to  move on with our walk after a while. Along our walk we stumbled across a vineyard in which we frolicked and took pictures. It was a beautifully warm day with the wind blowing a gale we were unaware of the sun and it's burning rays! 

Nonetheless we continued all the way to the source stopping by the river to eat our lunch. By this time it is becoming apparent that Amelia's boots may have just given up the ghost. We have done so much walking that her boots were worn down both on the bottom of the boot but also in the inner soles. Poor Amelia had a boot staple sticking up into her foot. So in we limped to Fountaine-de-Vacluse. We saw the waterhole where the river originated, ate some icecream and a peach flavored licorice string before heading back home. Amelia made it home with her feet still relatively in tact but unfortunately the sun had it out for her and we saw in horror that her neck had got very burnt. 

Before we got home however we visited a certain shop in town that we had visited but hadn't bought anything the precious day. In this shop was an extremely attractive French gentleman whose smile may have made me melt a little, not going to lie. And now I have an announcement: I am moving to L'Isle sur la Sorgue! Just kidding but he was extremely lovely, made even better by the fact he have us a ridiculous amount of free stuff! Didn't even have to bat our eyelashes! So that is the reason why sometimes traveling as two single girls works perfectly. 

With that and with these picture I will say au revoir for the last time. Next up; Barcelona! 

 Church we found in the center of town.

The one with the French men...

Our next destination from Paris was Annecy. Annecy is a little town just on the edge of the French and Swiss border. It is also one of the most beautiful places I've ever set my eyes on. We were staying about 5 minute walk from the old city center in our next AirBnb experience. We arrived in the middle of a storm; we like to make an entrance. This was a fairly good for warning of how the weather would be like not that we knew it at the time. However we were met at the train station by a public piano in the comer which is a beautiful idea that I thoroughly enjoyed!

We dropped our bags off at our accommodation and our host kindly gave us a tour around the old city, where she kindly pointed out the most hopping bars. We politely nodded and filed that information away for the next time we wanted to go to a club. She did however give us one of the greatest gifts ever by telling us about the best ice-cream in town. Our eyes lit up with love and telepathically I think we agreed to go there that afternoon. We left Aurelie to do some more walking about town and the lake.

Like I said before, Annecy is stunning. Picture crystal clear water that shine cobalt blue with mountains that tower over one side. The side we were on was a town where little canals from the lake ran through under bridges and next to houses. There were flowers everywhere and the boats and benches were all painted bright beautiful colours while the lawns were perfectly green. It was idealistic! We wandered around for a bit with our jaws dragging on the ground and went and got ice-cream. 

Best ice-cream I've ever had. 

And that is saying a bit as Amelia and I have sampled ice-cream from every country we've been too, almost every city. It was so good that the next day we went back despite the temperature. But I am getting ahead of myself. We ate our ice cream in a garden surrounded by beautiful flowers. This garden also happened to be the edging of a path, so I have a suspicion we looked a little strange. While eating our icecream a group of French guys coming walking along. When they see us they start talking in French, shooting one phrase at us with laugh. With my great skills in French I have translated it to either: "you are two beautiful roses in a rose garden" or "look at those strange foreign girls". I'm inclined to take it as a pick up line and label myself as a French heartbreaker. It helps me sleep at night okay? 

Good food was eaten, sleep was had and then; the next day came (crazy times I know). We had already established that we wanted to hire bikes and ride around the lake, stopping to go for a swim somewhere and we were determined to do so! The next morning we check the temperature and weather forecast to find out that it was going to reach a steamy 15•C and that there was 90% chance of rain. How do you say yay in French? Nonetheless we were determined! So we dress really cutely (at least that was my intention) with our swimmers underneath and go off to hire bikes. We hire bikes (for cheaper than we originally thought; thanks French man ;) ) and head off on our grand adventure. At this point we're both still feeling pretty snug. Croissants for breakfast by the lake was perfect and then hop on our bikes cheerily and start off around the lake. And then the rain gets harder, and harder. Still we go along our merry way laughing at how wet we were. We make to half way around the lake when we decided we don't want to ride any further that direction. So we lock our bikes up and sit next to a beach along the lake. It was raining please understand, and by this time we were wet and cold. But we ate lunch under some trees sitting on Amelia's poncho and tried not to think of what we were planning to do next. To paint the picture image a lifesavers hut, with 3 lifesavers sitting in front of a computer watching a movies rugged up in the jackets. Then there is Amelia and I in our swimmers ready to go swimming. And in we went with the lifesavers looking on as if we were crazy people, which we were if the truth be known. The water wasn't bad actually a whole five degrees warmer than the air outside. The problem lay in getting out. I also had the problem that my towel (which is more like a tea towel) hadn't completely dried from the morning and I may have accidentally left it in the rain. So I didn't even have a nice dry towel to wrap myself into.  I want laughing so hard now as my teeth chattered. We awkwardly changed behind the hut and then decided to head back to the city. I was so cold... and off we go breezing down hills on our bikes my body slowly turning into a giant icicle. By the time we have ridden back however my body had warmed up, my clothes had dried and the smile was back on my face. We continued around the lake the other direction now and the paths were easier and we were warmer and it was just brilliant! After an hour an a half we decide we should turn around and head back again. Then the rain started again, but I'm not talking about lovely, refreshing, light rain but intense torrential rain! I think I would have been drier if I had gone swimming. We push through and about half an hour out of town the sun opens up through the clouds and there is bright blue sunshine ahead of us! We finished our ride only racing an old gentleman once who I believe got so competitive that he left his wife behind. We won. 

We had more icecream, ate burgers and headed back to our accommodation. We decided to watch a movie but as we were still thawing out from our day we decided to close the door that led out onto the balcony. This meant that we had to move the cat litter inside. No problem, until the cat lets rip the most putrid, disgusting excrement we've ever smelled. Gagging we wrenched open the door to get some air in before we passed out. We survived, but it was a close call. Giggling therefore ensued and we finished our movie (which Amelia cried through a per usual). And that was our Annecy experience. We left the next morning for our next stop: 

               L'Isle sur la Sorgue 

Au revoir!