Day 5 started a bit over cast, so we gobbled down our bacon and eggs and headed to Florence. Thank god we bought Sims, they are heaven in the form of the internet, which is sent from god to help directionally challenged travellers find their ways in their Wicked Campervan, especially considering our first camp site didn't exist. Alex took over navigating himself, whilst I had an amazing chat with Mum and Dad! Can't wait to see you in October!!!
We arrived at Internationale Firenze aka expensive craphole that caters to contiki buses, LOTS of contiki buses (we've seen 6 in 6 hours) and it cost €36 for one night. We aren't going to stay in capital cities anymore (thanks dad), Pisa was the same price for two nights, so we have vowed to be more organised. Plus you can only swim in the pool (Perissa... Ha I'm italian) if you wear a swimming cap, what a joke!
We jumped on the bus to Florence cause I'm SO sick of getting lost in big cities, walking is fine, but getting lost on a highway here can actually cost you money in tolls not to mention petrol!
We hopped off the bus and just wandered around for a bit. We found the leather market and we treated ourselves... I got a nice hat (I've been searching for one since we left home, where I left mine...), a handbag to replace my TERRIBLE Mimco one that ripped in London (honestly so angry, it ripped cause I kept zipping it up) and Alex got a beautiful leather wallet that actually fits Euros notes in it. A worthy splurge when in Florence! Super happy with our purchases, we walked down to Duomo which is absolutely amazing. We walked around the perimeter of the church and down to Galleria dell'Accademia to see the statue of David. We had to wait about 20mins but it was worth it, Italy really knows how to showcase it's art. It's incredible seeing these places/statues/art/monuments in real life after seeing so many photos of them. We walked around for hours, seeing all the sights and then headed back on the bus... Not before realising we had to get money out. We saw a Change place which normally has ATM's, I asked where the closest one was and she said that she could be used as an ATM, failing to tell me that she would charge €30 ($50) for the withdrawal. I was so upset after, that's two meals for us and we'd been trying so hard to save money as petrol is costing us so much (that would have gotten us to Genoa). Not only that but I'll get charged for the withdrawal from my travel card as well. I had my first moment of 'I want to go home'! I know it sounds pathetic but we'd been walking for 5 hours in 35 degrees, I was looking forward to shouting us a nice dinner after our €3 euro pizza lunch and this woman with a huge smile didn't even think to tell me how much it would cost to just withdrawal some cash. I was angry when I had to give the train lady €5... Imagine me then!
So we headed home, me a bit deflated and ate vegemite crackers for dinner. But hey I have a beautifulllllll leather bag from Florence. Plus I can't wait to wear my hat and someone asks 'oh where's your hat from' and I go 'oh just Florence' haha what a wanker!
Day 6- we left Florence pretty early as we were excited to get to Cinque Terre and Genoa. I didn't sleep all that well as some young Australian girl from the contiki decided to have a late night/early morning domestic with someone... We got on the road and decided to take the highway back through to Pisa and then on to La Spezia, which is a beautiful picturesque little village, we made our way through and onto the main road that runs in between the coast and the Cinque Terre National Park. What a drive... We may not have done the Almafi coast, but that drive was beautiful and being able to pull over whenever we liked to take photos was awesome. We headed down into Vernazza to explore and have lunch. It was devastated by a flood in 2011 that washed away lot of the houses by the river, you could see he remnants of these little houses, one place had a sign Daniele's Vila, but there was only the gate left... Then just a cliff to the river which wasn't much more than a stream. Vernazza was very cute, it was like a little Rome.
Greece has it's white buildings and blue shutters, where Italy has more range of pastel colours including oranges, browns, reds and creams.
Vernazza was packed (and expensive) so we wandered around, had a delicious lunch and headed for the up the hill for a steep walk towards the van. The poor van couldn't really make it back down into another village so we headed back through another village and on to Genoa. Italy's landscape is so cool, it's all mountains and greenery and then bam, a village and the ocean and you're going across this enormous bridge just taking it all in. We've been through about 30 tunnels as well, it's been a beautiful drive.
We made it into Genoa and our campsite which was pretty much a carpark above a noisey restaurant that cost €36 for one night... Awesomeeee!
We went to the local supermarket and got dinner, I made chicken and mushroom pasta which was shared with a cute grey cat, one of the first I've seen in Italy. We tried to have an early night but it was hard with all the noise, and then in the morning some Swedish retard decided to teach his girlfriend to park next to us by yelling at her... A handful of people understand what it means to wake me up in the morning, 2 hours before I need too... Satan arose and to make it worse, it was overcast and rainy. Oh and some gross man had been farting loudly all night but to 'save' his wife he would just stick his arse outside the tent and let rip... Honestly!
We drove through Genoa which was a bit dirty but nice and onto Monaco... We we're leaving the land of Pizza and Pasta to join the world of wine and cheese. We'd been in Italy for 10days and were ready for a change!
I wanted to take a photo of the France sign or of us handing over our passports but nothing happened, there was a sign saying France in 250m and then all the signs were in French... Mental. We then realised that I didn't have a French app and we were back to square one with the language barrier, we were getting so good. We'd learnt new words like Exit, highway, motorway and speed cameras, which meant nothing in France. Oh well... More experiences and hopefully internet to download another app!
Monaco... What a place! What a spectacle of money and glamour, it was beautiful. We were excited to see Ferrari's, Lambo's, AMG SLR Mercedes, Bentley's, Maserati's and Aston's mixing in with normal cars. We drove along the race track wishing we were in a red 458, but another day... When we have our super yacht first. Alex and I have decided that we're going to move Monaco, we think it's definitely our sort of lifestyle. After doing a few laps it was onto Nice. Which is a stunning city, it's like the Italian buildings but with more pink :) it was so exciting to be in France. We accidentally said Grazie instead of Merci then said thank you as well, probably confusing the shit out of the already poor english speaking waitress. We wandered around for a few hours but being Sunday not a lot was open. We walked along the water, it's a much lighter blue than Greece and all stones. We definitely want to go back to Nice and spend a bit more time there but time was ticking and we had no internet and no idea where camp sites were. We headed towards Cannes hoping we might find somewhere cheap for the night, or some signs really. We were super lucky and came across a campsite for only €22 a night with a pool (and 3000 kids) and close to a village. We grabbed some wine, eggs and ham from the local market for an easy pasta free dinner. After two eggs were accidentally broken Alex went back to the shop to get some more and found me cheese, proper French Cheese! Heavennnn! We're only in France for two days and all I wanted for to eat at least once was French cheese and Macaroons... One wish has been fulfilled. I am making that cheese last too, lunch with be delicious tomorrow!
We are the only people at the campsite that speak English, even the owner was speaking to me in half english half French which is just hilarious, honestly it makes me laugh... Pointing, using your fingers to count and gesturing to things. Alex said that when he asked for cheese, the girl had no idea so he just pretended to eat something, she went arhhhh and pulled our the cheese... How that translated to cheese I will never know!
When we got to our campsite, a little girl and her family were walking back from shower to the site next to us, she turned to me fully naked with her hands on her hips and yelled at me in French. I'm sure it was something along the lines of 'you stole my play area, piss off loser!' Oh and when we were in the pool some kid hit me with his pool noodle, laughed and then when I got close to the side tried to do it again... I think we're definitely making friends here....
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