Day one was... Challenging! We had to get a bus to Termini and then a Train for a hour out to Anzio to pick up the van. We got scammed by some women helping us for 'free' although the machine was in English and we knew exactly what we were doing. She want €10 for her help when the tickets only cost €7, Alex gave her €5 to go away and she wasn't happy.
We jumped on the train, luckily I asked the ticket inspector how many stops till we got off because there was no way of knowing what stop was which, plus ours was covered in graffiti.
Sylvia, the woman giving us the van, knew which train we were on so she drove down to try and find us. It's pretty weird being in a random suburb of Rome and have some italian woman yelling your name from a car. She said she knew it was us because we were tourists ha!
We got the van and found a few issues:
1. It's a right hand drive car, in a right hand drive country. Which makes it difficult when trying to navigate on the wrong side of the road in a car that feels like your own.
2. The Speedo is in Miles, everything in Italy is in Kilometres.
3. There was only an eske, and Italians don't like cold drinks so you can't buy ice anywhere...
4. We got the 'Charlie Ma'Sheen' van which has Charlie Sheen quotes graffitied all over it, one being 'No one is ugly at 2am' and other 'Hilarious' quotes from that interview when he was high.
5. There were no sheets or pillows.
That being said, we headed south towards Naples to do the Almafi Coast. We saw some beautiful little villages and towns and even went through the James Bond tunnel from Quantum of Solace. Would have been nice to be driving an Aston Martin though.
After Formia, everything got ugly! We drove down a road where every 50m we saw a hooker, plus a few cars pulling over and a few getting in, we got abused by a drunk guy and got stuck in traffic... Lots of traffic. The map I had was shit and getting into Naples is seriously hard. During our drive south we had seen heaps of camping places so thought it would be easy to find something around Naples, but there was nothing. I was getting some what panicked by this stage.
We ended up getting through Naples and into Pompeii where I finally navigated us to a camping ground with a camping app on my phone (we have no internet, so no little arrow telling us where we are). I could have cried when we finally found the camp ground at 8:30pm, 15mins before the sun went down. We drove for 7 hours and thought Naples was seriously grotty and ugly. We both decided that the Almalfi coast could wait for another time (when we had a super yacht or Aston) and we worked out how to get to the closest Ikea and then headed North again in the morning.
Day 2- After a crappy sleep on 2 towels, 2 scarves, a sarong and pillows made out of tshirts stuffed with clothes, we got up ate breakfast and made our way to Ikea.
Day 2 was a turning out to be a better day, we got to ikea (just), got everything we needed for cheaper than we thought, then found the italian version of bunnings and got a car charger, AUX cord and Butane for our stove. Then we made it all the way back to Anzio in half the amount of time it took the day before. Although we did have to go through some Tolls, but after the day before I didn't care. We stopped for lunch in Gaeta, it was stunning. We called it our Almalfi coast because the drive from Formia to Gaeta and around to San Felice is amazing. Beautiful water and crashing waves at the base of mountains. We drove back along the road we had driven along the day before which we knew had lots of camping grounds, we finally stopped at about 5pm at a place across from the beach. I made our van a little home and then cooked a tomato and speck pasta which cost €5 for ingredients. I felt a lot better about this whole van thing, with a made bed and pillows. Plus I'd organised our trip to Pisa on my phone during lunch so knew exactly where we were going and staying the next day (always good).
Day 3 started earlier than normal (with a blocked nose, sore throat and crap cold for me), we had some ceral, packed up and were on our way by 9:30am. We're both getting better with driving in a foreign country. In Italy none of the signs are in English, so our Italian is coming along well. We know how to say "I don't speak italian, I speak english, petrol, beach, ice, hello, good morning/afternoon/night, thank you, your welcome and 1 night". It's pretty hilarious, even when we tell people we can't speak italian, they just laugh and continue to speak at 100 miles an hour... In italian! Everyone is really friendly and because we are trying to speak italian (thanks to my App) they are really appreciative!
We made it to Pisa by about 3:30pm to a great campsite I'd found with my camping app. It was seriously hard to find but so worth it, it's situated next to a lake with a pool and has huge shady camping areas, we felt better instantly. We did two loads of washing and headed to the local supermarket to get some food (including ice bricks). We got lost (standard) and made it back around 7pm so we could put the clothes in the dryer and start dinner, which consisted of steaks with mushrooms, mash potatoes and cous cous salad (pre-made). I've surprised myself by what you can make with a gas stove, one frying pan, a saucepan and no fridge. It was soooooo nice having a shower with a clean towel and have clean clothes to put on, our washing is right for a few weeks now!
Day 4- we woke up and decided two things:
1. That we were going to stay an extra night in this peaceful camping ground.
2. That we were not going to drive to Venice. It's 8 hours in the wrong direction to Spain and we just can't afford the petrol. It's about €1.80 (AUD$2.60) a litre.
Alex woke up sick as well, so it was a delayed started, but after bacon, eggs and fresh bread, we headed off to Pisa to see the leaning tower. I understand why people don't spend more thing in Pisa, because really all there is to see is the learning tower but it's a seriously beautiful city. We love it here. We spent 1 hour looking around, the tower and the Piazza Dei Miracoli is pretty magnificent, it's very beautiful building. Some time was spent laughing at people taking photos with the tower... Ok a lot of time was spent laughing at people or taking photos of other peoples families for them (we must look nice cause they always ask). We then got lost again and ended up at a supermarket where we FINALLY got a hard drive ( I left mine in Australia) and two SIM cards so we could actually use the internet. We soaked up the free wifi, catching up with the world after a few days of being absent.
I'm writing this from our mattress on the ground in shady spot in our camp ground, contemplating never leaving....
Tomorrow is Florence :)
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