Day 4 Monday Check out of Fawlty Towers and join our bus tour. Bus is late due to heavy traffic, but we eventually board and head off to Rome with our guide Stefano. For the next 2 hours Stefano talks to the group in Spanish and English, seems to take longer in Spanish! Our first stop is the town of Assisi where we have nearly two hours to explore this historical village. Our next stop is Sienna and we have a 20 minute walk to the town from where the buses park. It is a fascinating place with narrow cobblestoned streets. We arrive at the famous squares where the horse race occurs. Not a big square and quite a significant slope from one side to the other. We then travel to Florence where we stay overnight at Hotel Fleming. Very basic but clean. We find a street vendor and but a dozen beers for beer o'clock back in our rooms.
2 comments:
Wow - memories. Can’t believe it was over 10 years ago we started our big adventures. Seeing this I pulled out our old travel diary and now add a few comments.
Dubai is hot - even at 530am your glasses fog up.
Our passport control officer had NO job satisfaction at all and NO ink on his stamp.
Our driver had car park rage (Italian style with all the gestures)
Driver was doing 130 on the freeway but a taxi passed us.
Quote from driver - “it’s a jungle”
Driving into Rome thinking you should have learnt more Italian than you did and thinking it looks dirty and unloved but then you turn a corner and the colosseum looms up in front of you and you are in awe.
Loving the Hotel Diana rooftop garden with the €7 beers but lovely coffee and views.
Discovering the corner caravan with €1 beers.
Sweating downstairs in a family trattoria listening to an accordion player and eating amazing pasta.
“UNO blanco e uno Rosso”
Karen took a lot of food photos.
St. Peter’s and Sistine chapel was amazing - all the history compacted into that tiny area, and looking at the statues guarding St. Peter’s square the enormity of that structure where they had chariot races. You really don’t feel the scale of the place until you actually stand there.
Having lunch at a cafe where the owner brings out a carpet to lay in front of his neighbours garage door and puts a table there for us.
Ann commenting on “cheese - cheese everywhere”
Buying tea towels for our train ride to Naples.
Commencing our bus tour with Stefano and “fat Tony” the driver with the white belt who didn’t give way to cars but to pretty girls.
Leaving Hotel “George” and Basil behind we head north to Tuscany.
Assisi with its beautiful church and amazing views.
On to Sienna and the comp de Paolo- can easily see how the horses fell a lot.
Learning that the Spanish speaking tourists with us were a bit rude (just saying)
Florence - oh, Florence- such an adventure. Running joke was the Lugg’s got the worst room all the time - but this time we scored the disabled room with a circus tent around the shower with a seat! John couldn’t complain he didn’t fit into that one.
Entering the gates at Pisa you thought the three buildings were put there just like a theme park with the tourist shops flanking the lawns .
Oh, yes the Grass Police - police guarding the grass with whistles.
Getting used to the souvenir sellers who have a cloth with ties in the corner for a quick getaway when the police came.
Watermelon for dessert.
Florence was jam packed with history everywhere.
Seeing David and the prisoner statues was an amazing occasion.
“Bus 22 and validate your ticket”
Post a Comment