Oct 15, 2003
meeting with the pope
hey everyone, hope you are all doing well.
it has been a while since my last email due to lack of time/email access/money...
this is a bit of a run down on what we ahve been doing for the past 2 weeks...
entered italia via venice and met up with pip and bb. had a few dramas with the place that we ended staying at. was about 30 min drive out of venice, under a flight path and the room that lauren and i were meant to stay in was this weird hybrid caravan7pod thing... sounds strange, i will send a pic and it will become clearer.
venice was wicked. really nice place and loads to see and do.
from venice trained it to verona and to what is described as one of italy,s most beautiful cities... not far from the mark. loads of little cobble stoned streets that wind around. while the city is set in a valley of sorts with houses and churches dotted all over the surrounding hills. the hostel that we stayed in had an amazing view of the city, shame that girls and boys had to stay in seperate dorms - kinda like school camps.
weather forced an early exit from verona, and lauren and i parted with pip and bb and headed to bolgna (home of bolognese) this is not really a tourist city, but one of laurens friends is from there and she gave us loads of tips about the place. had a really good time there. the uni there is the oldest in all of europe so there are a lot of young ppl in the city. really friendly ppl. food was wicked as well.
made the decision in bologna to head to the coast in stead of going through tuscany. so on a train again and headed to the mediteranian side of italy to cinque terra (group of 5 towns hung along the edge of cliffs). stayed in the first town called rio maggiore in a wicked little appartment, so we were glad to be out of hostels for a few nites. had an amazing time in cinque terra. spectacular scenery. hard to describe what it is like, i will send photos soon and hopefully this will do it some justice.
on our second day in rio we did the walk from the 1st to the 5th town, a cracking 12kms. we werent too sure if we would do all the towns in one hit, but one we started we couldnt turn back. the first half of the tracks we not too bad, a bit of room to over take, and plenty of safety rails etc. too stop you falling to the rocks below.
the last too sections of track were a little bit harder then that. some pretty serious hiking, adn with lauren and myself not being too familiar with the whole walking/hiking thing we began to struggle a little. added to this the fact that the safety rails became almost none existant (meaning that the lazy italians had the copper logs for the rails, but instead of errecting them into railings, they had simply left them on the ground), and the paths thinned to 1 person wide the going was getting tough... made it to the end though... and the views were unbelivable.
headed to florence after rio and stayed with none other then miss alicia terry whitall - the water polo playing genius (btw: thanks soooo much for having us leash. we all really appreciate it. expect lauren to be back for the sales ;). leash showed us around her town of florence and even got up in a hard game of water polo - just for us. had a really funny nite at a brazilian show/resturant/nite club with alicia and some of her italiano friends.
hard to leave florence - really beautiful place, but off to roma for our last stop. been here day and a bit and blown away again by the history of this place. headed to the vatican city this morning anf just missed the popes weekly address. but, it is the popes 25th anniversary tomorrow and he is giving a special address/celebration, so we are going to try and see some of that. had a look in st peters today - most amazing church i have ever seen. did a walking tour tonite and saw most of the sites around rome.... looked wicked at nite....
and that brings you up to speed.... sorry for such a long email, but had a bit to fit in. if you are still reading this, try adn watch the news tomorrow nite (16th) and see if you can see me and lauren having a cuppa with the pope.
as always
mic
