From South France we spent a day driving to Geneva. Our campsite here was not very good, right next to a quarry and near the airport but all the ones on the lake didn’t have any public transport. Geneva has a great system where visitors who stay at a hotel or campsite get free public transport for the length of the stay so we definitely wanted to make use of that!

We spent one day sightseeing in Geneva, although there’s not a whole lot to see… But it’s a very pretty city that reminded us a little bit of Canberra. There’s a lake and its surrounded by mountains and its not very busy. They also have a fountain in the middle of the lake! The Canberra one is much bigger but Geneva has the whole crystal clear, swim-able water thing happening for it. (The fact that it reminded us so much of Canberra didn’t help our homesickness!) We had a nice picnic near the lake and the fountain then wandered around for a bit. We also had a look at the outside of the United Nations building.

The next day we had a good sleep in and then headed back into the city and had a short visit with my cousin who is studying in Geneva which was very nice. Then we wandered in the park for a bit and used the free wifi there.

Switzerland is a beautiful country that we really would have liked to spend more time in but we’re slowly running out of time! We’re heading to the UK on the 10th of October and we still want to see Paris so we must continue on!

It took two nights to get out of Italy, we had one night near Florence again and one in San Remo. It was nice to see the ocean in San Remo but we were appalled by how expensive the campsite would have been had we not had our ACSI camping discount card. The site we had, which was tiny, in the middle of summer, would have been 50€! It’s ok Dad, we only paid 16.

Anyway, from there we crossed the border into France and found a spot on the coast in a place called Les Issembres, in between Cannes and St Tropez. While the beaches here are no where near as nice as our beloved Aldinga, it was a very nice spot. I was hoping for some good swimming weather but we only ended up swimming once. It seems like autumn has finally caught up to us. We stayed here for a week so that Aaron could get some uni work done (because the internet was good! yay!) and I read lots of books.

Elky: We’re staying in Bracciano will this train ticket take us there?
Tourist information guy: Where?
Elky: Bracciano
Tourist information guy: St Peter’s Basilica?
Elky: No Bracciano. (thinking- yes, we’re staying at St Peter’s Basilica? I didn’t know you could stay there!)
Tourist information guy: Is it in Italy?
Elky: yes…

This dialogue basically sums up our experience in Rome. We got lost. People who were supposed to know stuff didn’t. Public transport was useless.

We had heard that driving in Rome is dangerous so we aimed to find a campsite far enough away to avoid actually driving in Rome but close enough to have public transport into the city. The campsite in our guide promised both public transport and Internet. It did have public transport… but the bus to the train station only went every 2-3 hours and trying to park the van at the station was impossible. So we couldn’t get into the city till about 11am every day that we were there unless we wanted to get up at 6am (and we’re on holidays so no thank you!). The last bus back to the campsite was at 6pm and despite catching the train at 4 from Rome, we still missed it the first day and if it wasn’t for a nice Dutch couple who had driven to the station we would probably still be walking back to the campsite.

The two days that we spent in Rome we managed to see the Colosseum and the Vatican. We enjoyed the Colosseum, it was big and old and you could imagine gladiators fighting there and it was everything it should be. We were disappointed with the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel, mostly because we paid too much for tickets (guess you can’t be a real tourist if you don’t get ripped off at least once!) but also there were just too many people which meant you couldn’t really appreciate it. We’re also not huge art buffs so I guess it just wasn’t our thing.

There were lots of things that we would have liked to see and do in Rome but with public transport the way it was it just wasn’t possible. We would like to come back one day but maybe we’ll stay in a 5 star hotel in the middle of the city and get a private tour guide. Haha, that would be nice wouldn’t it?

We hit a bit of a slump after Rome. Aaron got the flu and we started to get homesick/comfort sick. We’re missing our familes and friends and we’re getting a little bit tired of living in a van and having no space and things being confusing and difficult. We keep saying maybe we need a holiday from our holiday, haha. Well, where better to recover than the south of France?!

If all roads lead to Rome, we’re happy that they also lead out!

From Venice ( or there abouts) we drove to a spot just outside Florence.
Despite the slowest ticket machine in the world we managed to get on a train into Florence the next morning. All we really knew about Florence is that that’s where the David statue is but I found it quite a beautiful city that really made you feel a bit like you’re in the middle ages. We did head straight for the gallery where the statue is and stood in line for a good one and a half hours but we were expecting that. We had a delightful distraction when we ran into a friend from Canberra, she wisely had pre booked tickets so unfortunately for us she had to go rather quickly. The statue of David is very impressive which we were happy about after waiting so long. Being the art enthusiasts that we are that’s really about all we saw as we were quite hungry by this time!

For the rest of the day we just walked around and saw beautiful unique churches, some castles and more statues. Again I don’t really have the words to describe it properly but it was well worth the trip.

We decided that catching the train to Pisa was handier and cheaper than driving there so that’s what we did the following day. The friend we had run into had warned us that there’s basically nothing to do in Pisa besides see the tower so we figured we might as well make it a day trip rather than an overnight stop. Especially seeing as we had the Florence train station figured out by now! So that’s what we did. Got on the train, saw the tower, had lunch and went back. I think what I enjoyed most about Pisa was standing with my back to the tower and watching all the tourists attempt to take photos holding it up or pushing it down because it basically just looks like a field of people doing yoga or tai chi, it’s very funny to watch. We obviously had to join in but as you’ll see from our attempts I’m not sure how successful we were!

From Switzerland we drove a looooong way to Venice in one day (about 600kms). Unfortunately our gps took us about 50 kms in the wrong direction and even then we couldn’t find the caravan park that we wanted… and we couldn’t find it on the map either. We ended up completely exhausted in a massive caravan village on the coast complete with 2 restaurants, 3 ice cream shops, a supermarket, hairdresser, handbag shop, glassware, general store (but with no good Internet or information on how to get into Venice!) just before a massive storm hit. We were on the coast so our first glimpse of the Mediterranean was grey and gloomy! We ended up staying there 2 nights but spent most of the day trying to figure out how to get into Venice. Eventually we ended up driving the next morning to a different campsite right near the port where the boat went from and going straight into Venice once we’d parked the van.

Venice is unlike any place I’ve ever been to. Obviously the fact that there are no cars makes it very different to start with. Then the millions of tourists- I’m not actually sure if we met a local Venetian all day! But aside from that it’s just an amazing place. We just enjoyed wandering the streets and watching the canals. We did go on a massively overpriced gondola ride but it’s such a once in a lifetime opportunity that you just have to do it! And it was a lot of fun!

I know I haven’t written much because it’s a hard place to describe but it was our favourite stop in Italy. I’ll just have to let the pictures do the talking, although even they won’t do it justice.

We have one amusing story about pizza. When we went out for dinner at the campsite we weren’t sure whether to order one or two pizzas or what the done thing in Italy is. We ended up ordering one each and the waiter didn’t seem to mind. When we went out for lunch in Venice there were also two French girls there who wanted to share a pizza. They were told by the waiter that they had to order one each. Then the manager came along and told them very firmly that they had to order one each! So apparently the done thing is to have one each! Thankfully they are thin base pizzas so it’s quite manageable if you’re hungry!

From Salzburg we drove to a beautiful camping spot on Lake Constance (Badensee for our European readers) where we stayed 3 nights just relaxing, swimming and in Aaron’s case doing some uni work. Not only was the location beautiful but the bathrooms were the nicest campsite ones we’ve come across!