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!