Rome - Day 44 (Last Day)

This morning we get up and finish packing. We have a driver coming to pick us up at midday to take us to the airport and because no one is coming into the apartment today Riccardo said we could stay as long as we liked. We are all packed and ready to go before 10 so we head out for one last wander. We head past Trevi and down past the Pantheon to our favourite coffee shop for a final hit. We savior that before going back to our favourite bakery for some biscuits for the flight home. It's then on to Campo de Fiori and through the markets for a tub of strawberries for Mia. We start walking back and take the route through Piazza Navona before continuing on back to the apartment. We drag our luggage down the 3 flights of steps just as the driver pulls up. We load the mini van and we depart. That's it. Our holiday is over. We get one last glimpse as we drive through Rome to the airport. It's now back home to real life again. Arrivederci..........

Rome - Day 43

We can't believe this is our last full day of our holiday. We don't want to go home but we have to. This morning we wander around Rome similar to yesterday, just taking in the sights and the smells. It is a great morning just walking around grabbing a coffee, grabbing some biscuits and walking through the markets. We have been forced to relax a little bit in Rome because we are all so tired from 6 weeks of running around. After we have wandered a bit we decide to take the walk up to Villa Borghese to check out the gardens with the thought of grabbing some lunch and just relaxing for a while there. The walk takes us through the shopping district of Rome and up past the Spanish Steps which was fun. Once we get to the Villa Borghese gardens we get a taste of the rubbish Rome again. The gardens, if you can call them that, are awful. The greenest thing in these gardens is the pond. Trying to find a bench seat to sit on that isn't broken is a task. One of the bench seats by the pond is housing a homeless person and the gardens are infested with weeds and mosquito’s. So much for lunch in the park! We decide not to hang around and start the walk back toward our apartment. The kids are really struggling, they are so tired and Kris and I are doing it tough too with the extra Michelin around our waists. We wander back through another section of the shopping district and the place is packed. I think being the weekend everyone has come out to shop. The shopping district is fantastic with so many of the major brands represented. We grab some lunch on the way through and I grab some beers and some wine for Kris. We get back to the apartment and have our lunch and a few drinks on the terrace. Our apartment in Rome is awesome and having the terrace has been fantastic. Being able to come back and relax on the terrace with a few drinks in the arvo has been a real treat. At around 4pm, Riccardo, the agent, drops around to give us our deposit back and he is a really nice bloke. After that we head out for another wander through the shops and markets before coming home and getting ready for dinner. We head down to our favourite restaurant, That's Amore and we are greeted by the regular staff. They all know us by name now and we feel like we have become part of their family over the past 4 nights. This restaurant serves the most amazing food and the service is the best we have ever experienced anywhere. We have a great night and it's sad to leave with everyone saying goodbye and shaking our hands. We take the short stroll down the road to Valentino's for our regular gelato. Again, Valentino greets us like family and high fives the kids like he has done every night. We order our gelato and Valentino pops around the front to pose for a photo with the kids. We continue our nightly stroll down to the Trevi fountain while eating our gelato and take in this magnificent fountain one last time. The Trevi fountain is always packed at night which takes a bit of the shine off because tourists can be pushy and inconsiderate but we enjoy it the best we can for our last night. We head back to the apartment completely dejected and depression is setting in with the thought of being on a plane heading for home tomorrow. It was great to finish the holiday in what we would all agree was our favourite restaurant of the holiday and then with a gelato from our favourite ice cream man. It's now time to pack and get ready to leave.

Kris and Mia enjoying the last night out of our holiday

Tyler and Me having a laugh after dinner at That's Amore

Out the front of That's Amore

Valentino's Gelato in Rome...awesome bloke!

Rome - Day 42

Well, today has been the polar opposite of yesterday and this is our frustration with Rome. It seems here its either awful or amazing. This morning we didn't have a plan apart from wandering around Rome. Sometimes we get caught up in having to see the major tourist attractions when the tourist attractions are the simple things. We started off walking down past the Pantheon to a coffee shop, Sant Eustachio il caffe. This was a coffee shop that we went too last time we were here because it had massive wraps as the best coffee in Rome. Unfortunately we got all flustered with the ordering system last time and retreated and didn't get to sample the coffee. This time we know this system and we complete the transaction without a hitch. We stand at the bar and drink our coffee, Kris has a cappuccino and I had an espresso. The coffee was awesome and it was a great experience. We continued on to Piazza Navona and sit and listen to the buskers and relax by the fountains. We continue walking toward Campo de Fiori because we remember a bakery, Il Fornaio, which sold amazing cakes and biscuits. Kris calls it the Salami shop because they have a huge roll of Salami or some type of meat in the shop front window. The service at this place is the best and the woman that served us 2 years ago is still there, we assume she is the owner. We buy up big and eat as we walk to Campo de Fiori. When we get there the place is buzzing with market stalls filling the square. They are selling some amazing produce and all sorts of amazing things. We wander around for a while, buy a few things before continuing on down the road where there are more shops which delights Kris and Mia because they are able to enjoy their passion, handing money over to shop keepers. By now we are starting to get hungry for some lunch so we decide we will head back to Il Forniao to get some food to eat back at Piazza Navona. We walk around the block and back in that direction when we pass a church, The Basilica of Sant' Andrea Della Valle and Tyler asks if we can go in an have a look. This is a church on a main street that has a wonderful facade but you wouldn't think it would be anything special. We walked inside and are blown away. We saw a church yesterday that we considered the best church we have ever seen but this one has possibly surpassed that. Rome is full of these amazing hidden treasures and it baffles me why places like the Pantheon get all the kudos. And that is not slagging off the Pantheon because the Pantheon is an amazing structure and one we love but this place beats it hands down. Just sitting in this church, which dates back to 1595, you find it hard to leave. At the Pantheon you will be surrounded by hundreds of people all being disrespectful with the noise they make and snapping photos and this is confirmed by the constant announcements over a loud speaker in 5 different languages asking people to be quiet. At the time we were sitting in this church there were 5 other people there. You cannot hear a sound. The noise of Rome is non-existent. What we see on the walls and ceilings of this church rival the Sistine Chapel and the Pantheon put together and it is in pristine condition, probably because it is funded by the Catholic Church and not the Italian government? Not sure. Not to mention this church and the one we saw yesterday are about 200m apart and only about 400m from the Pantheon. This for me has been one of the highlights of the holiday and I'm going back tomorrow. After dragging ourselves out of this church we continued on to the bakery and then on to Piazza Navona. This is a fantastic place to sit and eat lunch with artist, painters and buskers to watch. We spend a while there before walking back to Sant Eustachio, the coffee shop we went to this morning for another coffee. This time we both order an espresso, which is not what Kris would normally do. She didn't like it but managed to collar an Italian woman having some other contraption that has convinced her that that will be tomorrows purchase. After that we head back to the apartment and head out onto the terrace for some drinks before getting ready for our cooking class. We head down to the restaurant just before 5 and meet Monica, the lady that will be taking our class. Tonight we will be learning how to cook the perfect pizza.....from scratch. Monica starts us of by giving us a wine (cool drink for the kids) and after that takes us to the tables where we learn how to make a pizza base. Monica is lovely and tells us everything we need to know. We are having a ball and we can't get the smile of the kid’s faces. Once we have the bases sorted we put the toppings on. The class includes dinner so while we are waiting for our pizza Monica brings out starters. After that our pizzas arrive with mine and Tyler's looking a bit rough around the edges but Kris and Mia's look perfect. Clearly the girls are better at this than the boys and it looks as though the girls will be making the pizzas when we get home and Tyler and I will just have to watch the cricket while they are doing it! The night included all our food and drinks and it was a fantastic night. Everyone at "That's Amore" made us feel so welcome which really added to the experience. After dinner we wandered the street doing some shopping before dropping in on Valentino's for gelato. This has been one of the best day we have had on this holiday and most of it did not cost a cent. Tomorrow we think we will do something the same for the last full day of our 6 week European adventure.

Il Formaio, the best bakery in Rome

 

One of the meat stores in Campo de Fiori

One of the fruit and veg stalls at Campo de Fiori

Mia at The Basilica of Sant' Andrea Della Valle

Ready to go at cooking class

Tyler's pizza base looks like a footy!!

Mia.......that's perfecto!

 

Rome - Day 41

We started today by walking from our apartment up to the main train station, Termini, to catch the B line train to Ponte Mammolo station which is about a 15 minute ride. On our way to the station we come across the urinating homeless woman and her homeless woman friend pushing their trollies full of homeless women crap back to their spot in the middle of the intersection. As we pass them I snap a few pics and we cross the street. When we get to the other side one of them (not sure if it the same one as yesterday) starts up with the urinating again. I've come prepared this time and I start the video up as soon as I see her back up against a tree. Even though this was funny, what we were witnessing was absolutely disgusting and what gets us is this must be happening all day every day and no one does anything about it. We have spent a total of about three minutes looking at this intersection and twice seen a woman urinate and discard her toilet paper (or newspaper as was the case today) out on the street. This is out the front of an international train station where travellers from all over the world start there Rome experience. We have seen a dramatic change in Rome in the two years since we were here in 2011 which leads me to our next experience. Once we make our way on the train to Ponte Mammolo, we then need to catch a local bus to Tivoli. The bus rocks up and it looks like an old coach liner from the outside. There are more people waiting for the bus than there is seats and this is very clear because as soon as the bus driver opens the doors people are like animals trying to get on first. We manage to get a seat but it is at the rear of the bus next to a bloke who looks and smells like a homeless man. The rest of the bus is packed and people are pushed up against the back door. The seat Mia is sitting on is broken and is pointing down at a 30 degree angle and there are other seats on the bus that don't have backs, that is, they only have a spot for your arse but you can't lean back because the backs have been removed! Other seats are missing head rests, others have burn marks and holes in the back of them and the bus stinks. We are sitting there in utter disbelief. This is one of the major cities of the world and we've travelled better buses in Phuket and Bali over 20 years ago. The bus gets moving and were thinking, oh well it's only a short ride, we can hack it. WRONG, 50 minutes later we finally get there. The scenery on the way was also third world. The suburbs from the train station to Tivoli looked like Phuket. We were stunned and shocked and quite frankly, disgusted. Had we known this is what we were in for we would never have done this trip. We get of the bus at Tivoli and the Tivoli town centre looks a bit better but was still pretty ordinary. We find our way to Villa d'Este, we pay our entrance fee and we wander around. The place is very nice with amazing fountains but it looks as though it is not being maintained. The gardens have a lot of weeds and the hedges don't look as though they have been trimmed in months and a large number of the smaller fountains are not in operation. Now we're not sure if this is what it always looks like or if they just haven't been maintaining it. One thing we do know is that if this was Paris these gardens would be immaculate. Once we've seen everything we just want to get out of this stinking hell hole so we make our way back to the bus stop. A bus comes along that says "A24 Roma" which we assumed was heading back to where we wanted to go but it is was jam packed. We squeeze on but the only available space for the four of us is up against the windscreen in the opening of the front door. The bus gets moving and he is driving like a maniac. We are hanging on for dear life and my only thought was, if we have an accident the four of us will be shot through the windscreen. We had to stand in that position for the entire 50 minutes because the bus stayed packed. We even went on the freeway (the A24) driving at about 100km/hr. it started to rain and the driver didn't put the windscreen wipers on and the only reason I could think of is because they didn't work. We make it back to Ponte Mammolo train station and we were seriously relieved. The kids had an absolute ball up the front of the bus and we later explained to them that even though it was fun it was extremely dangerous......but they didn't care. We catch the train and eventually get back to the apartment. We made ourselves some lunch and had a breather to try and regain our composure. Without exaggeration, that was the worst experience on any holiday I have ever had. The people in this city need to have a good look at themselves and they should be embarrassed with what's happening here. This place has gone downhill in a hurry and I will never come back to Rome and I'm sure Kris feels the same. After a breather we had to get back on the bike. There were some things we still wanted to see today and one of them was Chiesa Del Gesu (The Church of the Gesu). Everyday at 5:30pm the story of the life of St. Ignatius is told. The service tells the story in Italian, complete with music and a small spotlights to highlight different areas of his tomb during the storytelling. At the end, the large painting is rolled down to reveal the statue of St. Ignatius and that is the only time of day when you can see it. We arrived just after 5pm and took a seat in the pews. This church is one of the most amazing, if not the best church we have seen. The adornments are beyond belief and the good thing is there are not many people that seem to know about it so there are very few people there. At 5:30 the service starts and for a non churchy guy I was moved. If this is what church was like back at home I'd go more often. This was a real highlight for Kris and me and we are so glad we came down to have a look. After leaving the church our plan was to continue on to Trastevere for dinner but we feel like we have used every ounce of energy we were allowed to have on this holiday and we have very little in reserve. We think the hiking has finally hit us so we decide to make our way back to the restaurant we ate at last night and then go and see Valentino for some gelato. Again, the restaurant and the gelato were amazing, seems its one or the other in Rome these days. After that it's an early night because we are all shagged.

Welcome to Rome.....don't mind me, I'm just urinating against a tree.

(This video is tame compared to what we saw yesterday....hope it works)

 

Tivoli Ville d'Este and the blue Cotral bus that got us there

Tivoli Ville d'Este and the blue Cotral bus that got us there

Bus shelter outside Tivoli........very classy!

 

Rome – Day 40

Gotta mention this first up. We saw the most disgusting thing we have ever seen today. We are all sitting on top of an open top bus and we are stopped in traffic. Mia starts yelling "look at that, look at that". We all look over to where she is pointing and there is this big, slobby, disgusting homeless woman situated on a large traffic island in the middle of a very busy intersection in a very busy part of the city near the main train station and she has backed herself up to the edge of the curb, bent over with her dress up and is urinating onto the road, traffic is passing and people are walking close by......no joke! She is bent over with her "urinater" pointing out into the street squirting like crazy. She then, while still bent over, starts to wipe her "urinater" with a serviette. She then looks at it, walks forward and throws it out on to the other side of the road and walks back to her trolley full of homeless person crap and sits down. Now, this initially took a few seconds for us to realize what in the hell we we're looking at, was it a man, was it a woman, was it an animal and what it gods name was it they were doing. The amount of urine coming out of this woman it could have been a horse!! As soon as we realised what was going on we were gob smacked and we all felt like we needed to go home and have a good scrub.....with acid maybe. Anyway, back it up a bit and the morning started late as we all had a bit of a sleep in and a rest before getting moving. We thought we would head down and jump on the hop on hop off bus to get us around town. We pay the man, Rahman, the €40 for the 2 day ticket and jump on board. It was only minutes later we experienced the urinator doing her thing. We eventually jumped off at the Bocca Della Verita (the mouth of truth) to get a few snaps before deciding to take a walk over the river and take a look through Trastevere. We didn't get to see much of Trastevere last time so we want to have a wander to find a good restaurant we can come back to and have dinner at. While we are walking we stumble on a cake/biscuit shop selling some eye popping stuff that we just have to stop and try. No matter what you buy it all costs the same, €2.20 per 100g. We spend €10 and walk out ready to devour. They look as though they have all been homemade and is all fresh today and they were sensational. We continue walking and eventually find ourselves up in the Vatican area and see heaps of people over at the Castel Sant Angelo. We haven't seen this castle before so decide to check it out. It was a good couple of hours spent and we then decide to get back on the bus. There is a bus stop over near the Vatican so we take the short walk. When we get there, there are signs for every other bus company but ours. We ask an opposition bus company guy where our stop is and he tells us it's a couple of streets away. We find our way there and it’s a ghost town and we then see a sign (A4 sheet of paper stuck to a pole) saying if the main road to the Vatican is closed we need to go to Piazza Pia. We have no idea where this is and in the meantime we see about 4 buses pass by on another street. So we run and were yelling at the driver to stop and this ignorant turd just keeps driving. We walk around for a while before stumbling on Piazza Pia and we wait. We see another bus coming towards us so we start waving and this equally ignorant turd ignores us. So I chase after him and he gets to the lights so I start yelling at him to let us on. He motions that the stop is around the corner so we head around there. He turns the corner and keeps going. I'm chasing him again and we have a group of yanks running with us now as well because they have tickets too but this w**ker won't stop. I'm starting to get a little bit cranky at this point because clearly the Vatican stop is a moving object. We stop for a while hoping another bus will come along but it doesn't so we decide to walk the route to the next stop, Trevi Fountain, which is miles away and about 100m from our apartment. While we are walking we see a bus coming down the road but he turns off down a side road. We start running down the other street hoping to cut him off. We get to the intersection before him and when he gets along side us we start yelling for him to let us on. We're screaming at him that we have been chasing these buses for an hour and Kris is even banging on the doors of the bus screaming at the driver. He's not having a bar of it and keeps driving. We are nudging furious by now but unfortunately this is pretty much what seems to happen in Italy, or at least the Italy we have experienced. Customer service is largely nonexistent and they care very little for the money tourists bring to their country. We keep walking and eventually make it back to the Trevi Fountain stop. Rahman, the Indian chap who sold us the tickets gets an earful from me and I am demanding a refund. He doesn't give a toss and tells me to take it up with the bus driver and his assistant in the bus that's just rocked up. I direct my anger at them yelling and carrying on but we are still getting no joy. I give up and Kris takes over and the bus can't go because Kris is blocking the doorway and the doors can’t shut. She's giving them both barrels but eventually has to move aside so the bus can continue on. She then turns on Rahman and starts calling him a thief. Not sure Rahman was enjoying being called a thief but Kris didn't care. In the end we didn't get our money back so we went back to the apartment and slagged them off on tripadvisor. That definitely made us feel better. After a few "calm me down" drinks we headed back out for a wander and to see if we could find somewhere to eat. We have read great reviews about a restaurant just down the road called That's Amore so we stop to have a look. We make a reservation for 7:30 and also notice they do a 3 hour cooking class. We enquire and end up signing up for all 4 of us to do it on Friday arvo at 5pm. We wander around for another hour or so, up to the Spanish Steps and around the local Gucci and Prada roads before heading back to the restaurant. We walk in and finally get some fantastic service and I had a meal that was probably the best I have had on this holiday so far. After that it was a quick stop in to see Valentino for some Gelato, a visit to Trevi fountain and a little bit of shopping before making our way back to the apartment. Tomorrow we hope to make our way to Tivoli to see Villa d'Este.

Photos to follow. I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

Monterosso – Rome – Day 39

This morning we move on to Rome and with most of our stuff already packed we are ready to go and its just a quick clean of the apartment. We head out around 7:30 to see if we can get some brekky and a coffee but nothing seems to be open. I think a few places are shut on Tuesdays so it is probably a good day to be leaving. We go back to the apartment and grab our gear and take the 10 minute walk to the train station. It is a beautiful day, sunny and blue skies and the walk along the coast to the station is awesome looking over the beach to the ocean. The train, as per usual is running late, this time by 10 minutes (not sure if I have mentioned how shit Trenitalia is?). The first leg to La Spazia Centrale is only 18 minutes long but we pull into the station on time, so work that out! The next train ends up being 20 minutes late so I think that means we have never caught a train in Italy that has ever arrived on time. It ends up being an hour wait on the platform but we meet an older couple from Perth and get chatting. This helps with passing the time and when we finally get on board our train carriage is a series of little rooms with 6 seats to a room and a corridor on the outside. We share the ride with a Canadian couple which wasn't too bad. When we finally arrive in Rome we decide to walk to the apartment as it is not far from the apartment we stayed in before. We get to our street in we don't have a number for the apartment so we just wander along until a gentleman yells out to us and he takes us up to show us the apartment. The apartment is stunning, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and the living, meals and kitchen are on the upstairs level. There is a long terrace type balcony over looking the street. We head of to do some food shopping before coming home and showering up and heading back out for some dinner. We just wander around for a while until we get down to the Pantheon where we stop for a meal. The food and service we shite but the entertainment out in the piazza was great. We contunue to wander after dinner making our way back towards our apartment. Valentino's, a gelato store we used to go to every night when we visited Rome last time is only about 50m from our apartment and the kids are excited because they loved the owner. He used to always talk and joke with them when we went in ( we even had a photo with him) and the gelato is awesome. Valentino's rates number 5 of 6,874 restaurants in Rome on Tripadvisor. 

Photos to follow. I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

Monterosso – Day 38

Today we decide to do the coastal walk from Monterosso to Venazza again because we all enjoyed it on Saturday and we also want to get some lunch in Venazza. We pack our back pack and head off around 10am. Again, we are on a mission, just completing the track is not enough for us, beating everyone there is more important so we come up with a motto "we will never be passed by someone we have passed". The track is much more muddy than it was on Saturday and makes the walk a little more difficult. When we get to Venazza we wander around for a while and then decide to get a couple of pizzas to eat down on the rocks overlooking the ocean. Just as we sit down to tuck in it starts to rain so we pack up our stuff and move to the main square and find a tree to stand under. The pizza was fantastic and we feel revived. We have a quick look in the local church before asking a local how we get to the Bellfort as we'd like to go up and have a look around. He points us in the right direction and we take the climb to the top which provides great views over the village and views back to Monterosso and the other three villages. While up there we notice people walking along the coastal trail on the other side of Venazza. Assuming the track is open to Coniglia we head back down and follow the sign to the Coniglia path. We start walking the stairs to the ticket office and once there find that the track is open so we decide to do that as well with no real plan for the return back to Monterosso. The track to Coniglia is just as tough as the first track but probably provides better views. This track is the same length as the first being 4km long but just continues straight up. We make it to Coniglia exhausted and Kris and the kids get themselves a gelato. I can see people sitting on seats drinking the local Birra Moretti (beer) and I'm salivating. While the kids are getting their gelato we make the decision to walk back to Venazza and see how we go from there with regards to getting back to Monterosso. This puts a stop to the beer because drinking and walking these paths don't mix, its just too tough so I settle for a Sprite before we all muster up as much energy as possible to start the long climb and walk back. After the stop at Coniglia starting back up is extremely tough but we get back in a rather quickly. The one thing you notice when traveling around Europe, especially the places like Switzerland and here where there are walking trails, is all these people walking around with hiking sticks. Not only do these walking sticks do sweet FA, they all look like idiots. This has got to be one of the biggest rorts going around. All these people dressed in the latest hiking fashions from boots to pants to jackets, this is a multi-million dollar business aimed at ripping money out the pockets of idiots. And here are the dumb old Aussies who live at sea level in the flattest place on earth doing these hikes in our sneakers and shorts. All these Europeans with all their fancy hiking crap that must have set them back thousands of dollars each are all sucking back the big ones sweating like pigs......pussies!!! Anyway, we get back to Venazza and we are feeling pretty good, the kids are starting to feel the pinch but a chupachup kicks their spirits back into gear and we decide we might as well walk back to Monterosso and make it a round trip. We get moving and the first stage from Vanezza is all up hill on dodgy steps and we are really starting to feel it. While we take a quick breather the unthinkable happens, we got passed!!!! This simply is not on. Even though the people that passed us were 20 something Aussie blokes this still is unacceptable so we start the chase. We catch them and tail them for about 1/4 of the trail before they are forced to wait up for their girlfriends. We pounce on the opportunity at seize control and the funny thing is, I reckon the two Aussie blokes were annoyed that they lost front position. We push it hard all the way and the kids keep an eye out saying things like "Dad, dad, their catching us, we gotta get a move on". We finally make it back to Monterosso and we are pretty exhausted. Kris's and my knees are really feeling it so I decide to stop off at the beach on the way back to the apartment with Mia to soak the feet in the water. The small pebble like rocks act with a massaging effect and it is heaven. Kris and Tyler head back to the apartment to shower up so we can head out for a well earned drink. After we have all showered up we take a walk along the beach promenade and get ourselves a table at the same restaurant as yesterday. We have a great feed and a few drinks chatting with a young American couple who just got engaged and later chatting to an older New Zealander couple before calling it a night and heading back to the apartment to pack. Tomorrow we leave Monterosso for Rome. We have really enjoyed our stay in Monterosso and are sad to leave, we could have easily spent a lot longer here. Tyler even told me it was his favourite place so far. Tomorrow will also mark our last train journey which again is sad because that means we are so much closer to coming home.

Photos to follow. I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

Monterosso – Day 37

Today starts with us heading down to the harbour to see if the boats are running between the villages. We got moving a bit later than usual as we were still suffering from yesterdays walk. On the way down we stop in at a coffee/cake shop where Momma has just delivered some very tasty looking cannoli’s. Kris and I order 1 each and Mia says she’ll go for one as well. These things are still warm and I reckon Momma has only just ripped them out of the oven. We only get charged €1 each and we scoff these things down in seconds, they were delicious. We get to the harbour and buy some tickets for the boat, €40 for the four of us to get on and off the boat as much as we want, all day. We reckon that is awesome value and better still, the first boat for the day is 10 minutes away. We jump on and the boat does the route, Monterosso, Venazza, Manorola, Riomaggiore (it skips Coniglia which sits between Venazza and Manorola because that village is high up and I don’t think it has anywhere to dock) and we go all the way to Riomaggiore first. We jump off and as much as it is beautiful we find it a little boring so we don’t hang around long. We jump back on the boat and head back to Manorola which is much prettier and we get off and take a wander. We come across this little restaurant that just happens to have a table out the front with four seats free so we snap it up. We order lunch and the food is awesome. We indulge way too much before deciding to skip the boat and catch the train to Coniglia. We can’t come to the Cinque Terre and go home only seeing the Quattro Terre so to the train station we go. We get slugged €7.20 for a 5km train ride and when we get to the station we have to take about 400 steps to get to the Coniglia town centre. This proves tough but the reward at the top was some gelato......some very good gelato and some fantastic views! Coniglia is a very small village and there is pretty much bugger all there so we didn’t hang around too long but instead head back to the train station. At this point we don’t care if we catch a train backwards to Manorola or Riomaggiore to get the boat or if we go in the direction of Venazza and just do the boat ride for 1 stop back to Monterosso. We get to the train station and we hear this unmistakable voice. I turn around and it’s Simon Madden, ex Essendon superstar. Kris can’t help herself so she goes up and says “Excuse me, are you Simon Madden”? He says yeah and comes over and introduces himself to me and the kids and starts chatting. We chatted with him for quite a while and I tell ya, this bloke is one of the nicest blokes I’ve ever met. He talked to us like he’d known us for years asking us questions and telling us about his holiday and his kids. His mate he was travelling with grabbed our camera and took a photo of all of us which can be seen below. It’s hard to explain how nice this bloke was and when you travel for so long and experience a fair amount of rudeness and arrogance it’s great to speak to a person that treats you with respect and it’s even better when that blokes an Aussie and an Aussie superstar. After that high we had the polar opposite when we had to experience the Italian train service again. The Italian train service, or Trenitalia, is by far the worst train service I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. This train service offers no information....NONE. When you get on an Italian train you have no idea where the train is going. No information at the platform, no information on the train, sweet FA. This is also a train that travels between five of the most famous seaside villages in the world and only sees fit to do it every 30 minutes and, only if it feels like it. We waited for a train that was meant to arrive at 20 past the hour and rocked up 20 minutes late. Not bad for a train that goes every half an hour. Not to mention the trains are boxes of shit and they stink and they are filthy. Anyway, we had an expired ticket but we felt the €7.20 we paid earlier was more than enough to pay for travelling on this 3^rd world train service so we jumped on and rode for free. We previously travelled from Milan to Monterosso and no one checked if we had a ticket so we thought travelling the two stops to Monterosso (we couldn’t stop at Venazza and do the boat because this shit train service took so long to get here we had missed the boat) certainly wouldn’t be a problem. When we get back we take the kids down the beach for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. They don’t have towels so the walk back to the apartment was very cold. We shower up and headed back out to the foreshore area and sat in one of the sidewalk restaurants and had a drink overlooking the ocean. After a few drinks we moved to the restaurant next door still sitting outside overlooking the ocean. We had a great dinner a few more drinks before taking the lovely walk back to the apartment.

Mia and me spotting dolphins from the back of the boat

The boat

The view to Riomaggiore from the boat

 

Me and the kids on the boat

All of us on the boat

At the restaurant for lunch

Outside the restaurant

 

Simon Madden, Superstar

 

The kids having a swim

Walking home freezing

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stallione

This man was parading around just outside the restaurant we ate at, chatting on his phone and grabbing his balls, classic!

 

 

Monterosso – Day 36

This morning we wanted to do some hiking along the Cinque Terre trails so we head down to the tourist office for some advice. The girl at the tourist office clearly saw us as an inconvenience to her day and we left still a little unsure of where we should be going. From what we can gather, all of the coastal trails are closed due to the large rainfall we had last night except the coastal trail from Monterosso to Venazza. The coastal trails are the walks they charge people to do but it seems pointless if the rest are shut so we decide to do the free walk which is longer, up higher and away from the coast. We start wandering up the hill but we can’t find the start the of the trail so lucky for us there is another tourist office right opposite where we think the trail start point is and we go in and ask. Lucky we did because the lady there tells us that part of the longer route is closed as well so if we had of done that we would have wasted hours. In the end we decide to do the coastal route from Monterosso to Venazza which means turning around and heading back down to the beach. We check in with the boat company to see if the boats between the five towns are operating but they too are closed due to the conditions. We’re not sure what conditions they are talking about because as far as we can see, it’s as flat as a tack out there and it’s a beautiful day. Anyway, we head to the start of the trail and right from the start there are steps, and lots of them. I’m not talking stair type steps; I’m talking bits of rock one higher than another with mud all over them. The trail is very hairy, you are walking along a path that at times is no wider than about a foot or so and there could be a 30-40 foot drop. Couple that with steps and more steps it is quite an arduous walk. I also read somewhere that the trail rises up about 200-300m above sea level. The walk from Monterosso to Venazza is estimated at 2 hours long but we are Scroops and there is no way we are going to except that. This walk is a real challenge but we take it on as a challenge we have to win. The trail is packed with people from all over the world of all differing ages, we see people in front of us and that instantly means we HAVE to pass them. The walk to Venazza was extremely tough but the rewards were some amazing views. We get there in good time and have a wander around the small but very pretty village before finding a restaurant near the sea front to have some lunch. We tuck into some amazing pizza while Kris and I also have a couple of alcoholic beverages. I think it may have been those alcoholic beverages that made us make the stupid statement “hey kids, lets walk back”. The kids were super excited and I distinctly remember Mia screaming out “Yeahhhhhhh!!!!”  After a couple of hours at the restaurant we make our way back through the village to the start of the trail. We get about 13 steps into the 1,000,000,030 steps your required to do on this walk and Mia says “I’m tired......” I look at her at say “you were the one screaming yeahhhhh.........start walking”. With a couple of drinks under our belts we were feeling the pinch but once we got a roll on we were off. I said to the kids “come on guys, let’s go for a Scroop world record” and we all pushed hard and eventually did the trek in 1 hour and 15 minutes, YEAH, in your face 2 hours!!! During our walk home I had decided to get a haircut. There is a little hairdressers just down the road from our apartment so I said to the kids “that’s it, I’m getting it shaved off” They didn’t believe me so I stopped in and had it shaved. It’s been a while since I have had my hair shaved and the kids couldn’t believe I’d done it. Anyway, we get back to the apartment slightly exhausted and very much in need of a drink so we make our way over to Mario’s wine bar for a wine. We hang out there for a while until its nudging dinner time and then we move down the road to a restaurant. We all order spaghetti bog so they bring it out on one big plate so we can serve ourselves rather than 4 separate plates. What an awesome idea! A couple more drinks and we are plum tuckered and we head back to the apartment for a well earned sleep.

The start of the coastal trail from Monterosso to Venazza

 

Steps......

 

More steps.....

 

The view back to Monterosso

A little bridge over a waterfall on the trail

 

Some of the steps along the trail

The view down along the way

The view over to Venazza rom the trail

Reward.....pizza

Mia is trying to get through a tricky bit of the trail on the way back

My new hair do courtesy of "Fashion Style"

It's been a tough day, now it's home to bed

 

 

 

 

Lauterbrunnen – Monterosso – Day 35

Well, that was a tough day, but the end result was worth all the pain. We started early this morning by leaving our apartment in Lauterbrunnen at 6:50am to catch the 7 o’clock train. Our journey today involved 6 trains over an 8 hour period. It was still pitch black when we left Lauterbrunnen train station and the sun didn’t surface for at least another hour. The train ride today took us from Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken then onto Spies, then to Milan, Genoa, Sestri Levante and finally Monterosso. The journey was another cracker as the train hugged lakes, went through the Swiss Alps and the Northern Italian Alps and finished off by hugging the Mediterranean Sea from Genoa to Monterosso. With five connecting train rides we were expecting some fireworks but it all went fairly smoothly. The only time things started to get hairy was when Trenitalia got involved, my favourite train company. I cannot believe how shit this train company is. All the trains in Europe are very good, pvery efficient and extremely comfortable. None of these apply for the Italian train service. Our change over on the train from Milan to Genoa allowed us 10 minutes to catch our next train to Sestri Levante. Ten minutes is normally cutting it fine but at a small outpost train station ten minutes should be heaps of time. That is for any other train company. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden an Italian train that has arrived on time. So, normally we would have our stuff packed up and we’d be waiting at the doors 10-15 minutes before the train arrives at the station ready to jump off but just as we were about to do that out comes the “trolley man” with his trolley full of snacks and it looks as though he is going to block the passage to the doors (proper trains have a restaurant carriage and don’t have to rely on a knob pushing a trolley ringing a bicycle bell). Because the train we are on is going to continue on to somewhere else after we have got off he is probably oblivious to the fact that people need to get off this train shortly. Initially we thought it wouldn’t be a problem because no one is buying anything so he’s moving pretty quick but of course, just as he gets to the people in front of us they want to do their weekly shopping and this guy and his trolley is now blocking us. Not only is he blocking us but he is also blocking us from getting to our bag. We lose precious time and end up way back in the pack for the race to the door. All of this is happening while we still don’t know if we are on the correct train or if this is even our stop. There was no indication on the monitors at the platform when we boarded the train that it was stopping at Genoa, nothing inside the train to tell us where the train was going and no information regarding if it was on time or not, which is all standard information on non Italian trains. We didn’t even have a ticket inspector come into our coach during the 1 ½ hour trip, not even to check our tickets! To make things worse the train is running late (surprise, surprise). Luckily for us our connecting train is also running late (surprise, surprise) so it didn’t end up like it did a couple of years ago when we were trying to get to Venice. Anyway, we get o the next train and make it to Sestri Levante. We get off and ask some Trenitalia dude which platform the train to Monterosso will be on. He says” ahhhhh, look at the monitor.....” So we do that and.......it’s not on there. It appears they have decided not to run that train today. Why? Because we are in Italy now, that’s why. So I speak to this lady at the ticket counter and she lets me know about another train that is going to Monterosso. This train arrives....late (surprise, surprise) but gets us to Monterosso. We get off and walk through the tunnel and BAM, this place is amazing. The first thing we see is the ocean and a street full of people lunching, walking, eating ice-cream, it’s just incredible. We make our way to the apartment and we get met by Mario, the restaurant/wine bar guy from over the road (umm, no idea why he was meeting us there and not the holiday apartment guy) and he lets us in and shows us around. The apartment is fantastic and sits directly above a pizzeria but we don’t hang around, we head straight out for a look around and eventually make our way back to the pizzeria for a pizza. We continue looking around some more before we visit Mario’s wine bar for some wine and an antipasti plate. To end the night we go for a walk along the terrace above the beach and buy some ice-creams before heading back to bed.

One of the many change overs

Yay, were here

Our first look at the Monterosso view

The antipasti plate at Mario's

Lauterbrunnen – Day 34

Today we are heading up to the Jungfraujoch which involves a cog wheel train from Lauterbrunnen to Klein Scheidegg. We then get off and transfer to the cog wheel train that takes us the rest of the way to the Jungfraujoch. They call the Jungfrau “The top of Europe”, not sure why because the Matterhorn is higher than all the mountains in this region and the Matterhorn Glacier paradise (the area you get to when you go up the Matterhorn) is higher than the Jungfraujoch. Anyway, it’s still bloody high at 11,782ft and probably feels higher because we are coming from a lower base compared to Zermatt which is at the base of the Matterhorn. The cog wheel train from Lauterbrunnen takes about 45 minutes and the cog wheel train to the Jungfrau takes a further 55 minutes. Most of the 55 minute ride is through a tunnel so you don’t see a great deal until you leave the train station at the Jungfrau and enter the massive building that is planted up there. We get off the train and follow the route that has been mapped out for tourists. It’s fantastic, the kids ran outside and played in the snow and there was heaps of it, people could have been skiing up there. The kids had a ball in the snow and they took an extra pair of socks to use as gloves. There is so many things to do up there you could stay all day. The only thing that put us off was the mass upon mass of Chinese tourists. These people are rude and they barge and push. Kris and I have become so fed up with these people we are giving back what they give us. I don’t care how old they are either. I gave this 80 year old a pretty good hip and shoulder and it felt good, Woosha would have been proud. Apart from that the experience was fantastic, although, the altitude did affect me. I was huffing and puffing like a steam train. Kris and the kids didn’t seem to be affected at all but I was gone. We caught the train back down just after lunch and decided to jump off one station before Kleine Scheidegg so we could hike down. It was great fun and we came across this lake that had a little rock pool set up off to the side. In the pool were 3 bench seats and at the foot off the seats were bubbles like a spa. The kids took off their shoes and jumped in and kept sooking about how cold it was. So I took off my shoes and walked in and oh my god, it was freezing. It was freezing to the point that even after 2 seconds with your feet in the water they would ache with pain. We continued down to the Kleine Scheidegg train station and caught the next train down to Wengen where we jumped off and took the cable car back up to Manlichenn. We had been up this mountain twice before but we wanted to go up when there was no cloud cover so we could see the views into Lauterbrunnen and we weren’t disappointed, the views were incredible. We couldn’t stay long as the last cable car was leaving to go back down to Wengen so we jump on and once down take the train back to Lauterbrunnen. We get back to the apartment and start packing. Tomorrow we head to Monterosso on the Cinque Terre and we have an early start.

 We love Switzerland, we love Switzerland a lot. There are only a few things we don’t like, the place seemed to shut up shop around lunch time-ish for a couple of hours, which was a little annoying, the food is rubbish and it is so bloody expensive. Other than that Switzerland is AWESOME!!!!!

The train to Kleine Scheidegg

 

The view to yesterday's destination, The Schilhorn, visible top right peak.

The view to today's destination, The Jungfraujoch, in the valley of the two peaks on the right.

 

Me and the kids at the Top Of Europe

Kris and the kids in the snow

Yeah, good luck with the "gloves" guys.....

The snowman that Mia and Tyler built.