Australia

Our final day in Italy. Our only plan for the day is to get to Pisa, where Ami, Chip and I are all flying back to England. We get back in the car for our last journey together, and with our practice at navigating Italy we make the distance relatively quickly.
While driving through Pisa I look eagerly out of the window, ready for more beautiful buildings and the seemingly omnipresent Italian charm and style. Instead, we pass rundown buildings exuding poverty and decay. It's the first slummy part of Italy I've seen, and I keep watch, waiting for that old Italian charm to start up again.
'This is a large economically barren area.' I think, as the bad part of town just keeps going and going. It's not that there are bullet holes in the walls and junkies having knife-fights, the place just seems like a nondescript shitty town that could be anywhere in the world. I eventually realise that, from what I have seen, this constitutes the greater part of Pisa. Perhaps there are lovely areas of the city, but unfortunately I didn't see them.

Being tourists, we go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We wade through the souvenir stalls and greasy spoon cafes and find the world famous tower. For those of you who are unable to picture such a mind-blowing spectacle, go out and find a tower, look at it, and tilt your head slightly to the side. Congratulations, you have saved yourself the cost of a trip to Pisa!
There are hundreds of people surrounding the tower, almost all of them posing for photos and doing the camera perspective trick where in the photo it looks like they're holding the tower up. I notice several variants.

The Classic – Stand upright, grin like a twat, hold one hand out as if you are holding the tower up.
The Cool Dude Lean – Stand upright, grin like a twat, fold arms casually and then lean back, as if you are leaning against the tower.
The Double-Armed Classic – Same as the Classic, but using two hands.
The Pinch – The model is also the cameraman in this one – hold camera in one hand, pointing at the tower. Bring up other hand in front of the camera, and position thumb and forefinger so it looks like you are pinching the tower. Grinning like a twat apparently essential, despite face not appearing in final product.

I spend a good five minutes watching one girl trying to get a satisfactory The Pinch photo. She holds the camera up, places thumb and forefinger in position, ready to mock-squeeze, but she stays there for ages, making minute adjustments, absolutely determined to get the photo just right. I notice that she is scowling, not with concentration, but with utter fury.
I decide that she isn't pretending to squeeze the tower, she is actually trying to do it. Focusing her previously dormant telekinetic powers on the building, and getting angrier and angrier when it resolutely refuses to crumble into dust.
Unfortunately it is time for us to leave, so I can't stay to watch her finally win the battle and see her villainous triumph as the aged tower finally succumbs to her will.

We make a quick tour of hostels and hotels, finding a place for Lisa and Caileigh to stay that night, then we go to the airport. We have a couple of hours before Ami has to catch her flight, and another hour or so after that until Chip and I fly out. We sit in the airport cafe and talk, finding ourselves in that strange state where you know you should be making the most of your friends company while they're still there, but the depression over leaving them leaves you quiet and self-effacing.
I'm sad to be leaving Italy. I will miss its food, coffee and interesting cities (except Pisa), but I will get over it quite quickly. What really pains me is leaving Lisa, Caileigh and Ami. I have some absolutely fantastic friends, it's just a shame that they're scattered all over the world.
All too soon, our check in time arrives and we say our goodbyes. Chip and I trudge through security, to our flight and back to the UK; the land of vomit-filled trains and non-leaning towers.

I wake up early in the morning. Normally I would get up, have a shower, maybe go for a walk, and pass the time waiting for everyone else in quiet contemplation. It is too cold to get out of bed, so I just go back to sleep instead.
A while later and it doesn't seem noticeably warmer, but I can't spend the entire day in bed. I brace myself, tune my inner monologue to drill instructor (“GET OUT OF BED!”), and make a run for the showers which are, thankfully, hot.

Once everyone is assembled and fed with food and coffee, we walk into Florence. It's only a twenty minute walk from the hostel, with a reproduction of the statue of David on the way, and it's a very pleasant walk at that.
Lisa is our tour guide; much of her information is remembered from a trip to Italy when she was fifteen, so although we are perhaps not as well supplied with data as we would with a regular tour guide (“this is a reproduction of a door that is famous for some reason”), the company is much nicer.
We part ways, Lisa and Ami going off to meet an Italian friend, while Caileigh, Chip and I are going to spend the day in Florence.

Lisa has already given us a tour, so we feel the tourist essentials have been covered and we can start on our own itinerary: Chip wants a tattoo, Caileigh wants to get some stamps, and I want to see the leather market.
We manage to find an internet cafe and we start our googling. I change my mind about the leather market, having learned from previous markets in other countries that it's usually just cheapo bollocks, and discover that Florence is great for vintage clothing shops. After dirtying myself reading “Girls! Top 10 Vintage Shops in Fantastic Florence!” type articles, I have a few places that will hopefully have men's boots and jackets in addition to handbags and bras.

We leave the internet cafe and realise that we forgot to look for the nearest post office. Never mind, after asking a few people we manage to find a place to buy stamps and that is Caileigh's main goal accomplished.
Tattoo next, calling into a vintage shop on the way. It's the only decent vintage place we find, and I almost come away with a big leather slightly SS-looking coat but decide on moderation instead.
We find the tattoo place, hang around for a bit while the tattoo artist works on another customer, and then leave Chip to get inked. Caileigh and I explore the area, wandering around the streets and trying to get lost, but the sense of direction we both normally lack forces itself on us and we keep returning to the same street. We stop for coffee and cake, and rejoin Chip at the agreed time.

It's getting dark, and the feel of the city is changing. Much as I like cities by day, it's usually at night that I appreciate them most. The streets of Florence seem quite dark, and the old architecture adds to the mood. Despite the gloom amid the ancient buildings, it's not spooky: atmospheric, but not scary.
Wandering around, no particular destination, we find a carousel. We all squeal with delight, and we head over. There doesn't seem to be much demand for a carousel on a cold winter's night, so Caileigh, Chip and I have the whole thing to ourselves. We laugh and roar and have a great time, and the carousel ride ends and it's time for dinner.
After more wandering around we find a fancy restaurant down a backstreet, and for the first time in the trip we order neither pizza nor pasta. We sit outside to eat and the brisk night air and quiet streets help us take the time to appreciate our dinner which is, of course, delicious.

With vague intentions of heading home we start walking. We stop off for gelati, something we have done an awful lot on this trip, and then continue on. Caileigh and I, as I mentioned earlier, have no sense of direction at all. Chip is happy to navigate though, so we go in the direction he says. We have a map, but we're quite happy to take the long and inefficient way and just head vaguely in the right direction. Somehow or other, perhaps thanks to the influence of gelati, rich food, and carousel rides, we realise we're going in the wrong direction. None of us care however; we're in that strange inbetween state of knowing we should go to bed, while not wanting the night to end.
Still, we find ourselves back at our tent eventually, and armed with extra blankets we settle in.

We start the day with the intention of spending the morning in Venice and then shooting down to Florence nice and quickly. The best laid plans, and all that.
It's not yet 9am and I am just leaving my room with the intention of sitting outside and maybe doing a little bit of writing. An elderly man, I assume one of the owners of the guest house, is coming into the guest part of the building. We ciao to each other and he starts speaking Italian to me. I realise he is trying to convey something to me and it's not just a lengthy good morning, so I go and get Lisa.
She comes over, half asleep, and the guy speaks to her for a bit. She thanks him and he leaves. The Italian part of Lisa's brain hasn't woken up yet, but she thinks he might have said that the road into Venice closes at 10, but she's really not sure. In any case, I don't think anyone is quite ready to get up yet, so Lisa goes back to bed.

We reconvene a little later, get showered and dressed quickly, and are on the road by 9:45. The road to Venice is just a few hundred meters from our guest house, and I am lulled into a sense of progress. We drive for a short time only to find the road blocked by a few cars and some barriers. Right, we were warned, but there is a diversion sign so hopefully we should still be able to get into the city.
We follow the diversion and, as often happens in Italy, the road signs stop appearing and we have to guess our way for a turn or two. We end up going in a big circle and end up where we started.
We decide to go a different way and make our second run.
We end up at one of the first diversions again and are about to make the turn to the right. The policeman manning the diversion swaps one of the signs around. One diversion sign is now pointing to the left, while the one next to it points to the right, but we figure that he must be about to swap the remaining right one so it is also pointing left. We make a last-minute change in direction and swerve off to the left turn. We follow the diversions and end up right back at the beginning once again.
It's been well over an hour at this point and we have been literally going around in circles. We decide to find breakfast and go to a nearby town. We see our friend the indecisive policeman, whose signs are now both pointing to the right again.

It becomes quite clear to me why Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, the two most famous explorers in the world, were both from Italy. Anyone who grew up navigating this country could discover unknown continents very easily, although I wouldn't be surprised if they started off in Italy just following the signs to the nearest public toilets and wound up in China and America instead.

Somehow we manage to end up in the town we were aiming for and have breakfast in a busy cafe filled with locals nursing their espressos.
Checking the map, we decide to try another route into Venice.
After more driving, the traffic slows to a crawl. Half the bridge into Venice has been closed off and there is a horde of marathon-weirdos running into Venice. At least we now know why the roads were closed off and why the traffic has been so slow.
In the afternoon, about four or five hours after our intended time of arrival, we finally make it into Venice.
Venice looks better by day than by night, and I really appreciate the architecture, waterways, and sheer ridiculousness of the place – a city built on water, I'm not sure of the official reason behind it, but I suspect that heavy drinking and unlimited wealth were the main factors.
Venice is amazing but, I have to admit, the crowds of “OH GOSH JANINE LOOK AT THAT CUTE LIL BOAT” tourists do detract from the experience. Venice is very clearly geared towards tourists, it reminded me of Khao San road in Bangkok, and although I'm well aware I'm a tourist too, being surrounded by others is a bit annoying.
We spend the afternoon in Venice, take the ferry back over the waterways, and start our onward journey in the early evening. Our destination is Florence, but it's still a bit of a trek and we have the backup plan of Bologna if it's too far.

We get lost a few times on our journey, as is inevitable, but thanks to Lisa's driving and Ami's navigating we get to the hostel we were looking for. They even have room! We were, however, told by a friend who had stayed there that there would be cabins. There are tents instead. This will make it the third time I've been camping in my recent travels. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times and I will happily admit to being an idiot. Still, it's about half nine at night and we don't have time to go somewhere else, or the energy to find another place and drive round and round in circles while trying to get there.
Much to my relief, the tents aren't that bad. They're big things, the size of a small room, and they have proper beds in them. We have dinner from the pizzeria in the hostel bar (I love Italy), and then go to bed, where we freeze our arses off throughout the night.

Here I am; a small Italian town nestled up to Venice, drinking wine, eating delicious cheese, sitting in the garden outside a guest house that isn't mentioned in a Rough Guide (alright it probably is, I didn't check), sitting in the best company I've had for a very long time.
I'm reminded that there are people I like spending time with, and that I am capable of having a long and in-depth conversation about something other than books or misanthropy.
Sure, the setting is nice, but the best thing about the holiday has been the people I've been sharing it with. Due to my shifting work pattern I haven't spent much time with Chip lately, despite him being my heterosexual life partner, and it's so fantastic to see Lisa, Ami and Caileigh again.
We finish the wine and cheese and head off to get the bus to Venice.

The buses don't run to the timetable it seems, but after waiting a while we get a bus heading in the right direction. A man sitting in front of us tries to engage us all in conversation, but his languages are Italian and Spanish, so it is just Lisa, the only one of us who speaks much Italian, who is able to hold a conversation with him. Still, he manages to communicate a lot with a few English words and a lot of hand gestures, and so we sort of join in. He has that famous Italian charm in any case, and I would have been entertained by him reading the phone book aloud.
We reach Venice but it seems the last bus back is at eleven o clock. We're not actually sure; some people say it's midnight, but the timetable says eleven and although spending the night in Venice sounds romantic and adventurous, it is far too cold to even contemplate. We only have a few hours to enjoy this fabled city so we head in a likely direction looking for a restaurant.
We find one, not exactly difficult, and although it's a bit of a tourist trap it's pretty cheap and it looks fairly nice. After dining we wander the streets for a bit more. The wine, a type of booze I am distinctly unused to, has provided a sort of haze through which I am remarkably accepting of everything I see. I would love to say that my mind was blown by this venerable city where cars are not just shunned but an impossibility, where boats and feet are the only forms of transport, where grand old hotels of a type that are an anachronism everywhere else sit next to shops selling traditionally made Venetian masks, but to be honest my reaction was more
“Huh. Canals. Cool.”
We have a reasonable wander around, but before we can seriously consider stopping for another drink we have to get back to the bus stop.
We fight to stay conscious enough to recognise our stop, manage to get off in the right town, and find our way back to our much welcome guest house.

Verona, Shakespearian city of love, the setting of Romeo and Juliet, a place that has been synonymous with romance for centuries. Bleugh.
We're heading east from Milan with the intention of getting to Venice today and Verona makes a very conveniently situated lunch stop. Italian food so far has been amazing – even the pizza in the airport was fantastic – and I am looking forward to another meal.
Navigation hasn't gone particularly smoothly so far since the Italian government apparently disapproves of road signs, but Lisa and Ami between them manage to get us into the old city. We park and head towards the nearest set of old buildings.
We find our destination, Casa di Guiletta or, somewhat less poetically in English, Juliet's house.
The place is packed, and not just with starry-eyed teenage girls. It's a beautiful old building, like many of its neighbours, and we discover there are a few romantic traditions that visitors take part in. One is to write the name of yourself and your beloved on the wall of the tunnel leading into the courtyard. I boost Chip up to a clearer patch of wall and he writes our names there. Aww.
A slightly less appealing and more unhygienic practice is to for couples to share a wad of chewing gum, stick it up on the wall, and then write their names on the wad. Quite disgusting really.

There is a notepad in the visitors centre where people can write letters to Juliet, begging for help in finding love, but Chip and I write bizarre messages about centipedes instead.
Outside in the courtyard there stands a statue. Lisa tells us it's considered good luck to grope its right breast, making me wonder who exactly decided on that. Ami and Lisa decide to explore their sexuality a bit and touch up the statue.
Having finished with our romance and sapphic superstitions, it's time to stuff ourselves with that time-honoured replacement for love: food. We find a restaurant in a beautiful courtyard in the back of some no-doubt richly historied building and eat more delicious pasta.
A gelati on the way back to the car and we're on the way to find a hostel, having adjusted our previous laissez-faire attitude towards accommodation.

We take a break at a service station to stretch our legs. The place, this being Italy, has an enormous gleaming chrome coffee machine and I figure I should be taking the opportunity to drink as much coffee as I can while I have access to the good shit. The lady serving me says several German words to me, mistaking me for a German, as several people in Thailand did, and proving to me that if I wear a white t-shirt while abroad in any country I look like a German tourist.

We stop in Mira, a town outside Venice, for the night. It's nightlife consists of a restaurant/bar/karaoke venue, with posters advertising hairsprayed entertainers escaped from the 80's and somehow still scraping a living together in the modern day. Still, the town is small and friendly, and we find a couple of local shops where we buy fruit and cheese, and discover a place that has wine in vast metal vats that you can buy by the litre for some ridiculously cheap price.