that ping-pong video is amazing! I had about 3 emails with the link as well as juls blog. must be spreading like wildfire on the net.

Got back from italy late last night (about 11ish), so we stayed another night at Nancy’s parents house.

The last couple of days in Rome were spent wandering around the various monuments some more and looking round loads of shops. On day 3 (in rome) we saw the coliseum, as indeed i predicted in my previous post. it was kinda big, but nowhere near as big as I thought it would be after seeing gladiator and such. To add to the slight disapointment, a lot of it had been restored with ordinary red brick. The overall impression was not good. Still, i guess most of it is still standing, which, after 2000 yrs is quite astounding. It cost 5euros to go inside, so we didn’t. We then wandered on through a load of old roman ruins. Stu and I found these quite interesting to look at tho it wasn’t to Nancy’s taste. Nance had an unhealthy obsession with religeous art. It all seemed to be the same to me. This led us to the pantheon. This looked like a typical roman building – complete with pillars and soforth. it even had some paintings inside, so everyone was happy. Good ice-creams were to be had near the pantheon. most tasty, esp pistachio flavour.

I set off early on the final day at about 8.30 to go shopping on my own and also to do my own thing and not feel presured by everyone elses needs. Picked up a bottle of oil for Nancy’s mum and some oregano in a street market for mama. Also a couple of things for tan’s birthday (many happy returns!). I guess you get to see them when you get back, and seeing as this isn’t til after xmas they’ll serve as handy christmas prezzies too! haha:-D

One thing i forgot to mention about the vatican city, was st. peters square (i think that’s what it was called). possible the most impressive thing in rome, huge and if you stand in the centre, you are surrounded by many hundreds of saints (in the form of statues).

Unfortunately, one of the abiding memories of italian cities, will be the smell of urine. the populace seemed to view any corner, or in fact anywhere as a personal pissing place. unpleasent.

hey ho my new bed has arrived.

looks like england are doing ok.

well, this is day 2 in rome. Currently sitting in the air-con bliss of an easy internet cafe. only Ä1.65 an hour.

Outside it is is 31 degs according to the bbc and was 37 earlier today. I believe it was hotter. It has certainly been hotter earlier on in the holiday. be recorded a temp of 42 degs using the car’s temperature gauge.

Getting the car to rome was like many kinds of hell. a story for another day tho. Suffice it to say that will never be using Europecar again.

Rome is nice. smaller than I expected, and everything seems to be within easy walking distance. Our hotel is run by a youngish, strange italian bloke who struts around in speedo shorts, strumming on a guitar occasionally.

Yesterday we wandered around fairly randomly. we saw various monuments (the names of which escape me) and saaw the changing of the guard at what we guessed was the president’s residence. today, we spent the morning trudging round the muesii di vaticano in the vatican city. It was free becuase it was the last sunday of the month (oh how generous and charitable of them). Frankly, it was crap; loads of religious paintings which i didn’t like. the “map room” was nice enough – filled with, yes indeed, maps. we then spent many hours trying to get in to the sistine chapel. after about what seemed like 6 hrs we got in. it was filled with japanese tourists taking forbidden photos of the ceiling and wasn’t really that impressive. though i had, by that point, seen about 10 other painted ceilings, so the novelty had worn off.

Just wandering round is nice though, you continously bump in to piazza’s with a fountain, statue or monument in it. Or some sort of castle or large building. I think we shall see the coliseum tomorrow.

This pm we walked to large park in rome, the villa borghese i believe it is called. most pleasent tho still hot. we read a while before striding back.

drinks are extorsion here. i use my 1ltr bottle and fill it from the occasional drinking fountain we come accross. I’ll probably catch leprosy or something.

our flight is actually late on tuesday, so i shall get back to barnham lunch or early pm.

I’m pretty sure i have created new records in the amount of sweat i’ve produced.

dod, have you been downloading my emails? I only see mail from the 20th onward. Sheesh. I dred to think of the havok being delt on my computer.

Hey peeps,

First chance of an internet cafe. Currently in siena for the day. We’ve been leisurely walking round it most of today. Not the most interesting of cities but nonetheless wuite nice.

Venice was lovely, tho occasionally quite smelly. Shocking prices as well, but i guess you have to expect that. We climbed the camponini after paying some register biscuit a large sum of money.

It was like several kinds of hell collecting our hire-car. Huge chips in the windscreen, dirty, etc. after much complaining and stress, we got under way.

Lake garda was fabulous, probably my favourite. Great swimming and a nice campsites. Shame we only spent a day there. Lake Maggiore was similar, but not as nice i thought. Good campsite again.

Due to madness we decided to pop over to switzerland for the day. we looked at the map and thought, “yeah, one hour drive at most”. Or at least, that’s what dave said. It took 4.5hrs to get to zermatt. still, it was nice enough. people were still skiing – tho it didn’t look like there were many runs. On the way back we were stopped by the border guards. We said “we’re british” and they let us through. Amusing we thought.

The drive down to tuscony to our villa/apartment was like eight kinds of kane. It took us about 9 hours! Took us ages to find the correct place too. Speeding round the dirt tracks, leaping out and asking locals for directions. When i say asking, i mean pointing at a name on a bit of paper…

It’s been far more relaxing at ‘ficaiole’. we went to florence the other day. quite nice, but i wasn’t really that impressed.

Driving the car is ok. Dave and I share the driving fairly equally. Italian drivers are,we have decided, the worst in the entire world. The roads are too good either.

Dod, how’s about logging in as yourself? rather than blogging as me?

Mama, I’ll look in to oregano and stuff. We bought some freshly made pesto the other day – fairly lush. Also we’ve had bruscetta a few times and it’s nothing like what we tried to make! It’s chopped up tomatoes and basil and oil and so on.

Well, we have a couple more days here, then we’re off to rome.

I’ve skimmed the blog but there seems to be too much to read!

See you soon,

Liv