Pisa, Florence, Rome, Greece, Tirana, Budva and Dubrovnik

Pisa, Italy.

This was a neat little surprise for me as I had no idea that we were stopping off here. We jumped off the bus and walked through the intense heat to the leaning tower of Pisa. We were given some information, some history and all that and then we had some time to go check it out, take some pictures and chill before getting back on the bus and heading to Florence. Straight away everyone ran to the leaning tower and started taking the usual pictures. One building captured my eye though, not the leaning tower (as beautiful and unique as it is) the Baptistery stood out like a sore thumb to me. Just as you walk through the arch way, too your left there it is, BAM! 'Hi I'm a massive building with really intense detail.
The people who built me have some serious skills, check out my neck, see these sculptures of men all around, see there faces? See the emotion?' The Baptistery was speaking to me, so while the others ran off I sat down and had my lunch in front of it, I admired it's architecture and character, the men all around it, the faces. I have a thing for sculptures, they really tug at my heart, the emotion, the way the artist is able to make you feel what they are feeling, its immense! So I admired while I ate and once I felt I had taken as much in as possible and had taken the time to appreciate where I was I headed down to the leaning tower. It is a very beautiful building, its very white and elegant. the little arches all over the building are very elegant and pretty. The fact that it is leaning is a pretty cool and pretty special thing too. It was unintentional you know, they didn't purposefully make it on a lean! The foundations on one side of the tower were softer and caused the tower to lean.

After all the pictures were taken lunch was eaten and we'd taken in all the beauty one can possibly take in, we headed back to the coach, set for Florence.

Fun fact: The Leaning Tower of Pisa was completed in 1372, is 55.86m tall, and is made of marble and stone. Many methods were proposed to stabilise the tower, including the addition of 800 tonnes of lead counterweights to the raised end of the base. It was used as a Nazi observation post during WWII, but was spared from Allied artillery fire due to its beauty!

Florence, Italy.

We arrived in Florence chucked up our tents quick smart, showered and readied ourselves for our walking tour. It was hot. I don't know what the temperature was, but it was hot, it had to be in the 30's somewhere. It was a dry heat, the kind that you can feel burning your skin, we set off and 5minutes in I was already wet with sweat. We walked around and the lady talked

a lot, I heard some of what she was saying but mostly I was in my own mind. The statues were all very beautiful. Florence is known for its art. They have a lot of art museums I think. The buildings here are nice, and its a very pretty town, the river is gorgeous and there is a very old bridge with shops on it. Actually its such a beautiful bridge that even hitler didn't want it to be touched because it was so beautiful. (Hitler also ordered that no-one touch the opera house in Paris because he thought it was beautiful). The heat was immense and the tour was finishing. We met up with Flavio and headed our for some kai. Tonight was a night for karaoke, after our meal we headed into a separate part of the restaurant, enjoyed a glass of wine and watched a few people sing some songs. Flavio and the two chefs Aimee and Vytas came out and onto the stage. Brilliant. Flavio and Vytas were wearing girls clothes and

Aimee mens clothes, they sang 'Barbie Girl' it was really awful but such good entertainment. After that everyone started getting up on stage and having a go, I mean what did they have to lose right? You couldn't get any worse than what we had just heard from our leaders! We sang the night away and then headed back to the campsite for some shut eye. Our next day in Florence was a half day. We had until just after midday and then we were off to Rome. We headed into town and had a chilled out morning, coffee, relaxing and then a leather demo. After the lady tried to sell us some expensive goods half of the group headed out for lunch together. It was the most amazing lunch, I would even go as far to say it was the best meal I have ever had, and the company was spot on perfect!! At my table was Alejandro, Lui, Dora, Scotty, Joanne and then me! It was a three course meal with free wine. Perfect! We had bruschetta for the starter, it was amazing, a huge 1kg steak between three people for the

main. Our table was medium rare. Obviously the best table. Obviously the best way to eat steak!  And for dessert we had…some chocolaty coffee thing I can't remember the name of, also very nice! I don't know what happened but for some reason the entire meal we couldn't stop laughing. Something sparked us off and that was it, we were laughing for days! And when we stopped to eat Alejandro, who's laugh honestly is the most amazing, funniest laugh you'll ever hear, would start to laugh again which would set the table off again. There were tears in our eyes and our guts were hurting. It was a deep happiness and real enjoyment was had. We toasted to people who appreciate good food, we drank red wine and had an amazing time. Sometimes you need to laugh like we did that day. Such a great day, one that will stay with me forever.

Off to Rome we went.

Rome, Italy.

We arrived in Rome and got stuck in straight away. Flavio, the Italian Stallion was taking us on a 5 hour walking tour in Rome. Wow. This, this I am excited for! I really enjoy the walking tours with Flav, he keeps it interesting, chucks in a few jokes and is so informative, but not boring, no mono tone voice. It makes a huge difference to be with someone who is passionate about the city rather than someone who is just doing it because its their job, Now, I would love to pass the information he gave us on to you but try taking in that much information and retaining it all!! 

Rome. One of the oldest cites in all of Europe, with continuous habitation since approximately 1000 BC. 

The buildings here are so different. Actually something that has surprised me about Europe, call me naive, but I thought that the cites, the countries, most of them would be quite similar. I thought that the buildings would all be very much the same and the cultures not tooo different from each other. How wrong could I be. Every city, every country is so completely different from the next. The buildings are different the people, the fashion, the cultures, the religions actually religion is huge in Europe, everything is so unique to its own place. I love that. So. Rome. Everything seemed to be, so Roman, ha, makes sense right? Buildings made from fancy types of stone and marble… the spanish steps, wow really pretty! There are 135 steps all together! Flavio said if girls could walk up and down the stairs in their stilettos without falling then they would be great models, so I whipped my stilettos out of my day bag and now when I get home I'm gonna apply for a modelling job cause damn girl, I smashed them steps!! HA 

We walked and talked and Flavio pointed out loads of things, we stopped off at the Trevi Fountain, Flav flung off some facts and explained myth is; if you chuck in one coin you will be granted one wish, two coins and you will return to Rome in 3 years and three coins you will be married in one year, so take a guess how many I threw in. Its obvious right!! Two coins. I need to come back here and see more, I need more time. A country is so much more than a few cities. There is so much more to be travelled, so… two coins. We carried on to the

Pantheon, a 'Roman Temple' the inside was just amazing, it was immaculate. It is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome! Very cool. Outside a man was playing and singing some Pink Floyd too, that was an added bonus.  Onwards we went, onto Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). Here we admired both the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and the Sant'Agnese in Agone, Flavio, while throwing out historic facts, pointed out something quite interesting, A lady statue on the building is looking away from the fountain in 'disgust' and a man on the fountain is holding his hand up like he's pushing the building away from him. I have tried to think how to explain the rivalry to you but then I think to hard abut it and I confuse myself, so read up on this, its really quite interesting, and it would be much more accurate than me trying to tell you something I know not much about. But this interested me, because like I've said before, I have a fascination with statues, art and expression. Somewhere in there we stopped and had our dinner, really nice pasta, really really nice pasta, and bread too, weird combo but it

was good, and when we couldn't eat anymore we carried on with the walking tour. The sun was beginning to go down now, we approached Piazza Venezia which was shinning a wonderful pink from the sun which was starting to go down, we admired the beauty, you know they ate a meal out of the horses belly when they completed the building! Crazy…
We carried on until we came across the Imperial Fora, ruins from way back. Julius Ceaser was the first to build in this section of Rome! It was absolutely gorgeous, the way the sunlight was sitting on it to, Rome was starting to glow. Glorious glorious Rome. I was getting butterflies in my belly, this was almost too much beauty for one to handle, you really need to experience Rome at sunset.

We carried on past the Imperial Forum until we hit the Colosseum. Im pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head. The sun was almost gone the sky a beautiful blue and the Colosseum was lit up. Glorious glorious Rome. Everyone took their photos and admired this beautiful historic building. I was feeling overwhelmed and quite tired. I was trying to imagine what this place would have been like 1000 years ago, what would have been happening, I was imagining myself in their world. It was amazing. What a tour! Amazing. Good job Flava Flav! You got this tour guide job down to a T! It was time to head home, it had been a long day, a day full of fantastic sight seeing and now my brain needed to rest for the Vatican city tomorrow!

Rome day 2. Up bright and early ready for the tour of the Vatican city. I cannot begin to describe this to you. Go to Rome and experience it for yourself. It will save me a whole lot of brain ache trying to even describe a tiny little bit how amazingly mindblowingly crazy good this place is. And I don't mean its cool because the popes lived here forget the popes, lets concentrate on the art. Lets talk about Michelangelo. The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel. Or how about The Last judgement where Michelangelo is holding the skin of himself. Feel the sorrow and pain. Remember he didn't want to do this work, the Pope had threatened war on Florence had he not done these paintings. Poor old Michelangelo was forced into it, but my word, his work is more than breath taking, its magnificent, its overwhelming, its passionate, its detailed, its real, its raw emotion! Michelangelo a true genius, an amazing artist with talent I don't think this world will ever see again. Now shall we talk about Raphael? Go to the Vatican City. 

Before I head back to the campsite to get some much needed rest I went to check out the Colosseum with Aaron and Mina. After waiting for half n hour or so we had our tickets and were inside. From the pictures I had seen I knew what to expect, but none the less it was amazing. The Colosseum is such an ancient building, with so much history. Its a crazy feeling to be standing in a place where so many things happened, from gladiator fights to animal fights to beheadings or trials. I am standing in a place where death was entertainment. I let myself feel the fear that those who were going to die that day would have felt, I pictured myself in the audience, and I was amazed again by the human race, how crazy are we?! I can see Julius Ceaser standing up in his own little pod watching over the fights, eating green grapes with his golden cape on. Whys he gotta be so tanned and handsome? The bad ones always are right! So back to reality, now I'm standing here and I'm just in everyones way while I take myself back all those years.. so I move on, we take some beautiful pictures, we walk all the way around upstairs and then again down stairs. Looking at all the tunnels beneath where the Colosseum floor once was I can't help but think of the people and animals once stuck down there waiting for the big doors to open, sometimes it was a person vs an animal, a lion or a tiger maybe. So much intense feelings here. I love this building, I love the history, I love the design but I can't shake the awful deathly feeling. Not much has changed you know, except the fact that we don't kill now, but we still hurt each other for entertainment right? Boxing fights.. cage fights… reality t.v…. Humans eh. After an amazing emotional walk around we left and I set off home by myself, leaving Mina and Aaron to check out a few more spots on there own.

I was a little apprehensive about going back to the campsite on my own, as I have told you before I'm really good at getting lost, like I'm a pro at it, so I wrote down the directions word for word and headed off. The metros were ok, I seemed to get on the right ones, and after getting a little bit lost and coming out the wrong part of the metro station I finally found the McDonalds where I was supposed to catch my bus, which was more than half an hour late.. I finally got on but had no idea where I was supposed to be getting off, so I spotted two girls with backpacks and asked if they were heading to Camping Roma, my campsite, yup they were so I was going to get off the bus with them, not long after I had spoken to the girls there was a while lot of yelling and commotion from behind me on the bus. A poor looking lady with two kids breastfeeding one of them was yelling at a backpacker, who was yelling louder back, after a bit of listening I realised the lady with the kids had pick pocketed the girl but had been caught red handed, there was a group surrounding the women and children threatening to call the police and as soon and the bus stopped she stood up spat in the girls face and ran off the bus. At least the girl got her money back right!? It just goes to show, pick pocketers will do anything to distract you, small child and cute baby, no-one would expect her to be stealing from you while she feeds her kid right? The girls who were helping me get back to the campsite informed me it was time to get off and back we went. I changed and got straight into the pool, it was so hot!! I was telling the girls on my tour about the lady on the bus and they too had the same experience with the same lady! Except my friends were the victims, lucky they caught her before it was too late! Close call. That night 9 people from our tour were leaving and 5 people were joining. We went to the bar and gave them an amazing send off, we crossed dressed laughed and danced the night away. Rome glorious Rome, thank-you for such an amazing few days.

Greece

Today we begin our journey to Greece…we jumped on an overnight ferry, we showered enjoyed the sunset and had an early night, 11 hours sleep in a real bed rocked gently by the ocean. Pure peaceful bliss! 

We arrived in Greece drove a short while and finally we arrived at the harbour, it was raining, thunder and lightening but it was still warm, nothing better than a swim in the ocean in a thunderstorm right? So I jumped in! The water was warm and refreshing, and I was alone, none cared to join me, it was nice! I got out and dressed and headed to the bar for a drink and some food while my captain and assistant captain were informed on how to sail a yacht. So heres the low down. Sailing around the Greek Islands for three days. 6 people on each boat. The top deck 'office' choose who sails together and who will be the captain and assistant. On my boat I had Jackie and Ru, Chris and Tim (Chris is the pregnant babe) and myself and Aaron. Tim was the captain and Aaron was his assistant. The main captain man himself who would help us over a radio if we needed it was briefing them and teaching them how to work the sails and everything else.

Once the rain had stopped and everyone was briefed and ready to go we headed out. We didn't sail the first day due to the lack of wind, so we had our motors on and we dotted along the ocean until we reached a nice little bay, where we docked our boats and headed up to the restaurant where we would be having our dinner. We chilled out by the pool, swam, dived, bombed made a lot of noise and had a lot of fun until it was time to get ready for Dinner. Greek food. Omg its so good. The greeks know how to make a good salad! After a night of food, fun, socialising and late night swimming (goodbye sunglasses and watch :( ) we headed to bed ready for a full day of sailing the next day. Uptime! Morning swim with Ru and Scotty to clear the head and freshen the body, breakfast, clean the boat ready for inspection and off we set. We motored out to the open ocean and we put our sails up for the first time. We were such an amazing team! We had Chris who was an amazing chef, she'll be a great mum, Tim and Aaron who did all the hard work, putting the sails up and putting the anchor down and pulling it up again, Jackie and Ru the best drivers the world has known and me, no1 sunbather and navigator. We worked so well, from the back to the front we kicked butt and over took our fellow topdeckers, our sails were perfect our driver knew exactly how to steer into the wind and me keeping our driver on track when she couldn't see. The ocean is so peaceful. We

sailed along silently we soaked in the sun, my mind was completely empty. I took the time to embrace the emptiness my mind had taken on, and fully relaxed my body. It was time to recoup after two weeks of tiering travel and late nights. We stopped for a swimming and lunch break and headed off to our next destination. We arrived, docked our boats and played some cards with the crew, when the time came we headed over to the restaurant where we had our dinner. All night I had a bad case of the rocks! I don't know what else to call it, I felt like I was still on the boat my body felt like it was swaying, actually I felt really drunk, but I wasn't at all I was sober as can be, but I was moving, in my head I was moving. We were sitting and eating our meals, and I was sure we were moving. We weren't, but I'm sure we were. We had some lessons in Greek dancing and watch some guys put a corner of a table in their mouth and lift it up and dance with it, it was a crazy night, and the Greek family who owned the restaurant were so so lovely and nice to talk to! Eventually we made our way back to the boats and rested for our last day of sailing.

More sailing, more relaxing more swimming more sunbathing more restoration. And we arrived back to where we started. Showers dinner and a night to celebrate Greece. It had been a great few days relaxing and getting to know the people on our boats better. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, sailing around Greece, I thought the towns we would stop at in the evenings would be more busy, and maybe see some ruins or your stereotypical Greek buildings and houses, I thought the group would be all together on a big yacht not separate. Actually it was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip, sailing around the Greek Islands, but it wasn't anything I expected it to be. In all honesty I was disappointed, I wanted more from the sailing than what I got, we paid for the trip so at least let us pick who we sail with? But while I say that, I had an amazing time, nothing was bad, it was awesome learning how to sail a boat completely on our own, and I did throughly enjoy the people I sailed with. We slept our last nights on the boats and the next day we cleaned up and set off for Tirana.

Tirana, Albania.

Albania is a very poor country and only just recently has opened its boarders for tourists to come and travel through. There is a lot of poverty, things are done the old fashioned way. Its almost like taking a step back in time, so for the drive to Tirana I sat up the front of the bus by Niell, our bus driver, so I could take in as much as possible. For some parts of the drive the landscape was very similar to something you would see driving from Te-Anau to Queenstown, mountains and rivers, some dried up, some fast flowing. Green then brown.. very pretty, then the closer we got to Albania, the more it turned to farm land and small towns. I seen a handful of men and women in paddocks, digging up their land and sowing there seeds all by hand, there were people walking down the main road with big wagons full of wood or food, people were walking their cows, feeding them on the side of the roads. Young boys selling food on the side of the streets to make some money. It wasn't like anything I had seen in Europe but it was very pretty in its own way. The houses were all quite small and mostly run down, locals were sitting outside the shops chatting and staring at passing vehicles. The old men had their tops off and belles out the children kicking an old ball around on the roads. People were making the most of what they had, I think, I never talked to these people, this is just what I observed from my seat in the front of the bus. Its not nice to see the poverty but it is nice to see kids kicking a ball around instead of sitting on their iPad. 

We arrived in Tirana and went straight to a driving tour, a lady, our tour guide for the drive, jumped on the bus and we got started. She started to point out a few random buildings, she never said where they were though, she just said… 'this building here…..' what building? we are moving and there are buildings everywhere, I was struggling to stay awake but was forcing my eyes open, then she pointed out a playground, some shops and a river, thats when i decided this lady was too boring and let myself fall asleep. I woke up just as she was finishing and thanking everyone for listening, I looked around and half the bus was just waking up, ok, good it wasn't just me then!! Finally she was gone and we were at our hotel, yup thats right hotel upgrade!! Yea baby! Myself Jo, Lucy and Jacinta were sharing a room so we grabbed our belongings and headed on up. Big rooms, sitting areas double bed we had it all! We only had one night here…we had dinner at the restaurant enjoyed a few quiet beers and headed to bed, tomorrow we drive to Dubrovnik. Home to Kings Landing, Game of Thrones! :D 

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Croatian and Mediterranean Pearl.

The drive to Dubrovnik was a scenic one, driving through Montenegro offered impeccable views. We stopped off in a gorgeous City called Budva for a few hours to enjoy the scenery and get some food. We walked down to the beach front, got some food, shopped for some new sunglasses, seeing as the Greek ocean ate mine, and headed down to the old city. A beautiful little area, with cobbled streets and little shops. After a bit of a wonder around we headed along a little track that took us around the coast for some beautiful pictures. Before long it was time to head back to the coach to finish our journey to Dubrovnik. Such a neat little town, a great place to stretch the legs and smash down some food. Sweet as! 

We arrived in Dubrovnik set up camp and headed into town for a night time guided walking tour of the city, not from Flavio unfortunately, instead we had a local guide who was nearly as good, but not quite. Dubrovnik is breathtaking. The town is lovely, really nice and pretty, the old town is extravagant. It is pristine. It glows of supreme supremacy! I know what you thinking, your thinking can you even write them two words together in a sentence, yes. yes you can, if your going to try and describe the old town in Dubrovnik, you can make up a sentence of only intense adjectives and put them together, and it is ok. Because Dubrovnik is that good that you can do that. After the walking tour we met up with the Italian Stallion that we call Flavio, and headed back into the old town. Walking through this place is, I wanna say magical but it doesn't seem to do it justice. So the main street, everything is a really

beautiful white-ish colour like its cream but it glows a white radiance, the ground looks like it should be an iceskating rink, its so shiny and smooth and it feels luxurious to walk on. The buildings are the same, tall and glowing, they have nice windows with a deep beautiful green coloured shutters on either side, the shutters are usually always open, which is welcoming. The street lights are coming off the buildings and they aren't a tacky blue or green or orange/fire coloured light, they are pure white which makes it feel clean and like there should be diamonds falling from the sky. The streets are glitzy! Ok so maybe this sounds really dramatic to you, but unless you are there you can't possibly understand the pure beauty this place holds. It is so clean, it smells nice and the people are beautiful. Here try this… Dubrovnik's appeal lies in its well-built simplicity and functionality :) there maybe that explains it. 

We enjoyed gorgeous wine together in the back streets of the old town, which are equally lovely. This place is a buzzing little town. 

After an amazing night together….we went to bed ready for the next day.

Today Flavio went above and beyond for me, unfortunately for me I broke my phone in Rome, it fell from my pocket during some crazy good dance moves, so Flavio was helping me find a place to repair it. So, me, Flav and Scotty set off from the campsite and walked into town, we stopped off in one shop, no they don't repair phones, so off we plodded onto the next, nope they don't repair phones either. Do they know where we can repair phones? Um maybe down the road, poor Flavio, I felt bad, I should be doing this myself!! Off we went to the next place and then the next and the next and then we were pretty much in the city centre and we couldn't find anywhere that was open or that could help. It was really hot so we stopped off into a cafe bar for a cold drink. This had to be the funniest morning I'd had in a while. We talked about needing to buy Scotty a hat, and we were good we were thanks for asking. We even talked about cats. So many cats. It sounds boring, it was one of those had to be there days. My favourite thing about Flav is his comical cat impressions, if your reading this and you know Flav, please ask him to give you happy cat, angry cat impressions. Too good! Im not sure if I'm laughing with him or at him though… haha! After some good laughs and cold drinks we headed off into town, Flavio pointed out some sweet spots for us to check out and he headed off to the island for some nude sunbathing! Haha! Thanks for your help Flavio, I'm lucky to have such a kind friend.

Scotty and I carried on, we wanted to check out the wall around the old city but because we are trying to save as many pennies as we can we decided not to walk the actual wall itself, as you have to pay, but instead we went up as high as we could and walked around the high streets of the Old Town, we had beautiful views of the houses, which are all very pretty and all have terracotta-tiled roofs all similar shades of light red and oranges.

The streets are narrow and pretty, there are little holes in the walls you have to duck through and on the other side is stunning views on the ocean, small cafes and bars are set up here, people swimming and drinking, the atmosphere is so cool. We walked through the most beautiful places and we also found a really rank, disgusting corner I wish we never went to, one thing that was nice about that disgusting corner was the cute little kittens running around!! Oh look at them, they are so…..GROSS ughhhhhhhh :( WHY!!! One of the kittens eyes was not an eye but a big ball of fleshy red stuff! It turned its head and looked right at me with its, thing! UGH, and then the smell hit me hard, cat pee, and poo, and vomit and ugh
dead end, cats everywhere, wild cats that stunk, with little baby kittens with scabby faces! RUN! We left as quickly as possible and I actually felt sick. The smell was that bad. I wanted to vomit. That was awful. Just that one small run down area infested with homeless, unloved cats :(. We had explored enough and were ready to head to an Island just off the mainland, we bumped into the kiwi girls and we all headed to the Island Lokrum together to sunbathe relax and swim. We ate good expensive gourmet pizza, watched the peacocks flash their pretty tails and headed back to our campsite to get ready for the evening. Day two in Dubrovnik, was beautiful and unfortunately it was over.

Thanks Dubrovnik, I'll be back. 

Fun Facts: Dubrovnik is among the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world.

The State of Dubrovnik was among the first countries to abolish slave trade in the 15th century. It seems the country valued freedom even that far back.

Game of Thrones, Kings landing is filmed here.

Only 12 days left!!