From this moment on

Waking up in Rome, such a surreal thing, travelling somewhere so different, I always find myself thinking, 'wow'. 16 days in, still sick, still a very sore tailbone (I do have fears it might be cracked or a severely bruised bone), but still trying to do my very best every day to have a great time.  We had another early start today and most of us had chosen to do the Vatican City tour, we had a local guide take us through the Musee Vaticani and through some different galleries, into the Sistine Chapel and through to St Peters Basilica. There was little to no air conditioning throughout the entirety of the tour, so we all walked out dripping with sweat. But for me it was worth it, I love the history surrounding this place and all that comes with it - it was just as exciting for me now as it was 7 years ago.  I don't think I will ever be able to express how beautiful St Peters Basilica is so ill just put some of the photos below. Amazing. Truly a place of God. After the tour h...

Another day another dollar - oh wait...I don't have to go to work today. Haha. We have another drive day today to get to Rome - our last stop in Italy before getting into Greece and the Greek Islands. It was about 4-5 hours from Florence to Rome and we had an early lunch stop at a little town called Orvieto.  It was a beautiful little town except for one fact - it was on the absolute top of a mountain - making it very had to take over in war and times of unrest. Noddy told us that the last person to conquer Orvieto was Julius Caesar - she also told us that they were famous for their porchetta panini's (wild boar rolls)... We had to try one. Being a town on a giant cliff face we had to catch a strangle little train/carriage thing from the bottom to the top. We then had a very steep walk up to the town centre - Orvieto also had a Duomo that looked like a liquorice all-sort on one side.  We had some free time so some of the group went to do a tour of the underground tunnels of th...

Florence, a beautiful place with some beautiful building, magnificent artworks, fantastic food and the weather? BLOODY HOT! It peaked at about 36 degrees in the afternoon in Florence. We started our day by driving from our campsite into the City - most of our accommodation is a fair way outside the city. Once we got there we had to go and meet our local tour guide - Florence is one of a few places in Europe where the Topdeck leaders are not allowed to guide.  Alessandro... Oh Alessandro, he was one of the most hilarious Italian tour guides I have ever seen. He had a very good sense of humour and he seemed a little penis obsessed haha. He showed us around the Palazzo della Signoria, which currently is where the Mayor of Florence works from and houses and exact copy of Michelangelo's David and many other very famous statues from when the Medici's were in power in Florence.  We walked through the streets of Florence looking at all the shops (making mental notes of where we wanted...

Day 13 - what a long day!! It was, surprise surprise, another driving day. Departing my beautiful Venezia and heading into the magical hills of Tuscany. The home of some the best wines in the world. Our driving day started off like any other - drive drive drive, bored bored bored, toilet stop, drive drive drive, bored bored bored, but then we stopped at Pisa.  Pisa is only a small town in the rand scheme of things and we were able to walk in and see the amazing, architecturally confusing, leaning tower of Pisa. It was a long walk from the coach parking to the Town Square, which housed the Leaning Tower, a beautiful cathedral and a marble cemetery building (which was a little creepy). I'm slowly starting to realise that everything we do seems to be quite a long and painful walk from the coach parking. Those Topdeck bastards!  It was so goddam hot and Alysha and I were both feeling pretty homesick so we took our typical tourist shots of the tower and headed back to the bus. Alon...