Chapter 7 - From London to Rome

After spending a couple of days catching the sights in the city of London, we flew to Madrid, Spain on 22 October. Given that we're on a budget we're unable to afford a hotel/backpackers hostel in each city that we visit. Therefore, we found a website (www.couchsurfing.com) that links past and present travellers around the world all offering free accommodation at their place for a night or two. We had our first Couchsurfing experience in Pinto (20km south of Madird) where we stayed with a 40 year old man called Max for 2 nights. Max showed us around Madrid and left us at the famous art museum "Mueso del Prado". Had we have been keen art lovers, Madrid would have been fantastic however we are not, and although it offered some nice historic buildings, the city disappointed us somewhat.

From Madrid we took a budget flight to Barcelona in the southeast of Spain. Sitting right on the Mediterranean, Barcelona did not disappoint. The city has fantastic historical architecture and a great pedestrian boulevard "Las Ramblas" which stretches from the city centre down to the waterfront and beaches. An interesting fact about the city is it once had a very eccentric, Catholic architect, Antoni Gaudi. His presence is very much felt there because his extremely bizarre "masterpieces" are scattered throughout the city. The only downside to the city was our coughing, groaning, snoring roommate in our backpackers hostel, we were honestly surprised he woke up alive each morning after the fits he had during the night.

We had planned to head straight to Nice and the French Riviera from Barcelona, however at the last minute a couchsurfer offered us a place to stay in Briancon, a small village right in the centre of the French Alps. Our 12 hour train ride along the south coast of France to Briancon turned into a 16 hour journey due to our lack of French and the French's lack of English assisting us to miss a train in Montpellier. However the journey was worth it. Briancon has a population of 13,000 and is situated in a valley surrounded by rugged snow-capped mountains, the scenery is great. The hospitality and trust of the couch surefers has amazed us. We stayed with a doctor (GuyRo) and his girlfriend (Celine) for four nights. GuyRo picked us up from the train station after middnight, gave us a key to his house and offered us everything he owned before he'd had a chance to even determine whether we were trustworthy people. We spent one day hiking in the alps to a summit 2000 metres above sea level, and another day with GuyRo and Celine where we drove through a section of a stage of the Tour de France to the nearby Italian city of Turino (host city of the 2006 winter olympics).

From Briancon we took a train to the Cote d Azur (also called the French Riviera) and based ourselves in Nice to explore the surrounding towns. We stayed in a great hostel which had been converted from an old former monastery and amazingly contained 8 other Tasmanians, two of which recognised me (Jim) from the university gym!

We took a bus ride along the mountain roads hugging the Mediterranean to visit the tiny, glamorous, exclusive sovereign state of Monaco (Monte Carlo), playground and tax haven to the rich and famous. The Prince is married to former Hollywood actress Grace Kelly. The streets are lined with Ferraris, Mercedes and Porsches (we couldn't spot a Datsun) and the ports are lined with million dollar luxury yachts. They let us into the world famous casino, but only as far as the toilets (which were impressive).

Our day in Nice will be remembered for being eye-witnesses (it happened right in front of us) to a lady running her motorbike scooter head on into a traffic light pole, fly over the front and end up unconscious in the gutter in a pool of blood with a big hole in her head. We were first on scene but coudnàt help a great deal as we didn't have a phone and didn't know the emergency number to call anyway. We are sure next time she will put her helmet on and not leave it strapped to the front of her bike.

From Nice we took an overnight train to the romantic, floating city of Venice. It is built on 117 islands with 150 odd canals. There are no cars. All public transport is via the canals (on water buses) or on your feet. Getting lost in the maze of alleyways is inevitable. Two days of walking the streets, checking out the Grand Canal and feeding the pigeons in San Marco Square was enough, so it was then on to Italy's Tuscany region, where we based ourselves in Florence.

Florence is a beautiful city with a huge artistic heritage (home of Michelangelo). Unfortunately it also overflows with tourists. If you were an art lover you'd be in heaven (all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are represented) however we weren't prepared to wait 2-4 hours in each queue. Instead, we visited the huge Duomo in the city center, and crossed the Ponte Vecchio (only bridge not destroyed by Nazi bombing in WWII) to overlook the city on top Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset.

We spent two days touring around smaller cities in the Tuscany region. The first day we went to Pisa and Siena by train and the second day we went to San Gimignano by bus. Without the leaning tower you'd struggle to find a reason to go to Pisa (apparently the tower started tilting when only 3 of the tower's 7 tiers were completed). Siena and San Gimignano were picturesque, medieval towns in the heart of Tuscany surrounded by olive groves interlocked with vineyards.

When it comes to seeing the sites in Rome, apparently a lifetime is not enough. We managed to see what we wanted in 3 days. From being left awestruck by St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City (the world's smallest country) to ancient ruin hopping through the likes of the Pantheon and Colosseum, Rome has been a fantastic finale to our favourite European country thus far, Italy.

After spending the last ten days eating pasta, pizza and gelati we may need to sit at opposite ends of the plane to keep it balanced. Our newly acquired insulation will hopefully help us in the cool climate of Scandinavia as that is our next destination.