Fethiye and Pamukkale

After the boat we had a few more days to spend in Fethiye. We spent the remainder of our days shopping and perusing the shops, eating delish Turkish food and picking out Turkish Delight (of which there were so many flavours!

 

Picking out Turkish Delight

Delish gozleme - spot the bit of cheese hanging onto my finger

 But by far the most memorable part of Turkey, perhaps even of our whole trip, was Pamukkale. Pamukkale is a set of beautiful limestone pools with the clearest water. There are thermal springs underneath which makes way for a stunning warm thermal pool and rapids. The pictures do speak for themselves, so that's what I shall post. Enjoy!

  

The second to last photo is of the thermal pool and the other photos are of the limestone pools. Absolutely stunning!! After Turkey we were off to our final destination... Paris.

- A x

I'M ON A BOAT

Arrival/Day 1

After our flight from Istanbul we had one night at the hostel before getting on the boat. We were exhausted after no sleep the previous night and so pretty much slept the whole day/night. We were meant to be on the boat at 4pm, however, we had to wait for over an hour outside the tour place until we were finally taken to our boat! Once on the boat, we were assigned our rooms. Rosie and I were sharing a double bed down one end of the boat. Each room had it’s own ensuite and we were pretty happy to be getting a room to ourselves (a lot of the other rooms had to share between 3). The rooms were a lot nicer/more spacious than I was expecting, as when I did Sail Croatia last year, run by the same company, the rooms were absolutely unbearable.

After getting settled we all introduced ourselves… there were 18 of us (I think?), with all but 3 being girls and everyone between the ages of 18 and 25. As we were heading out from the harbour it was super rocky and one of the girls was the first to stack it… pretty lols. At 8pm it was dinner time! Luckily one of the crew members, Imat, was a former chef and made epic food every night! We had a feast of grilled fish and other assorted things like rice, potatoes, salad etc. After dinner the drinking began and everyone sort of started to go into groups. Rosie and I made mates with Guy (WHO IS COMING TO SYDNEY YOU BETTER BE READING THIS NIGSAC), who was fucking hilarious and gave us a run down of his impressions of all the boatmates likening us to the Big Brother house. We ended up getting pretty drunk with two of the other girls, Bonnie and Kylie from Perth. I told everyone I was ‘probably the best swimmer on the boat’ and wanted to go swimming but the crew said there were crabs in the water… devo (probs lying though). Bonnie decided to get her pants off and twerk on the table and ring the dinner bell (pretty hilarious) and Guy stacked it down the stairs (I didn’t see it but lols again) and threw his wine bottle into the water. Don’t think the crew were too impressed by how late we stayed up but YOBO (you only boat once).   

Sunset during dinner on the boat

Day Two

Today we went first to Butterfly Valley (supposedly a valley with lots of butterflies but because of the time of the year there were none… awesome). It was in a little cove and the bloody cliffs were blocking the sun from our tanning expeditions. In protest I tried to swim to the beach bar but halfway a jellyfish swarm attacked me. Not cool. After awhile we went to Blue Lagoon, which was my favourite place that we went on the trip. It was so pretty and sunny! Next, we sailed to another place where we were to stay for the night. There were cute little boats with little old women making Gozleme…sadly we had just had lunch and were so full we couldn’t fit it in. Devo. We were pretty hungover tonight so didn’t drink, but we did get a sick dessert which the crew carved to make look like an echidna out of fruit! 

 

Diving into the Blue Lagoon

 

Blue Lagoon

 

Gozleme Boat!

Day Three

Today was the day Guy decided to make his birthday…because you always get free shit on birthdays right? We had a swim and snorkel at some random spot and then went on to dock at a town called Kas. Here we bought some vodka (the drinks on the boat were pretty pricey and we wanted to get drunker) and one of the boys from the boat, Liam from Canberra, tried to fish. He didn’t catch any fish but he did catch a beer bottle #fail. That night we had to celebrate Guy’s birthday! We bought balloons and the crew put up a Happy Birthday sign and we all drank to his youth. We played King of Beers and oh my god, Amy (from the Central Coast, a.k.a. Fat Amy, a.k.a. Fames) had an epic rule ‘GameMaster’. The Game Master has complete control of the game when they have the Game Master card and the power may have gotten a little bit to my head when it was my turn. People had to skull their drinks left right and center… particularly Guy who then booted up his dinner. We then had birthday cake thanks to Captain Kahn, but Guy threw his into the water #ungrateful. Caitlin from Canberra hooked up with the captain and could absolutely not remember a thing the next day. At about 3am she knocked on the door of our room with no pants on and threw up in our toilet… I had to go and get her clothes from Kahn’s room and then demonstrate to Kahn how to properly lie her on her side instead of her back so she wouldn’t choke on her own vom. Great night.

 Liam fishing - if you look closely you can see all the fish!

 Fail jump off the boat

SELFIEZ WITH FRIENDZ

Day Four

Today we stopped in Kerkova for the day which was a cute little town with lots of markets and shops. I bought a few presents and some chill pants for myself and we got homemade peach, banana and hazelnut icecream mmmm. Next we went to Smuggler’s Bay and chilled out, trying to sleep off the hangover. That night we had ‘small boat service’ take us out to a club. We got fuckkkkeed up. I decided it would be a great idea to make mates with the bartender and everytime I would go to the bar he would pour me a drink and then pour vodka in my mouth. Then later in the night I became the bartender… and was making drinks for everyone behind the bar and not charging them… swag. Don’t remember much but I went to pee and lost my shoes then pretended to everyone that some bitch stole them. The next morning told everyone the truth… muahahaha. Passed out with my head on the toilet seat… pretty classy. Rosie apparently more drunk than me and did not get out of bed the whole of the next day.

 

Sunbaking on deck

 Kerkova

 Amazing icecream

 

Playing Titanic

Day Five

Literally nothing happened today. Everybody was so fucked from last night and we just laid around and chilled. Got some pretty bad news from Kahn… storm was a’coming. Fuck. Tried to sleep on the deck but got rained on so had to sleep inside. Rocky night…

 Having a swim!

Day Six

Worst day. Being stuck on a boat in the freezing cold rain is not fun especially when there is next to no shelter. Everybody was in a bad mood and getting a bit snippy. We docked in Fethiye and being the princess I am, I checked into a hotel with Fames. Didn’t have to pay though which was good. Had the worst nachos known to man… where was the cheese? I have no idea. Most people went out drinking tonight but I was still feeling like ass so just had a frozen Pina Colada and then back to my warm hotel.

Day Seven

Last day on the boat. Most people were still staying in Fethiye so goodbyes weren’t so sad. We chilled. And slept. Noice.

Cheerz to Guy for the prompts from our trip. It’s all a little bit of a blue, hungover blur for me but I had loved the boat and met some sick people! Would 100% recommend to anyone going to Turkey. It’s an epic way to see the coastline. Just hopefully for you it doesn’t storm .

ISTANBUL

And so we have arrived in the land of the cock… TURKEY. We got picked up from the airport by our hostel ‘Bada Bing’ and received a private transfer to our accommodation. There was a lot of traffic coming into the city but that gave us the chance to see some pretty cool stuff! There were men walking down the middle of the road selling all sorts of things – from pretzels to iphone chargers to bottles of water. The most amazing thing by far that we saw however, was dolphins! There were whole pods of them swimming in the local harbour, ‘The Bosphorus’, amongst fishermen and boats. We even saw one of them do a flip out of the water. A pretty rad welcome to Istanbul I thought.

Once at our hostel we settled in and discovered we were in an 8-bed dorm full of boys. Most of them were really nice – Australians and Scottish. However, it is now time to introduce you to shit people you meet in hostels #3 – Saudi Arabian dude. We don’t know his name, only that he was an absolute weirdo. He had perfect English, even a slight American accent, but still spoke at a shout the entire time to make sure he was understood. He had the same conversation with us every day (‘where are you guys from?’, ‘where are you going?’, ‘how are you getting there?’, ‘can I come?’ – jokes on the last one but ahhhh dear). The weirdest thing he did though, was have a conversation with Rosie in the shower. The showers were mixed and he decided it would be a good idea to get in the shower right next to Rosie and have a full on conversation about her favourite movies and books. He even said “HOW COOL IS IT THAT WE CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION IN THE SHOWER! AWESOME RIGHT!!!!!!!!”. We were pretty stoked to be shot of him. Our first night we went out to dinner and had an amazing self service meal of traditional dips and stuffed vegetables for only $5 each. Amazing!! We had a pretty early night because we were exhausted from our travels and knew that there would be a lot to do the next day.

For our first full day in Istanbul we of course decided to shop! The most famous shopping place in Istanbul is called the Grand Bazaar, so we wanted to go there first. The bazaar was absolutely stunning with lanterns, shisha pipes, jewellery and beautiful clothes hanging off every surface. This, teemed with spices and Turkish delight displays, made for a massive eye orgasm. Lots of shopping was done here today, and we got lost several times because the bazaar is huge and has so many exits and entries. We celebrated our shopping expedition with a traditional Turkish pide – my kind of food! So good. On our way home we stopped by a Turkish delight store and picked out some yum flavours including chocolate, hazelnut and almond. We went to our hostel’s rooftop terrace, which was a cool atmosphere with beanbags and Turkish murals, and demolished them. The boys in our room were going out for a pub crawl, but we were meant to be having an overnight bus the next night and had a lot to see before that, so we called it an early night.

 Laterns at the Grand Bazaar

 Our rooftop terrace

 Turkish Delight

The next day we went to the spice market! Smaller than the Grand Bazaar but similar in concept, the Spice Market was a large hall filled with small shops selling all types of spices, sweets, teas and soaps. Whilst walking through we were greeted by shop assistants with ‘angels! Angels!’, and ‘THE SPICE GIRLS!’. We didn’t get anything here as we weren’t sure how legit it would be to take it back into Australia but the displays were great to see nonetheless. On our way to the next destination we again went with our tradition and stopped for sweets, this time getting baklava – which tastes 100 times better in Turkey than it does in Aus! 

 

The Spice Markets

Delicious Baklava

Our next and final destination on our Istanbul trip was the Blue Mosque! It was so huge and detailed and definitely a sight to see. We didn’t go in however, as it was during prayer that we were there and you also had to wear headscarves, which we didn’t own. We later found out that you could hire them at the door but oh well! The outside was beautiful to see – that was enough for me. You see a lot of religious buildings in Europe and to be honest they all kind of blend into one in the end… as long as I see the outside it’s checked off the list…is that bad of me to say??

 

The Blue Mosque

That night we were supposed to catch and overnight bus into Fethiye, where we were to start our Turkey sail. HOWEVER…the stupid transfer was late so we missed our bus and were not reimbursed for it whatsoever, so had to book a flight and stay the night at the airport. NOT IMPRESSED with the bus company whatsoever, and would highly recommend to anyone travelling around Turkey to JUST FLY (because it’s not that expensive), or make sure you book with a reliable source and have your transfer come a lot earlier than intended just in case. Istanbul was a very beautiful city with lots to see, however, we did have to cover up a lot more than in other places we had been simply to avoid being stared at. I realise this is the culture that we were intruding on, but for that reason I did feel slightly less safe in Istanbul than other cities and would prefer to go with a larger group/males if I were ever to go again!  Next stop was our Turkey Sail, which I will post about in the next week.

- Andie

Zante and Corfu

Greece

Stepping onto the ferry in Bari, we were looking forward to getting to Greece – sunshine; water and lots of drinking awaited us! First, however we had to endure the 16 hour overnight ferry from 8pm-1pm the next day. We booked ‘deck’ tickets, which we were led to believe resembled airline, however once we boarded the ferry we realised just how wrong we were. We were taken to the ferry café, where we were told we would spend the remainder of the journey. Great!! Just as we were settled in a team of 30 odd Greek motorcyclists who were so loud, and spoke no English surrounded us. We were in for a rough night! In the end it wasn’t so bad… we arrived in one piece at Patras and then began our journey to Zante.

We arrived at our hotel, which was comprised completely of English people – from the guests to the staff – and were so happy to have a room to ourselves for the first time in Europe. We had an early night and were excited to spend the next day doing absolutely nothing! And that is exactly what we did. We had beautiful weather the next day and spent it relaxing by the pool and going to the beach. The beach was pretty insane because huge mountains surrounded it and the water was so clear and blue. That night we had our first Greek meal – a shared dip plate and moussaka… mmm so good. For our next night we decided to book a ferry trip around the island to see all the sights.

The day of our tour was unfortunately really overcast, rainy and cold. It was also super windy and so the boat was really rocky and lots of people were getting seasick. We couldn’t stop at lots of the places we were supposed to because of the swell, but we did however stop at the famous Shipwreck/Smuggler’s Cove that was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The water was so blue it looked photoshopped, and the sand was pristine. We took some nice photos and then got back on the boat, and the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. The views were really beautiful but it would have been a lot nicer in the sun. Despite the let down of the tour, we really enjoyed ourselves in Zante. It was nice to slow down and not have to walk around all day looking at the sites. Big cities are beautiful and seeing all the amazing landmarks is definitely something, but we were tired and needed to get a bit of R&R before we went to the crazy party island of Corfu.

The stunning blue waters of Smugglers Cove

 Me and my gal at Smuggler's Cove

 From Zante, we took a 6-hour bus to Athens and then an overnight bus from Athens to Corfu. Overnight transport is never fun, and we arrived at our destination at 6am and got a ride to our hostel – The Pink Palace. The Pink Palace is notorious for partygoers and it did not disappoint as on arrival at 7am we were given the traditional Ouzo shot. Luckily, they had our room ready and we were able to check in and sleep for the day. A lot of our time in Corfu is a bit of a blur! Every night was as fun as the last and we met some awesome people. We are going to miss them all so much!! Shout out to all the Americans and Canadians that made our time so insane – American Dan, Canadian Dan, Karl, Nichole, Savi, Jerome, Johnny, Michaela, Hannah and Gianna. We hope to see you guys again one day and have our own little Corfu reunion. One of the craziest nights was the toga party, where we all wore pink togas and ended up going down to the local bar late at night. Here we got way too silly off absinth shots and one of us may or may not have stolen the resident sex toy… 

 TOGA PARTY

 

Close up of my toga (and messy room)

 Sunset views from our room

 

 Me and one of many tequila shots!

Another highlight of the trip was the kayaking tour. The tour included a 10-metre cliff jump and a climb to a monastery that boasted stunning views. We returned to the Palace and discovered our own private rooftop with a view that was perfect for tanning. The bar was awesome and we fell in love with the two bartenders! There was Billy, a Melbournian who was absolutely awesome and loved feeding us shots especially during 1-euro happy hour, and Sue, an older English lady who wore classic outfits and was the most sarcastic bitch you will ever meet but we loved her for it. The food at the Palace was also amazing – soup and a full plate of food every night including the best pastitsio I have ever eaten. Corfu was definitely one of my favourite places in Europe, and whilst we were sad to say goodbye a bit of a break from drinking and some sleep was needed in order for us to recover and live to see the remainder of our trip. Next is Turkey!

 Kayaking View

Naples & Bari

NAPLES & BARI

DoDgY aS f… Naples is seriously a scary place. It sounds so beautiful though, right? ‘The Bay of Naples’ – more like the ‘Bay of Rapels.”…

The train trip was a nightmare! Some guy that smelt like piss and BO put this card on our seat which was like “I’m so poor I have to feed my brothers, pls give me money PLS’… and then stared at us the entire trip (which was 2 hours). We had to swap trains and he followed us to the station and watched us get on the train. NO MONEY FOR YOU GLEN COCO. Then, on the second train some dodge as dude was sitting in my seat asleep WITH HIS EYES OPEN. Not cool. Once we got there we had to catch a few metros and walk to our hotel which was in the middle of nowhere… luckily the place was an oasis in the crazy, loud city. It was quiet, had a nice bar etc. and if it wasn’t for the fact our room overlooked the highway (and also got the noise from the highway), it would have been perfect.

Our first night there we met this American guy who was a professional kayaker and was planning to kayak from Naples to Crete (which he said was 3000km, not sure because my sense of directions sucks but yeah he said that). He also said back at home he went for 25km runs everyday, went on 3 day hikes, played the piano and the drums and was basically an all round psycho. Pretty impressive though and made our lives look pretty bleak and inadequate. We booked a day tour to Pompeii for the next day (the only reason we actually came to Naples in the first place) and then went to bed.

The next day we woke up early and went on our Pompeii tour. It is so sick how well preserved a lot of Pompeii is and it was really cool to see how well they managed without the technology today and how happy they were as a society. The best part of course was the brothel which still had it’s original ‘menus’ in tact. Basically, clients would come in, point to a frescoe on the wall detailing which sex position they would like that evening and then they went to it. New to the city and need to find the brothel? No probs! Just look for the dicks painted on the road that point in the direction of the whorehouse. You’re set! Seriously though, the people of Pompeii had the most chilled lives. They would wake up, work for a couple of hours and then hit the spa from 12-4.30pm… then hang with the fam for a bit, see their mates and then go get some sex. Win. 

 

Getting excited to learn some fun facts

One of the items on the brothel menu

 Follow the big cement penis Dorothy

The tour was great except for some typical loud and obnoxious Americans who would stop the tour guide in the middle of his spiel to ask “but what’s THAT?” and who held up the bus for about 20mins because they needed to get ‘a roadie’ – babes I think you can wait 10mins for your beer! When we got back from the tour we went to a place recommended by TripAdvisor for amazing pizza (pizza was invented in Naples – it’s one redeeming quality). The pizza was amazing!! So fresh and delicious, definitely the best in all of Italy. So for that, we say thanks to you Naples. Other than that, we were keen to leave.

Next was on to Bari, the town from which we were to catch the ferry to Greece. We weren’t expecting much from the place, we just needed somewhere to stay but it turned out to be one of our favourite places in Italy. We stayed in a cute hostel run by a young couple in the Old Town, surrounding by what you could only call an authentic Italian neighbourhood. Right around the corner from our hostel there were little old ladies making pasta by hand, and men stringing their fishing nets. You could walk the whole town in little under 15 minutes, and see some pretty cool stuff along the way. The church there has the remains of Saint Nicolas (Santa Claus), and you can walk along the city wall and get a great view of the port and town. Whilst we were there, there was a wedding taking place and lots of houses had pink and blue bows on their doors in celebration. During the time of the wedding, what seemed like the whole town came to watch. The bride looked so beautiful and the day was perfect, it was lucky we were there to see it. Also, the food was incredible – some of the best we have had in Italy. The gelato was cray – I had cheesecake, nutella and caramel/coffee and Rosie had coconut, nutella and dark chocolate. It was homemade and sooo good. We were also recommended by the owners of the hostel to go to this little bakery and order focaccia, and I’m so glad because it was probably the best thing I’ve tasted in Italy. So crunchy but soft and just ugh amazing. I would definitely recommend to fit a day in Bari to anyone going to Italy! The day we were to catch the ferry was our last day in Italy, and as sad as we were to say goodbye we really needed to give our waistlines a rest from all our carb up days and finally get to the ocean. Cue the 16 hour ferry ride to come… which I shall explain in my next post on Zakynthos! 

 

Saint Nick

 

Bari Walls

 Epic Gelato

 Best foccacia in the world

Bye bye Italy! We loved you!

Rome-Ing Around

ROME-ING AROUND

We arrived in Rome after an uneventful train ride from Florence and found our hostel pretty easily. We stayed at ‘The Yellow’ – a notorious party hostel – and were checked into our room, which of course was on the 5^th floor. You’ll never guess who we saw in the lobby snorting coke off the ground… COKE GUY FROM FLORENCE!! (just kidding he wasn’t snorting coke but he was there). We made it a rule at the beginning of our trip to never take the elevator and so we climbed up the 5 flights of stairs with our massive packs and sweatily arrived in our 6-bed female dorm. We were so stoked to be in a female dorm because chicks don’t snore, right?? We thought so too, until we met Deirdre.

Enter shit people you meet in hostels #2 – Canadian born Deirdre who immediately on our arrival told us how much she hated Rome because she had no mates and was lonely. She then pretty much asked herself out to dinner after asking us if ‘we were fun to hang out with’ and if ‘we wanted to take a Canadian gal under our wings’. She seemed really sweet, if a bit forward so we asked her to dinner with us. Now she had assumed friendship. The next thing she told us was that she really needed to ‘take a crap’ and that her thighs were chaffed. Great. Oh, and she also snored.

Anyway, we went out to have dinner and meet up with Rosie’s friend Emma, who we were going out with that night. We had probably the shittest dinner possible, with uncooked pasta and still frozen cannelloni… and wine that tasted like it had gone sour. Being us though, we didn’t complain just dealt with it and got drunk. Our rooms had a strict ‘no food or alochol’ rule but being the BADASSES we were we drank for a bit in there anyway with Emma… Deirdre decided this was too much for her and went to sleep early. We on the other hand ventured out to the clubs. One of the supposed ‘best clubs in Rome’ was about a 20min walk away so we headed in that direction only to find out this club was closed all year except for Summer… so we were told to go to the King’s Cross of Rome, Testaccio. We went into a club called l’Alibi which seemed cool and stayed there till about 6am when we decided to head home. The next day we found out that it was actually a gay bar, and the only reason there seemed to be boys paying attention to us was because Friday’s were ‘hetero nights’. All in all it was an epic night except no sleep from our Snorlax days and all night long drinking led to me being very sick the next day.

That didn’t stop me however, as ‘when in Rome’ you have to suck it up and get it on with it. So after we had slept off the majority of our hangovers we took a walk to the beautiful and very busy Trevi Fountain. After battling to get through the throngs of people we managed to get a photo by the water and throw our coins in to make a wish. On our way home we saw what was supposed to be a traditional gladiator chilling on his phone to his gal, “Hey baby, I like your boobs, Col-i-see-um??” – ha ha ohhhhh that was Rosie’s joke not mine, I swear!! 

Throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain

Day Three we decided to tackle the big guns and make our way to the Colosseum and the Forum. My advice for anyone going to Rome and wanting to do the Forum is to GET A TOUR GUIDE because it’s just a bunch of half crumbled buildings and we had no clue where we were or what any of them meant. It was pretty anyway though. The Colosseum was epic and so beautiful and well preserved. Just down the street we had amazing gelato as well, probably the best in Italy – Strawberry Nutella, Hazlenut Nutella and Nutella flavours – we died. We also got amazing pizza! Usually around touristy areas the food is shit so we were pretty impressed with the Colosseum and it’s surroundings to say the least.

 Walking around the Forum

 

Headless statues at the Forum

 Coll-i-see-um

 Epic roast veggie pizza

 Incredible gelato with a view of the Forum

 Inside the Colloseum

For our final day in Rome we visited the Vatican. To say it was busy was a massive understatement. There was a line hundreds of metres long to get into the Sistine Chapel, so we settled for taking photos out the front because we aren’t the most religious of folks. We were thoroughly impressed with all the Pope merchandise though, and came home with great novelty postcards and lighters for the fam. That last night we had the best homemade dessert – one was a traditional Roman dessert with biscuit, cream, and all sorts of other amazing goodness, and also Panna Cotta, which was delicious as always!

 Line to get into the Vatican

 

Being an angel outside the Vatican

 We both loved Rome but it was super hot and I was very sick, and we both were craving the water and the ocean. As much as I love big cities I am definitely a water baby at heart and don’t feel right if I’m not near the ocean so I was very much looking forward to getting to Greece and the water. Our next stop was Naples and I shall have that post coming up soon! 

xx Andie

FLORRRRY TOIIIMMESSS (Florence)

Next, we made it to Florence (affectionately termed ‘florry’ by Paul Gearside), and the weather was less than great – it was cold with a slight drizzle. We found our hostel easily enough and checked in etc. then went off to get some food. In the street down from ours I got the most delicious pesto gnocchi – a great start to our time in Florence.

The first morning we discovered the epic buffet that the hostel offered – complete with lasagne and tiramisu! After smashing a few plates of free food we decided to go on the free walking tour offered but the hostel. It was run by an English speaking Italian woman who didn’t really offer any insight as to whether what she was saying was serious or a joke, leaving all of us thoroughly confused. We were also accompanied on the tour by an Egyptian man that decided it was appropriate to take selfies at every possible moment with his Ipad… with which he was also constantly jotting down the tour guides ‘fun facts’. Hilarious. On the tour we saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge, the most famous bridge in all of Italy, which was beautiful with many jewellery shops jutting off the edges. We also stopped at an excellent homemade Gelato shop where I got pear and grapefruit gelato that literally tasted like frozen fruit (yumm), and Rosie chose their specialty sesame flavour that interestingly tasted like peanut butter. We also saw some amazing grand palaces that put any building in Australia to shame. We finished up in the shopping district and naturally hit H&M and Zara for a few hours of browsing. We then proceeded to get thoroughly lost and exhausted trying to find our way home.

Ponte Vecchio

 Gelato flavours

Eventually we made it back to our hostel, stopping on the way to pick up some vodka, and proceeded to drink with homemade dinner of bread and dip and some fruit. When we had had enough to drink we headed out to the Lions Fountain Pub that was PACKED with American students on their university exchange. There was however one Australian guy who seemed to only talk about cocaine and where he was going to get his next hit. When he learned we weren’t regular coke users he was genuinely surprised and asked us with real concern what we did with our lives and what we did to have fun on the weekends. Great guy!! What made the night further more enjoyable was when a girl decided the floor would be a nice place to throw up. After watching a few girls literally do a slip and slide through the vomit, we decided it was time to leave. However, before this could happen I was innocently standing around waiting for Rosie to go to the bathroom when some drunken American guy knocked over an extremely heavy wooden stool that fell on my pinkie toe. TOETALLY PAINFUL… thought it was broken and limped all the way home in absolute agony… it was toe much.

The next day was spent recovering and resting my toe… was a huge bummer because I really wanted to do the Cinque Terre walk but unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen with my toe (I still can’t wear any shoes other than thongs almost 2 weeks later, but it’s not painful to walk on anymore so that’s a plus!). However, we did decide to book a Tuscan wine tour, which was an awesome day! We met with our tour guide Valentina and around 12 others to go on the ‘Grape Escape’ at about 10am… by 11am we were pretty tipsy of all the wine we tasted! We also got to try out truffle oil (seriously delicious), balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We then headed on to a cute little town called San Gimignano, where we tried ‘the best gelato in italy’ (debatable.. it was good but we tried better later on) and saw the best view of Tuscany! After the town we went to a little old Italian man named Gianni’s house in the countryside. He spoke absolutely no English but greeted us wearing an ‘AUSTRALIA’ t-shirt and two kisses on our cheeks. Here, we tasted more wine and had the most delicious meal. We had a starter platter of cheese, bruschetta and panzanella salad, and then had a main meal of tomato and pesto pasta, and finished with Lemoncello. So good. We said goodbye to Gianni and then were dropped back at our hostel, where we were too tired and hungover to do anything but rest.

 Wine tasting with olive oil, truffle oil and balsamic vinegar

 Enjoying 'woine toime' a little too much

 'The best gelato ever' - not the best but still pretty epic

The beautiful Tuscan countryside 

 

View overlooking San Gimignano

 

Table set for starters at Gianni's

 Authentic Italian pasta for the main course at Gianni's

The next day we did more exploring of Florence, including the beautiful Duomo and a long walk uphill to the Michelangelo Piazza. I think with these pictures can explain more than I ever can.

 At the Duomo

View from the Michelangelo Piazza - Nature side

 View from Michelangelo Piazza - city side.

The day may have started off great but it soon went to shit as we realised we had a new roommate who we will now refer to as Snorlax. Snorlax was an overweight, sweaty Asian who spoke no English and smelled very, very strongly of feet. However, we didn’t realise how much of a problem he would be until we attempted to sleep that night. It was then we realised we were actually sharing the room with the devil. His snores were nothing that I have ever heard coming out of a human’s mouth. They make my dad’s snores sound like that of a tiny baby.  It was excruciating to listen to and meant that I probably only got 3 hours sleep that night. The guy in the bed next to me got none and the next morning told us that was his first and last night to spend in a dorm. Don’t blame him! We prayed and prayed that Snorlax would check out the next day, but to no avail. The only remedy for this was a busy day to tire us out, earplugs and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

So to Pisa we went! The train took about an hour and the city was so small it was no trouble finding the tower without a map.  Just follow the swarms of people…! The tower leans a lot more than it looks like it does in photos, you do really wonder how it stays up! It also looks a lot newer than I thought, it was still a bright white colour after all this time. But I think the best part about Pisa is watching all the tourists miming hilarious ways to incorporate Pisa into photos. If the tower weren’t actually there you would think these people were psychos. There were people lying down with their feet in the air, people sticking their hands in the air in random positions, people kissing the air, people making faces at the air… people everywhere really! We did manage to get some shots ourselves as it’s something everyone needs to do… typical tourist shot. 

 After Pisa we headed back to the hostel to drink ourselves a serious night cap. Snorlax was in the room looking at photos on his computer of Pisa so I thought I would try and start friendly conversation that would hopefully lead to me telling me I hated him and want suffocate him in his sleep… it didn’t go that way unfortunately:

Me: “Did you go to Pisa today?”

Snorlax: “Yes”

Me: “Did you like it?”

Snorlax: “Yes”

Me: “We went too. It was really beautiful.”

Snorlax: “Thankyou”

UMMMM SNORLAX BABES THE LAST THING I WOULD WANT TO DO IS TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! GOD!!

That night I may have had a little too much to drink in my attempt to drown out Snorlax’s snores. Sadlt, that little too much made me lying in bed clutching my stomach all night, again resulting in little sleep. The next day we were off to Rome and saying goodbye to Snorlax forever, and to be honest I couldn’t be happier. Ahh the joys of hostels!

Xx Andie