leaning tower and the rest

well in my last blog i believe i finished somewhere halfway thru Rome on my whirlwind tour of italy. the last blog was way to long, so ill summerise my remaining adventures a bit. - our last day in rome finished with a visit to st. peters church, its the biggest catherdral in the world, and really was cool, lined up with about 500 other people for half an hour to get in, but it was worth it. we climbed up 326 stairs to get to the top of the dome and look down inside the church, the detail and decoration blew me away. was awesome. all the walls are like mosaics and they are about 40-50m high, thats one huge work of art, i cant imagine sitting there for 30 years just decorating one wall. unreal. the pope also gives his weekly blessing on wednesday, the day we went, if we were organised and prepared to wait in a queue all night for about 18 hours, (we were neither) we actually would have got to see him. but we saw it on the big screen outside the church, the square they hold it in was massive and filled to capacity with people; and when he actually came out, everyone went nuts, it was more like a rock concert, everyone was screaming and taking thousands of photos, didnt seem like a very religious occasion. we also went into the vatican museum, where the sistine chapel is housed. that was also very cool as it took michelangelo 23 years to paint the roof, he built scaffolding up to the roof and lay on his back painting everyday for the best part of 23 years. great dedication.

We left rome about 6pm and anticipated that our ride up to pisa would be reasonably short. 4 hours and 15 mins later we pulled into pisa, found our campsite pretty easily. it was a cool place to stay we were staying in this little cabin thing, kinda looked like a caravan inside. the place had a nice pool, resturant, bar etc. a quality little place, but as we got there after midnight everything was shut. rose bright and early then next morning to check out the tower; it was 800m away from our hut, but it took us 2 hours to actually see it, due to the market lined streets and the fact i was travelling with 2 girls. and thats all there is in pisa- a small town which is famous for dodgey construction of tall buildings. it really does lean a long way, i think its 4.6m off perpendicular, doesnt sound like much; but its heaps when you see it leaning out from behind other straight buildings.

caught the train to florence from pisa, was a short ride only about an hour or something, got there about 3pm, but we didnt find our hostel until about 8pm, as we did not know how to read street signs properly. the word 'via' does not have the same meaning as in english, im still not really sure what it means, but it made our job hard. ended up being a place we had walked past like 5 times, quality, went to explore the city at night; and one of my thongs broke, was devastated. bought by a mate from walmart in the states last year for 99cents, they were the best, so i had to wear shoes for the rest of the trip, im not a huge fan of shoes. we found a cool little bridge that was pretty crowded with people, listening to these guys play really cool accoustic covers, just chilled there for a few hours and soaked it all in. bought the biggest gelati(?)(ice cream) the cone was probably about 30cm tall and had 6 giant scoops in it; seriously tok me a good half an hour to polish off. we also saw the statue of david in one of the museums and heaps of other old and supposedly significant builings, i cant remember them all.

we headed off to the island of venice and have a wicked time, was heaps of fun, venice is kinda hard to describe, its pretty much 117 small islands all separated by canels or rivers (that really wasnt too hard) take a normal city and replace the road with a canal, swap the busses for waterbusses, police cars for police boats, ambulances, taxis etc, its cool as, like another world. at night we chilled at the rialto bridge and san marcos square, just taking it all in. you'll recognise the bridge if you see it, pretty famous. and san marcos square is where everyone feeds the pidgeons, there are millions everywhere, you can buy bags of feed for €1, the pidgeons see you walking for the stand and just attack you immediately, one of the girls bought a bag and was kinda scared just holding some on her hand, so i threw the whole bag over her and the pidgeons- lets say they moved in quickly/swarmed/frenzy attacked her... lets also say i wasnt too popular with her for a few minutes, but it was heaps funny and we got some cool snaps of it. also went up to murano. another little island where they make the best stuff out of glass, pretty much the whole island is glass, thats all they do. the coolest stuff ive ever seen; if i even make a fortune ill go to venice and furnish my house with their glass. totally awesome.

Milan was the last place on the list and we got there rather late from venice another midnight check in. get free brekkie in the morning, and as we had pretty much starved the whole week, that was welcomed, i think we ate for then we paid for the room. bargain. as it was sunday most of the shops were closed, but all the catherdrals were open, so we checked out one of those, which wasnt overly exciting after looking at virtually the same thing every day all week, before i left the uk i checked to see if there were any football matches in milan, there was at 2pm, and i said i am going to watch this match even if im by myself. they wanted to see another church or museum or something, so i headed off solo style. i didnt have a clue how to get there, some guy pointed which way i should catch the tube, i was hoping i would see some supporters i could follow, but the station was dead. then i head them singing from about 500m away, 2 dudes came down the stairs totally decked out in their inter milan gear singing their team songs at the top of their lungs, great timing. so i tried to talk to them(no english) i indicated i was going to the san siro to watch the football( andrew does football kicking motion-they instantly understood) and i also told them i was from australia, all they said was 'kewell, viduka, good'. so even though we spoke different language we could still laugh and point at stuff and thats about it, but they were cool and showed me where i could get tickets and the best place to sit. i sat in the hardcore fans section, where you walk thru the gates accompanied by riot police and thru 2 metal detectors, more security than the airport in milan. the section was the 2nd tier right behind the goal and it was buzzing. the game started at 3pm, at 2:30 the whole section was up and chanting, noone sat down or stopped yelling until 10mins after the final whistle-including half time, there are 6 guys with megaphones at the front railing/riot police and they coordindate all the chants/songs, i cannot describe the atmosphere, unbelievable- it was slightly better than the brisbane strikers home supporters. inter milan won 3-0 over treviso(?) the crowd went nuts, was the perfect way to round off a wicked trip through italy, i had the best fun, but now im back at the hotel grinding out long days in the gym. fun. off to sweden in 2 weeks, should be a bit of fun, as long as i keep travelling ill be happy. until next time keep smilin :) andyb