Southern Descent to the Mediterranean

Hello!

And so here I am in Florence. With less than a week until home.

Home. The place where my bed lives. The place where I can take a shower without having to bring all my toiletries with me. A place with gum trees and supermarkets and cups of Dilmah tea and cheap/delicious restaurants and TV and people who know me...

*Exhale*

HOME.

Less than a week. Wow.

And where have been?

Vienna

Yes, the museum with all the Egon Schiele was fantastic. It was the highlight. I didn't really get into Vienna as a city though, I must say. I really only went for the art galleries of which I only really did one. Alas! I also spent a lovely day with Kim who I met in Cesky Krumlov before I departed to Venice while she planned for Budapest...

Venice

I arrived off the night train, crusty eyed and sore. I stepped outside the station and into the morning sun. My jaw dropped. There it was. Venice. With gondolas on the canals and everything. Wow. I spent 3 days there, and as suggested, I wandered as much as possible around the non-touristy areas and got thoroughly lost and thoroughly delighted many a-time. I didn't really do much but be in Venice. I went to the Peggy Guggenheim, which yes Esther, was flipping awesome. Such a lovely size and weirdly cohesive given it is comprised of really quite different works. Now I've done both the Guggenheims. Sweeeeet...

I stayed in a bungalow in a campground outside the city which although the bungalow was really just a mozzie filled shed, it did allow me a space of my own and thus I slept. Sleep is good. And from then on I have felt infinitely better...

Rome

And having received my second travel wind I headed to Rome, which is really like an ancient history theme park for adults. Yes, I saw all the big famous things. I met some lovely people which made the evenings jolly, even though we all had to perpetually rebuff the calls to come on the nightly 17 Euro pub crawl from a very persistent Sydney-sider. Oh and it was nice to be able to buy GOOD coffee for 1 Euro. Something I didn't think possible in Western Europe.

Certaldo

As recommended, I headed to Certaldo in Tuscany and stayed at Fattoria Bassetto which was lovely. They had a food Festival on up at the Castle which was BRILLIANT. Now let me tell you, I love a free sample. And my-oh-my I had died and gone to free sample heaven! Cheese, cured meets and chocolate... OOOOOOO! I bought some goats cheese and ate some pasta while I looked down at all the red Tuscan tiled roofs and was exquisitely happy. Again, cool people at the hostel. Thus I spent a day with Nina, also from Melb, in Sienna which was very nice indeed. The interior of the cathedral in Sienna is phenomenal - certainly worth the 6 Euro I coughed up to enter. Inlaid marble pictures cover the floor telling epic biblical stories. There were gilded ceilings with all kinds of grotesque beasties and fabulous gargoyles. And it was on the train to Florence...

Florence

A beautiful city, with very long waiting times to see its famous art treasures. I've done the Uffizi, gone to the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio and thus have the statue of David remaining on my must see list. The Uffizi was great. I shed a tear when I saw the Birth of Venus and delighted in the Artemisia’s fabulously gory painting of Judith beheading Helefronese. And the Caravaggio was also fab. I spent a day with fellow from Melb, Craig, who briefly lived in good old Greensy and could lament with all of its short falls with me. And I spent a day with lovely Lahta who I shall call Mini Me, as she is about a head shorter than me and sports the same black bob and even freakier, has an identical swatch-watch. WO! We had fun trying to spot the tackiest piece of bling in the jewelry shops on the Ponte Vecchio. We decided it was a toss up between a jewel encrusted leopard or perhaps a dolphin consuming its own tail. Noice.

So tomoz I'll go and see Davo and then hop on the train to the infamous Milan to catch the connecting night train to Barcelona. My last city...

Rae.
XXXOOOO