taxi bus donkey

The next morning the sun was out, the sky was once again that science fiction uncapturable blue, i had spotted a few places for some photo opprtunities the previous evening and made my way to them before the crowds, the crowds I refer to being the crowds I would later find out don’t actually exist.I walked to the highest point of the town where the fortress walls that were once used as a convenient spot to pour burning oil on attacking hordes have now been converted to a cute little playground for the kiddies and a series of oval paths focusing on a simple piazza complete with a statue the purpose of which i couldnt quite get my head around. (more…)

My trip from Bologna to Firenze was reasonably uneventful, aside from the nagging heat, the only point of excitement was on platform 3 in Bologna station where … having managed to secure a patch of shade I sat and watched the other passengers arrive and fumble around like fools just like i did… when suddenly,.. he emerged from the underpass, the last of the great explorers. An American tourist who had obviously spent some time studying old tarzan movies before selecting the appropriate garments to accompany him on his no doubt adventure-packed package tour of Italy.

I don’t think kontiki stop in Bologna, mayhaps he is a scout for future expeditions. Now he wasn’t wearing a pith helmet,.. but if you were thinking along those lines you would have been rather close because i would wager Florence’s coldest beer on the fact that he had forgotten the helmet on a bus somewhere because the outfit was screaming for it. (more…)

It usually takes around 3 days for the town drunks to start to speak to me. This formula held true in bologna. (more…)

Caught the train from Venice to Bologna on Saturday morning thinking wow what a great little trip to bologna this is going to be… peaceful, i dont even have to put my pack up on the rack, calm, tranquil,.. i can even hear the birds in the trees as we pass them by… and as we approached mestre,.. i could spend a few seconds trying to recognise the strange noise which was getting louder it sounds like… hmm.. i dont know… oh yes i do.

It sounds like about 1,000 soccer fans making the trip to bologna for the last of the serie A games for the season, 1,000 hot and sweaty, smoking, horn blowing fans, most of which chose my carriage from which to abuse the anti smoking policy that the Italian train system had in place.. (more…)

All i wanted to do was get lost in venice, it didn’t take long, in fact i am typing this right now thinking hey its dark out… how the hell am i going to get back to my 189 euro a night cupboard for a nap?

But what better city to get lost in (more…)

OK so i am going to owe a lot of favors for this trip, and the karma meter i have been talking about is now so far in the red that i understand a small committee has been formed some place to try and find the most efficient way that my debt can be repayed and the just order of the universe restored. (more…)

Every monday night the school organises a film screening, last week it was the elephant man which i watched just to listen to the dubbing … this week was the film inseperable with jeremy irons… this is a painful film made even more so by the painful and hard to follow dialogue (italiano of course), not really interested in talking about the film. (more…)

In class in the morning Chris heard Jan, one half of the elderly dutch couple say”Ieri pomeriggio sono andata a peglio a piedi”, which I translated as ”yesterday afternoon i went to Peglio on foot” well by the end of this story you too will know how important those little filler words are and that Jan did not say to peglio but he said in Peglio as the journey to peglio from urbania on foot is only done by the insane… lock me up sister. (more…)

Getting into the morning equals school - afternoon equals rest routine. God bless these crazy Europeans and the afternoon siesta, why the heck should people do anything between 12:30 and 3:00 anyway? What could you do during that time that cant wait until 3:30 or the next day, may it live forever I say. (more…)

Rome basically shuts down for May Day, so in my travels i came across several shops that i had been looking for, the local supermarket, tabacchi , post office, phone shop… so i started my day with a mission, purchase a few things, including bus tickets and head into termini station to purchase tickets i would require to travel to Pesaro on Saturday … tomorrow on my way to Urbania.The bus whisked me off to Termini and it was all rather orderly… Melbourne has been plagued with public transport ticketing problems … looks like rome has had a taste of their own.. each bus has 2 types of ticket validating machines… 1 old one and 3 new ones… but there is no ticket selling on board,.. you have to buy tickets from Tabacchi,.. but not all Tabacchi sell them because they dont make a cut on them that they are happy with… The newstands sell tickets but they are the old ones that they purchase via rather dodgy means apparently… they are still good, just not new fangled ones. fangled doesnt necessarily mean better,.. its just has added fangles. (more…)