Firenze

Finally made it to Florence - I left the hostel at 10:15 and got to Florence at roughly 7pm without much waiting around so it was definately a travel day. Spent the whole time on the train eating chips, biscuts, other stuff... and missing my iriver who is sadly out of battery and guess who forgot the charger while packing hungover in the UK??? (Give you a clue, Taryn was there :oP)

Not much to write really as a result...

Oh wait - I met this girl called Rosalba on the bus to Amalfi so on Tuesday night I went to Ravello and met her. She ended up having to work late so she invited me around for dinner which was really nice of her. Talked a bit about Italian politics, made fun of George Bush, and then I wandered back to the bus station to find that all the buses had stopped for the night. So I ended up paying 25 euro to get a taxi to Amalfi! D'oh.

Yeah, am off to stand in queues for hours on end. And, like me, perhaps it's time to let maths2 go. Good luck with the next tour all you travelling showpeople.

Le Scale d'Amalfi - The Stairs of Amalfi

I heard about this hostel from the guys at 6 small rooms in Napoli (see last posts) and it sounded pretty promising so I decided to stay for a few nights. I spent one night in Ischia (which I loved but more later) and then caught the ferry to Napoli, bus to Salerno and another to Amalfi. Luckily I met a local who works in the art gallery in Ravello (nearby) and she was catching the same bus so I chatted to her for the whole hour and a half trip... it was pretty amazing road, it's very very narrow, very very windy and it's right along the edge of the coast. At one point, the bus had to reverse back up the road because there just isn't enough room for cars to pass each other at the corners.
Eventually we got to Amalfi, caught ANOTHER bus to the hostel and then the fun bit. Walking up 296 stairs with my backpack. Luckily, I'm a fairly sensible woman and only packed what I actually need (as opposed to what I may want) so I made it ok(ish). Another girl staying here had a pack that weighed 23kg plus another backpack weighing 8kg. Crazy.

Today we went to the beach - an extra 746 stairs. So that's (ooh, pressure for the maths girl) 1042 stairs one way. Which we had to climb back up again. I think the words 'a lot of stairs' don't really give justice to it. Ooof.

Ischia was gorgeous - full of germans, all the signage was in german. But at night I went to a restaraunt overlooking the ocean, ate magharita pizza while the sun set and had a grande birra (a pint). Then, to top it off, the hotel just to the left of us and a little below had a fireworks display that lasted for about 6 minutes. Sitting there, drinking my beer, watching a ocean sunset and then fireworks... pretty damn good.

They also have a garden on Ischia belonging to the composer William Wallace which was stunning. It even had banksias. They also have a Victorian lilly, which opens in the morning as a female to catch bugs and then shuts its petals and reopens the next day as a male. Pretty damn cool as well. The only bad thing about it was that it must have been the mating season for the frogs because every single pond had frogs madly going at it. It was bordering on pornographic.

So now I'm off to Ravello tommorrow to meet the local girl for lunch and help her with her English. Then I head up to Florence, which from all accounts is like a giant gallery and pretty impressive, so I'm looking forward to it.

Hope you're all happy and healthy.