Rome - Italy

Rome had always been Number One on my list of places to go. The day that I left Tuscany and finally set out towards Rome was the day that one of my biggest dreams in life came true.

 

I don't know why I've always had such a fascination with Rome and all of its hidden, ancient history. I couldn't tell you even if I tried to. I just have.

 

Arriving at the campsite, I clambered off of the coach with a bottle of wine and a tube of pringles in hand.

As my fellow travellers had already established at this point, I was by far the most clumsy person on tour (my old work colleagues didn't call me Hurricane Jade for nothing. Nor did my ex dub me the oh so flattering 'Bad Day In Bosnia...').

As soon as my feet hit the ground, so did the precious bottle of wine that I had big plans for that coming evening!

The ground drank up my stunning bottle of special Italian wine, leaving nothing but scattered shards of glass around my feet.

Girl knows how to make an entrance right???

 

So, after a slight sulk and setting up camp and also giving a massage or two because after 2 weeks of camping Europe already.. we were all pretty stiff and sore (the Rome Contiki Campsite is AMAZEBALLS btw... ew. Did I really just abbreviate???) we got to take a walking tour around Rome.

I had literal tears (of happiness!) in my eyes as I stood outside of the colosseum. We didn't have time to go inside of day one because we had to get back to the campsite but it was fabulous to finally have my dream come true, while eating a pizza.... nom nom nom.

 

The colosseum.... hmm. I guess I had it in my head that it would be really isolated. Like, it would be this insanely majestic, historic ruin in the middle of nowhere. Not right across from a tube station and next to a busy main road.

It was still insanely majestic and obviously still a historic ruin... but it wasn't entirely what I had built it up to be.

I think that's the thing though... when there's a place that you want to visit as badly as I wanted to visit Rome, you build up this huge expectation of the place and that's not actually fair on wherever you want to go.

How could it measure up to what you had imagined?? Nothing in life is as perfect as we'd like to make it out to be.

So a piece of advice from one traveller to the next... even if it's a place you've been dying to visit your whole life... try to not build your expectations up to high.  

 

I also got to throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain! Well - actually a handful of coins! Just to be sure I'd return to Rome :)

 

As you can see, day one in Rome was a gorgeous day so naturally tourists flocked around the fountain and it was really difficult to get to the front or even snap a worthy photograph!

After we all did manage to have a turn at being serious tourists at this major tourist spot we ventured over to this adorable ice cream shop called San Crispino where they have nearly every flavour ice cream possibly imaginable!

Even basil!!!! (Wish I'd tried that one now....)

I had ginger flavour and mango flavour I think... but I had the ginger because I was starting to feel really fluey and well... I can't really explain my logic behind why I had ginger... I just had this pathetic theory that ginger ice cream would help.

 

It didn't.

 

We all split up into little groups for a bite to eat after the ice cream (desert came first! Woohoo!!!) and myself and three other girls wound up finding this gorgeous ivy covered bistro called Cucina Romana.  The food was delicious. Of course I had pasta... my favourite pasta at that! Spaghetti Alio Olio Pepperincino! Accompanied by wine to make up for my lack of it back at the campsite.

We all met up at the Spanish Steps after we ate and ventured back to the campsite for an early (pfft, yeah right) night to rest up for another day of site-seeing the following morning.

Bohemian Muses Readers', meet the Vatican City.

No. I did not get to meet the pope. I did get to buy some cheapskate rosary to hang in my car though... and a Rome spoon. SCORE!

The Vatican City... even if you're not religious, this place is so worth the visit.
DON'T go with a big bag though because you have to hand it in at the front and the queue to hand your luggage in and the queue to get to back is GINORMOUS.

We were given these cool little headsets from our tour guide and taken on a few hours long tour around the Vatican City which was absolutely breath-taking.
I've never seen churches and architecture anything quite like what I've been able to see first-hand in Europe now... but the Vatican City is just something else.

Also, another piece of handy advice.. try run after your tour guide and stick on her heels because they move FAST! They also all have some sort of a prop they hold up so that you know which is your tour guide if you do lose them amongst the mass of people but sometimes two tour guides will have the same colour flag.
Some had their scarfs tied to their sticks or held up an umbrella just to be different, but ours was pretty boring with a blue flag like the majority of the other tour guides... so I felt like I was doing cross-country inside the buildings half the time to keep up.

After the Vatican City we had some free time in Rome to go inside of the Colosseum and do our own thang for a while, but we had to make our own way back to the campsite.
Of course I headed straight to the colosseum to go inside of it.
The queue was massive and my flu was really catching on... the sun was beating down right on me  and I just couldn't do it. I gave up after about half an hour of waiting in the queue that had barley moved and decided to go back to the campsite to rest a bit. I wouldn't have given up my lifelong dream of walking around the ruins of the colosseum unless I was feeling like I was about to die...

So... making the way back to the Seven Hills Campsite. Well, that was fun. NAAAAAAT.

First, a tube station. Then a bus. Unfortunately I didn't realize that you have to let the bus driver know where you want to get off, there are no real bus stops! So I told him as I got on the bus please take us to the Seven Hills Campsite and he sort of smiled and nodded and we gave him our tickets etc before going to relax at the back of the bus.
I only caught on that we'd gone too far way out in the countryside.
F@!k.
To make matters worse, there was no bus coming back the way we needed to go.
So... we were dropped in the middle of no where with no mobile battery to speak of and started to trudge back in the direction we'd come from... and it was so sweltering hot.

We did find our way back eventually though. Thank God.

Word of advice.... do not, EVER, under any circumstances give a Contiki tour group an open bar.... if you want well behaved travellers that will not get you kicked off of the campsite that is:

When we got back to the campsite, our lovely on-road cook, Elaine, had set up the most adorable bar for us!
As the Rome Contiki Campsite (Seven Hills Camping) has an on-site team, we got to mingle with some new faces!
I LOVED the Seven Hills Campsite. It had a pool, a club, a mechanical bull...

We threw this I Love Rome party where we all dressed up in Seven Hills Campsites 'I Love Rome' shirts and got to draw on each others shirt, writing little messages now that we all knew each other better.
At this point in my post I'd just like to thank my lovely Contiki crew for writing the most vile wonderful things on my shirt! Hahahahahaha!

Sadly and happily at this stage in our tour, some of the group had to leave us as they were on a shorter tour than us but we also got some new faces joining the team which was great! Until this point I was the only British person on tour (it was mainly a group of AWESOME Aussies) so I was thrilled when two British guys joined up with us.

It is a bit odd to have new people joining after 2 weeks of bonding and creating friendships with your original Contiki group... we were all feeling a bit weird about it because our group was so perfect already. I can only imagine how the newbies must have felt! BUT - they only added to our amazing group! We all got along straight off the bat.

In the club there was a pole... yup. Things got weird.

I'd been fairly decent until this point in tour... but then I slipped down a flight of stairs and landed face up on my back in front of another group of people that must have been in their teens. Bastards.

I decided that it was time to put myself to bed (at a shocking 9pm....... I know. I'm such an idiot) so Damian walked me back. Along our way, we bumped into two of the newbies, two Canadian guys called Chris and Kyle.

 

Chris and Kyle had a bottle of wine in their hands.

 

I liked them instantly.

 

That wine didn't last long.

 

Yeahhh.... I wound up hugging my toilet seat for the remainder of the evening.

My next travel post will be about passing through Austria where we went white water rafting and heading into Munich, Germany.

Firenze: Florence - Italy

Night one in Florence was spent at a karaoke bar called Red Garter. What a night!!!!

My favorite part was when Jonghoon (the strapping young Asian dude with me in that last photograph) otherwise known as Steve, Lorenzo, Jean-Pierre etc etc (we gave him a different name for every country we entered)... got up onto stage BY HIMSELF and sang Gangnam Style - WORD FOR WORD!!!! The whole club was in hysterics and dancing around him!!!

That is probably one of my favorite moments of travelling Italy actually.Maybe even the whole trip.

I also jumped in and sang a few songs too once the first few jugs of cocktails were down. I THINK I may have sang Barbie Girl... maybe... my memory is foggy for obvious reasons. I know I also sang Bon Jovi - It's My Life, with the other two South African's on tour with me at that stage.

Can I just say here how liberating travelling is. The high it gives me doesn't quite measure up to anything else that I have ever experienced in my short life so far.

No one knows you. 

You don't know anyone. 

You don't know where you're going or what you're doing but that's all the fun of it!! 

Anyway.. getting back on track:

The next day, suffering major hangovers all round... we ventured into the tourist areas and had a guided walking tour of Firenze where we saw so much breathtaking architecture and statues, one being the replica of The Statue of David.

I nearly got left at the campsite before the drive into town as Contiki is extremely strict on their bus-drivers time.

Admittedly, I was still drunk from the karaoke mission by the time I launched myself onto the bus and we headed into town. I was so drunk that I had forgotten to put my shoes on. And we were about to do over an hour long walking tour........ Hence the photo of me getting a piggy-back through the streets of Italy!!!

Fail.

After our walking tour we all went into this leather factory and were taught how they make leather. They needed a volunteer so obviously I jumped to the front and got involved as one should (hehe). 

I got to stamp my own little scrap of leather with their logo on it which was pretty awesome but then I was kicked out of the store for not wearing shoes. 

In this same place there is a jewelry section and a lot of us decided to buy this stainless steel Nomination Bracelet which basically has little links with pictures of every countries flag on them. We got all of the flags of the countries we were visiting:

• UK
• France
• Switzerland
• Monaco
• Italy (Florence, Rome and Venice)
• Germany (Munich and Berlin)
• C'zech Republic (Prague)
• Netherlands (Amsterdam)
• European Flag 

It is such a special bracelet and I was able to get one eventually when some very nice middle-aged man offered me his shoes so that I could re-enter the store. 

I looked like a bit (ok, a lot) of a prat waddling around in shoes ten times to big for me but hey ho.... mucho's appreciationo's random stranger with big feet! 

That cool map we're standing by is actually a brail map!! For blind people! It was so cool to study and look at in the center of the town.

Some of us separated at this map as some wanted to go up the stairs to the church and some, like me, were starving and were keen to try out our first ever Tuscan Steak.

Along the way to finding the perfect restaurant for a ginormous Tuscan steak, we were caught in the middle of an absolutely stunning parade and march through the streets. 

Flags were flying around and up in the air, drums were making the ground shake, trumpets were going off... it was stunning. 

The street art is also literally jaw-dropping. Guys bend down onto their hands and knees and do proper works of art onto the street floors with chalks! I need to point out here again just how much I LOVE Italy...... thanks. Just had to let that out! 

Alrighty.... SO... Tuscan steak:

My goodness gracious me. 

Ridiculously delicious. 

Unfortunately the service in the tiny cafe we chose to eat in was in no exaggeration, the WORST service that I have ever actually received. It was actually appaulling and it takes a lot to make me angry... but this had me fuming!! 

This one  waitress must have had a serious case of PMS (sorry ladies, I know we all hate blaming mood swings on that but if you had seen this woman you would think so too!). 

She didn't smile. She rolled her eyes at us when we asked for anything. Our food took about two hours and she got the order wrong... then she got the order wrong again.... when we sent the food back (again) she threw plates around and sighed as if it was all our fault. 

I don't want to vent but my GOD!!!!! If you're going to be in the hospitality industry PLEASE try have some form of people skills!!! 

Anywho... apologies for ending this on a bad note! 

Besides that, Florence was AMAZING. 

It was around this point of our travels through Europe that everyone started to develop what we have named:  The Contiki Cough. 

Dom dom dom......... (imagine Phantom of the Opera, freaky shit music playing as you read The Contiki Cough.... trust me.... it just adds to the effect).

Seriously though... you would have thought our coach was filled with terminally ill patients not globe trotters! 

Entering Rome, my dream destination for years and years.... 

I started to feel a little tickle in my throat. 

...To Be Continued...

I Remember You by Harriest Evans - Book Review

There are not enough hours in the day for all the books that I want to read or the places that I want to go.

There are not enough hours in the day for all the things I want to learn or delight my five basic senses with.

However, when I do have the time to snuggle up with a good book, I’d like to think I’d be reading something that helps me to appreciate the English Language more than I already do.

Years ago, when I was still in training to become a personal trainer, my teacher and friend, Brendon Andrade, explored the shelves of a local bookstore with me one fine day.

I stumbled across a feminine looking paperback novel, a mixture of purples, peaches and pinks as the cover with bold italic writing scribbling the title, ‘I Remember You.’

It is written by a woman by the name of Harriet Evans.

I’m not sure if she just chose a really bad editor or if she became a published author by fluke, but the grammar and a lot of the writing is actually appalling. If this is what is getting published these days, then there must be hope for the likes of my little novella! 

I was attracted to this novel as it

A) was a story of a heartbroken woman (relatable for me at that stage of my life as I had recently ended a three and a half year relationship with my high-school sweetheart)

B) it involved Italy (the one place in this world that I am DYING to travel to. Not to mention it is where my novella is set…)

and

C)  The novel was set in Langford, which is where Jane Austen resided once upon a time (and everyone knows I am her biggest and most devoted fan…) the book was filled with plentiful delicious detail about her and her beautiful town which just warmed me entirely and made me smile as each page passed.

 

It was basically the story I had dreamed of being my own.

It was so relatable in fact that at some stages in this book I was actually uncannily reminded of myself.

The story line, for me, was fabulous. It was the only thing that kept me turning the crisp pages as alas the poor grammar and spelling errors in a Harper published book is so disappointing!!!

Step it up guys.