Europe & Dubai

Steve visited Roman Ruins Museam at the foot of the hill we stayed on, while Corinne went shopping. Oh I could have spent money all day! The town is full of clothing designers, interior designers and all the cool and trendy people. Its just so pretty!

Leaving we started heading up to Lake Guada, the largest of the italian lakes. We took the locals route to the lake past about 50 prostitutes! We have never seen such a sight in all our travels (well except out the back of Rome where the Ford dealers where). Steve thinks the Verona/Lake Guada prostitutes were better looking)! :-)

We went via Sirmione which is a cute little fortress town full of touristy but cute shops. Got our second parking fine! Decided that was unfair so we tore it up! The first was in Cannes where we squeezed our bus into a Gogomobile sized parking bay up against a high hedge and the inspector didnt notice we were right hand drive (we had the ticket over the drivers wheel where we normally put it)... We should get that one wiped when we post the bill off with the paid ticket, but the rest we decided will go to the address we dont live at in London that the car is registered to (the previous owners previous address) all because they didnt give change on their meters (nasty - and expensive)... Parking is a killer in Europe, and even harder when every underground carpark has a hight limit usually of less than 2m!

Anyway the drive was magnificent (as I digress into parking). There are ferries taking people back and fourth, holiday makers driving away from northern Italy for the weekend, and ice on the mountains behind! A magnificent sight!

Spent the night just at the edge of the Italian/Austrian Boarder...

Did the bus trip around the city including a trip up the hill to Laudes learning of the miracle that was said to have taken place there.

Well I finally found the most beautiful town in Italy! It was clean, pretty and surrounded by a gorgeous walled city. It still had the odd Roman relic that had survived time, and they have a style and air of culture that we found nowhere else.

Steve managed to find his restaurants of restaurants - called Giuletta & Romeo - where he had Donkey spagetti; followed by Tartar (raw mince mixed with herbs, spices and a bit of sauce) of Horse (sorry sandy - steve doesnt want you to tell Bree!)

Then the next night we topped that by finding a restaurant experience to match none other! Ristaurante Arche. The food was devine, there were wine suggestions for every dish, and amazing entertainment watching the perfomance when the wine trolly was pushed to the table with the bottle of wine and glass on it. The waiter would open the bottle; sample the wine then pour for every glass that was drunk. I will never forget that most amazing experience!

In between eating, we stayed in a campsite run by some dreadlocked hippies. Every tree had a tag attached with its botanically name on it. It was also on a cliff part of Castel San Pietro. Some of the fortifications still remained. We also visited the Civici de Casa di Giuletta where the Capulette family where believed to have lived. And the fabulous castel with a Rafello and a few others dating back to 1200s.

Verona was another interesting city: one also run by the Guilds. These provided the ultimate in democratic rule. I guess that has aided Verona, Venice and Florence being such strong and influencial cities in their day, as well as maintaining a sence of independence of region today from the rest of Italy.

Pompei was amazing. Well worth driving through the millions of police , which we later found out were searching for drugs! to get to an amazing place. We couldnt handle the rubbish strewn from Rome to Naples, so fast tracked it back to Rome, finally getting the papers for the van YAY! and shot through asap!

Car finally ready to pick up RELIEF! Collected and still hadnt received papers for the van. Starting to get worried. Decided to kill time and head south to Nappoli and Pompei. Got about 2 hours south of Rome, a different world away. Found a lovely quiet campsite on the beach to spend the night.