Rather than attempt to describe each day of our bus tour, a summary of the entire trip seems more appropriate, primarily because the days tended to merge into each other. However, some events will be mentioned as they were memorable or worth mentioning.
The title describes it all – it was a bullet tour. It is said that one learns by one’s experiences and this was no exception. Never again will we take a tour as quick as this one.
Day one was actually the day we arrived in Rome. Other than an official welcoming drink in the evening, no other events were planned. Consequently, we arranged to meet Melanie at Termini, the major rail station in Rome.
However, nothing is simple. The hotel gave us a map showing how to get to the local station. We got lost. It turned out that the hotel had given us a black and white copy of a colour map, and the light colours did not show up. Consequently a number of streets could not be seen on the map. What should have been a fifteen minute walk to the railway station took an hour and a half. Eventually found the station and off we went to meet Melanie, where the girls had a tearful reunion.
We took Melanie back to the hotel to pick up Chelsea’s luggage and returned to the centre of Rome to check Chelsea into the hostel. Given by now that the welcoming drink was being held, we decided to have dinner at a street café close to Melanie and Chelsea’s hostel. Here we managed to entertain the café staff with our rather poor attempts at Italian. One waiter kept shaking his head and telling me my Italian was “very bad, very bad” whilst smiling and laughing all the time. We must have been good because 4 glasses of lemoncello suddenly appeared and I did not see any other diners presented with those.....
Next day was spent at the Vatican and the Colosseum, very impressive stuff. Whilst some of the others went off on some optional extra tours Gloria and I decided to catch up with Melanie and Chelsea. This was a grievous error, as the blisters really started to kick in. However, we did manage to see the Pantheon, another magnificent building, before we limped back to the hotel.
For dinner we went to a local pizzeria with another Australian couple. We were surprised to discover that the entire restaurant with staffed by Chinese, including the pizza cooks.
The next day was back to the Vatican, this time to the museum and the Sistine Chapel. From there we travelled by bus to Venezia (Venice), where some of the tour took another optional excursion of a gondola ride, but we decided to return to the hotel and explore the town.
We stumbled across a café that sold a 1 litre bottle of Cabernet Franc for €1.50. Naturally being bargain hunters we snapped this up and took it back to the hotel for a drink (or two)
The entire tour had dinner at the hotel. Rather than prepare Italian food, we were given a roast beef meal and it was dreadful. The meat had the texture of leather, but the sauce was interesting.
The next day probably provided the highlight of the tour. Off to St. Mark’s Square via water taxi where we were greeted by Michelle and Leigh. We arranged to meet at the bell tower at 11am and the tour trooped off to visit a glass blowing factory. Here we watched a man make a glass vase in about three minutes and a cat in about 45 seconds, and it was just amazing. His skill was extraordinary. Gloria and I did some window shopping for an hour and then met Michelle and Leigh.
Now came the highlight of the tour. Our private tour of Venezia, hosted by Leigh and Michelle, commenced with a beer and champagne, followed by another beer and champagne – and I think you will start to get the picture. We did manage to have lunch and coffee and do some shopping and saw things around Venezia our tour guide did not take the time to mention.
Four hours later and quite a few drinks we re-met the tour back at the water taxi. Gloria swears that the swaying of the boat was responsible for her somewhat less than graceful staggering down the aisle to her seat.
Of course, one couple managed to lose themselves in this city of numerous laneways and we were treated to a display of Italian impatience from the water taxi operator, who no doubt had other fares waiting. We certainly returned to the bus much more quickly than we did when we left it.
Then off to the beautiful Lake Garda, which unfortunately was only a brief, effectively overnight stay. Dinner comprised of a marginally better roast beef than the previous night which was balanced by several whiskies and cigars with a rather nice Canadian bloke named Miles.
Breakfast the next morning was so bad I couldn’t eat it, and that is not without a word of lie. Powdered eggs, heated ham and poor cold meats were just too much. As we left the dining room we discovered that the tour located in another adjacent dining room were feasting on fried eggs, bacon, croissants etc etc.
Onto the bus and onto Firenze (Florence). Here we managed to see the amazing statue of David, of which photos do no justice. Did a walking tour of the city, and managed to see the workings of a leather factory.
Gloria and I then managed to do a bit of shopping in flea markets, including one street vendor whose selling style could only be described as forceful. He had me in a jacket before I could blink. It turned out that the stalls were simply fronts for the shops in the lanes behind. How do we know this? Because we were dragged down to the shop when the one he had didn’t fit me.
Firenze was also the site for the best lunch we had in Italy, where we purchased some pizza and zucchini frittata from a small shop away from the tourists. Dinner that night we had another local café where I ordered fried onions, olives and cheese and was presented with a plate of these battered and fried. However, the olives were excellent. When you bit into the ball the flavour exploded into your mouth. We also found a bottle shop where I was able to purchase a bottle of single malt whisky for €13, which is about $22. An amazing price.
Next day was spent relaxing in the morning before heading back to Roma for a farewell dinner. Our hotel was the Sheraton Hotel near the airport, however we did not eat dinner there and we were to be bussed to a local restaurant. Unfortunately the bus broke down and we arrived at the restaurant in a replacement bus almost 2 hours later.
Next morning was spent sleeping in, having a magnificent Sheraton breakfast and waving our newfound friends goodbye as they boarded the bus for the airport. One thing we have discovered is that Canadians are actually Australians with a different accent. They are just the greatest people. We also enjoyed the company of some other Australians, Kiwis and a single, older British lady who had a terrific sense of humour
Our tour director unfortunately was a little lacking, with little information given to us as we travelled. We discovered that another tour wich we did cross paths with from time to time had actually composed a farewell song for their tour director which they sang on their bus coming back to the hotel from the same restaurant we were all at. We knew this because two of our tour accidentally got on their bus.
Highlights:
- Venezia
- Meeting Michelle & Leigh in Venezia
- David
- Meeting Canadians
- Colosseum
- The local tour guide who introduced us to David
Lowlights
- The speed of the tour
- The tour director
- Breakfast at Lake Garda
We hope that you are all enjoying work - we're not missing it......
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