Italy

We're on a pretty tight schedule, so we don't have as much time to spend in places as we would like.

We left Cannes and headed for Milan. Once we got to Milan, we figured that we would head straight to Rome on one of Trenitalia's fastest trains, taking only 4.5 hours.

We stayed in a hostel close by to the main station. The hostel was fairly lifeless, with a bar downstairs that charged upper class London prices for their backpacking clientelle. Ridiculous I say. Perhaps they're catering for the upper echelons of backpackers, who are travelling with their Apple Mac laptops..... I'm not one of them, my Apple Mac laptop is at home, and I'm travelling on a budget. We did get stuck in a history lesson of South America with a very sociable backpacking grandfather from Argentina; entertaining, but also long and tiring.

The sights in Rome are amazing. We saw the Collosseum, Palantino Hill, Roman Forum, Vatican Musem and Sistine Chapel, Parthenon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps.... to name a few (and all in 2 days). Rome is full of amazing things to see, and is filled with so much history. A really amazing place.

We then boarded the fast train again and headed for Venice. Some nice girls we met on the previous train to Milan told us about a nice camp ground in (near) Venice called "Alba D'Oro". It's lots of fun. Very close to the airport, but the planes don't fly all through the night, so the noise isn't really a problem. The atmosphere here is excellent. Great facilities include a pool, spa, restaurant, bar and market with nicely priced drinks and food.

Venice is beautiful. Completely overrun with tourists, as one might expect, but a truely amazing city. Everything is so pretty. And, as you might expect, very expensive. Even at the out of town camp site, internet access is €5/hour - the most expensive we've paid for so far.

Tomorrow we catch an overnight train to Budapest. We decided to keep it cheap and get the 2nd class seats as opposed to the 1st class sleeping cabin because the reservation fee alone for sleeping cabin is actually more expensive than any reasonable hotel room, completely defating the purpose of saving a night's accommodation by taking the overnight train. So instead of paying €90 on top of our prepurchased tickets, we are paying the backpacker budget price of €5 each for the seats. 13 hours.... we may regret the decision... I hope our backs don't ache more than our wallets would have if we took the sleeper....

Till next time,
Matt & Shailee.