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Monday 4 September 2000
Left Karl's after breakfast for Venice. On nearing Venice the traffic became very heavy and it took us a long time to cover the last few kilometres. We parked the car in a huge car park and caught a ferry to Venice. It was an eye-opener as everything looked a bit worse for wear and a bit grubby. We got off the ferry at St Mark's Square. Unfortunately it rained the whole time we were in Venice but still managed to see a little bit of in the short time we had there.
Once inside the city streets it became very interesting. Very narrow streets and wall-to-wall tourists. Due to the rain the gondolas were not in action. The place was full of shops and places to eat. We had lunch at a small place just around the corner from St Mark's Square. The food and wine were really good. I had a spaghetti Bolognaise. It was the best I have ever tasted.
At about 3:30pm we headed off for Florence. We arrived there at about 7:30pm. It was difficult to find the hostel and when we did eventually find it they were full. We finally booked into a hotel near the railway station called the "Golf". It was very comfortable. After booking in at 11pm we walked down the street to an eating place which was very good. We rang Sam Dalley from the hotel that night.
Tuesday 5 September 2000
After breakfast we went to the youth hostel to book in. We were able to get beds in dormitory style accommodation. The girls had 12 in their room and Franz and I had four. During the day we looked around Florence. What a wonderful place. The whole place was very interesting. We had dinner in the City and caught a bus back to the hostel. I didn't have a very good night's sleep as one of the other people in the room was upset with all the snoring. The next morning we decided that we wouldn't go for the dormitory style accommodation any more.
Wednesday 6 September 2000
Left Florence and headed towards France. After leaving Florence we went to Pisa where we saw the leaning Tower of Pisa. This was an interesting part of the trip. The tower has a lean of 10 degrees and they're trying to stabilise the ground under the tower by drilling underneath on an angle. We had lunch nearby and continued on our way. We traveled to Savona and then booked into a hostel there. It was situated in an old castle. We rented accommodation where all five of us slept in one room. During the afternoon we had walked around the town and did some site seeing. It was a very nice town. We had dinner at the hostel which was very good and they also served wine. The staff were very friendly and made our stay very pleasant.
Thursday 7 September 2000
We headed for France where we planned to stay at a hostel in xxxxx. We had rung them from Savona but because we were not in France we could not make a booking but they said they had plenty of rooms. When we came to the French border there were huge queues at the service stations. Franz thought it was probably because price was less in Italy. However as we neared Monaco and Nice we picked up an English-speaking radio station called "Radio Riviera" and heard the news that there was an industrial situation which was preventing the delivery of fuel to the service stations in France. All the petrol stations were closed.
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