Travel Series: ITALY

Last time in my Globetrotters series, I talked about my travels through Switzerland in 1998. This time I'll talk about the next stop, Italy, in which we spent little time but saw quite a lot. Italy isn't a huge country, particularly when you're coming from a place like Australia, but it's still got a heck of a lot of detail to it. During my time in Italy I saw:

Suburban roadside ruins.

• gondolas
• a Dali exhibit
• a replica of the statue of David (sadly didn't see the real deal, but with only an hour or two to spare the lines were just too long)
• real Italian pizza
• real greasy Italian dudes trying to seduce me on the street
• the Coliseum (from the outside, anyway)
• ancient ruins just sitting in the middle of suburban Roman streets
• the leaning tower of Pisa (a.k.a. "the tower of Pizza" according to Dad)
• tiny Italian towns you weren't meant to drive in - which we, of course, drove in.

Me outside the Coliseum in Roma - we didn't go in.

We crossed into Italy from Switzerland in a hire car, and drove through Milan (not stopping) to Venice. Venice was kind of smelly (algae), and I was grumpy (we didn't go on a gondola). From Venice we drove on to Florence, where I saw a Dali exhibition. Dad wasn't as impressed with Florence as he had been with Venice, but in my book at least it smelled better (and there was Dali!).

Venezia, 1998.

Also in Florence, I saw a procession of Beetles (no, really, look:

Italian beetles!

) going through the streets honking. I tried to visit the real statue of David but settled for a still-pretty-massive replica. And plus, Daaaali:

Some Dali magic in Firenze.

Rome was next, and there I saw ruins, including the Coliseum. We got a coffee from McDonald's one day, and were surprised to receive a tiny "shot" cup with about an inch of strong black coffee in the bottom. After we left Rome, we headed north via numerous towns, including Pisa with its famous leaning tower - we didn't go closer than this, I think because it was closed to the public:

The leaning tower, on a definite slant.

We also drove through Livorno, a little Italian town my uncle had lived in and taught in for 8 years.

Well, folks, that about sums up the Italian leg - and almost the entire 1998 trip too. Next time I'll cover the very last part of the trip, and then it'll be time to move onto other travels I've done. :)