Pisa - Tgon's Travels

Week 13: Circular trip through Northern Italy

Posted on 13/10/2011

Ok, well its actually more like 13 and a half weeks, but the trip I just finished started on a Wednesday and ended on a Wednesday, so it makes sense to include the extra half. Since my last post I stayed with Federico in Verona for a couple of days, left most of my stuff in his garage, then drove from his place to Forli to pick up Teo and start the one week trip around northern Italy.

From Forli we drove to Bologna to stay for the first night. I had been to Bologna before but had never visited the city itself, I has stayed in a hostel on the outside of the ring road. It was nice to walk around Bologna and Teo thought it was a beautiful city, I told her that there were even nicer cities to come. We bought a couple of beers and sat in the park having a drink before we headed back to the hotel.

From Bologna we drove to Padova where I left my motorbike in the garage of my couch surfing friend, Simone. While we were in Padova we stopped to look around the Cathedral of St Anthony and the large market square. From Padova we took the train to Venice. Venice is an amazing city, really beautiful and a great place to wander around.

From Venice we travelled to Verona, I had already seen Venice with Federico and so I could make sure that we saw all the best things in the time we had. After Verona we headed to Lake Garda, I had visited a small part of this lake before but this time we planned to travel all the way around the lake. The lake is really amazing, the further north you travel the bigger the mountains get, making for a beautiful ride. We decided to stay the night near the lake with Teo’s aunt, this meant that we would miss Parma and would also double the amount of distance we had to travel the next day.

We left Lake Garda headed to Pisa, the trip took us through the mountains between Parma and La Spezia. This is a really awesome road, there were lots of other bikers travelling through. We eventually arrived in Pisa late in the night and went straight to the hotel, deciding to visit Pisa the next day.

After looking around Pisa we headed to Florence for the last two days of the trip. I had never visited Florence so it was a new experience for me as well as her. Florence is a nice city and I enjoyed walking around there and having a beer in the park.

After dropping Teo at the airport in Forli, I drove back to Federico’s house near Verona, where I stayed last night. From here I will head into Switzerland through the Alps for the next few days.

Week 12: Couch Surfing Northern Italy

Posted on 04/10/2011

Three months on the road and still loving it. This week I have managed to arrange couch surfing, although I have had difficulties doing this in Italy. I sent out lots of requests, some of which were rejected, most of them were just ignored. I eventually placed some posts in the SOS emergency last minute couch forums, this did the trick, I had offers from some very kind people.

Firstly I went to Bologna and stayed in a basic, cheap hostel for one night before heading to Parma to meet my first Italian host. Ian was a great guy with excellent English, he is planning a trip by canoe in East Asia, which sounds like it will be great. The first night we started talking about travelling and had some beers and suddenly realised we had been talking for around 5 or 6 hours. The second night we went for a walk around Parma to get some food and have a couple of drinks. Ian also suggested a route through Switzerland which I am looking forward to trying out.

My next hosts were a couple who lived in Padova, around 30Km from Venice. The night I arrived we went for a meal and some drinks in Padova, it is a really beautiful place but I didn’t take my camera out that night. The next day we went into town again to see the main tourist sights of Padova, the Cathedral of St Anthony and the town square.

In the afternoon I took the train into Venice and explored. Venice is like a huge maze of tiny paths and bridges, even with a map it is a real challenge to find your way around. After exploring for a few hours I headed back to Padova to rest.

From Padova I headed to my third Couch surfing host in Verona. On the way I dropped into a small town which had been suggested by my second host Simone. There is a beautiful castle but unfortunately it was closed when I visited. I got a good picture anyway.

When I arrived in Verona I stopped for some pasta before heading to the village where my third host, Federico, lives. After I arrived we headed back into Verona, by car, to have some pizza with another two Couch Surfing hosts from the Verona area. Yesterday we both headed out on our motorbikes to Lake Garda, picking up another Couch Surfer on the way. The lake is really beautiful but I didn’t get any pictures this time, I will be visiting it again soon though so I can get pictures then.

I am leaving most of my luggage here in Verona while I take a trip around the North of Italy, then in about a weeks time I will head into Switzerland, then through the south of France, Andorra and Spain. I’m also starting to do more research on the paperwork that I will need for my trip through Africa.

Blog Posts, Europe Blog Posts

Week 11: Pompeii, Rome and Pisa

Posted on 27/09/2011

I have been travelling for just over 11 weeks and am currently in northern Italy. Since my last post I have visited Pompeii, Rome and Pisa. Pompeii was a strange place to visit, it is a lot bigger than I expected and I got a little bored after a while because all the interesting things, like the casts of dead people, were in one place. The rest of the town is just empty ruined buildings, which was nice, but I got the idea quite quickly. I had planned to camp near Pompeii, but when I found out it was more expensive to camp there than it was to stay in the hostel in Naples, I decided to go back to the hostel.

After a few days in Naples I travelled up to Rome, I stayed in a hostel very close to the Colosseum and visited as many places as I could. I enjoyed Rome, but it was different to what I thought it would be like. I’m not sure what I expected but it wasn’t what I found there. I had a great time though and enjoyed wandering through the streets and squares seeing all the statues and fountains, even if I had to put up with the crowds of tourists.

During my last couple of days in Rome I was sharing a room with a group of three Turkish guys. They were really friendly and we spent some time exploring the streets together and visited the Vatican. I’m in no way religious, so the Vatican may not have had the same attraction for me as it did the hundreds of other people that were visiting, but I enjoyed climbing up all the steps to the top of the dome and looking out over Rome.

From Rome I had a long ride up the coast to Pisa, This was a great ride, probably because I chose to avoid the motorways. The views were great, driving through small coastal towns and villages, driving on small roads overlooking the sea and lots of tunnels. Pisa is a small town and there isn’t much to see there, basically just the tower. But the town is quite nice anyway, with little bars and restaurants, I managed to pass the time easily enough. There was a bar inside the hostel too, so I spent the evenings in there talking with other travellers.

I am now in Bologna and will be visiting some other towns over the next week. Some of you may have noticed that my Africa route has changed on the route map, this is not a final plan but I think I will be riding down the west coast of Africa to South Africa, then up the East coast to Tanzania. I’ll let you know when this is decided for certain.