We left the great bungalow on Tuesday 21st, and we were sad to drive away from a shower and air conditioning, I can tell you! We have traveled over 3000 miles so far on this trip, and have been traveling for over 2 months. Before we left the bungalow, the van had had 2 problems. A puncture and a problem with the fuel filter. Well, when we were driving away from Florence, mummy offered to drive and we all swapped places. I sat in the front and daddy went in the back with Beth and Edie. We were about to drive through a tunnel on the motorway, when we heard a very loud noise coming from the front left of the van. We had another puncture. It's weird, how both punctures we've had have been cause by mummy when she was driving. Hm. Any way, she made daddy drive through the tunnel into a safer place to at least put stuff in the tyre that inflates it a bit more. While he and mummy were emptying the boot and putting the stuff in the tyre, me Beth and Edie sat on a grassy patch that was a bit higher than the van. We played a game that passed the time, and the game rules were as follows. We would wave at truck drivers, and if they honked their horn, we'd score one point. But if they waved and honked, then we'd score 2 points. When we were driving to an even safer place to change the tyre, we had scored 30 points! One truck driver actually honked, and blew a kiss whilst on his phone! Brilliant! We eventually pulled in at a ticket place, and we changed the tyre. We're not letting mummy drive again! It was a pretty weird journey, but we made it to some campsite in the middle of no where which had a major ants nest under the ground. We slept quite well, though which was the main thing.
On Wednesday, we spent nearly all day trying to find a spare tyre for the van. When we finally found somewhere which sold our tyre size, daddy went in there to get it while we stayed in the nearby town. While daddy was paying for the tyre, his i-Phone fell out of his pocket and broke! Me and mummy were really sad because we now can't play poker! So daddy has now switched to an old Nokia which is so last year! But the annoying thing about his i-Phone breaking, is that when Daniel was in our bungalow, we asked to take a picture of him for daddy's website. He did the funniest face, it was like he was posing but sort of pouting at the same time! It was so funny, but we don't have it any more which is a real shame! That night, we had to framp. We were driving around at 22:00pm, trying to find somewhere else to framp. We were parked in a car park outside a police and fire station, so we were really safe. We were all settled in bed when mummy said "I don't feel safe". If I'm honest, I didn't feel safe because there was a road next to us and loads of cars were screeching. So at 22:00pm, we were driving around finding somewhere else to framp. We did in the end, at about 23:30pm. But that night, there was a dog opposite us, and I went out to go to the loo, but the dog started barking really loudly and was literally running at the gate to try and get out! It was so scary, that when I ran back to the van in my PJ's, I tripped over the curb and twisted my ankle really badly! It really, really hurt! The dog didn't stop barking through the night then - I wasn't very popular!
We went to Rome on Thursday which was incredible! We took the train at about 9:30am, and arrived in Rome at about 11:30am. It wasn't a bad train journey, but I could smell the toilets which was horrid. It was no Orient Express!
When we got off the train, there were loads of people trying to give us leaflets that had information about open top, hop-on-hop-off tour bus that went around the main sites in Rome. After about 20 minutes of saying a very stern 'no', we actually decided to go back to one of them and get a leaflet. It seemed as if we were getting a tour of the city by a black guy who worked for the tour bus company, because he took us around this massive square telling us random stuff - one time he actually took us into some place to say hi to a mate and show them his watch! We finally shook him off and got on the bus. Even when we were in the line to the bus, there were people coming up to give us a leaflet on the tour buses! There were more people trying to sell us hats, when they could plainly see we were wearing hats.
The bus people gave us some headphones which we used to listen to the history of the city, which was pretty good. The bus was going around 12 stops in total, but we only got off at about 5 or 6. The first stop that we got off at was the Colosseum which was amazing. It was massive, and some parts were still in tact which was incredible after 2000 years of standing. We were walking to the line to go inside the Colosseum, and there were stalls selling souvenirs and little models of the Colosseum. There were also men walking round with fluffy dog toys which played really annoying music while their ears flapped up and down! Honestly, what is the point? When we finally made our way through a sea of fluffy, singing, flappy eared dogs, we got inside the building. It was more incredible on the inside than it was on the out. It went up so high, and the amount of people which would have been able to fit in there was incredible. It was like being at Webley, but without shouting, cheering and the occasional swearing. We learnt that 'sand' in Latin is 'arena'! Bet you didn't know that. And I bet you didn't know (unless you've watched 'Gladiator'), that there are corridors underneath the ground where the gladiators would have fought. It was a shame, because over the year, earthquakes have knocked some of the wall down, but the rest is all in tact. There's even some marble seats left from when it was built!
We then went to see the Pantheon, which, incase you don't know, is a Catholic church now, but was a pagan church. This means it was a church built before Jesus Christ, so the people worshipped mother earth. It was amazing, because it has a hole in the roof for the sun to shine through, which was the peoples God at the time. We only went there because down a road nearby was a post office, and we were there to collect a letter someone had sent to us - except they didn't have it. Daddy has read the book 'Angels and Demons' and apparently there is a big scene in that book with a fight going on in the Pantheon. So he wanted to go inside, so we did and we enjoyed it very much!
By now, we were not only tired from walking around a massive square trying to find the post office, but we were really hot. It was boiling that day, and the sun just wouldn't go in - so we treated ourselves to a €2.50 ice cream, and it wasn't even that good. Hey, we were in Rome, what do you expect?
Our next sightseeing destination was the Vatican City, which is actually a country, but it's called a city because it is probably the smallest country in the world. I'm not sure though because I'm terrible at Geography and I haven't looked at a world map. We went to St. Peter's Square which is where the Pope lives, and it was really pretty. There's basically a massive building with a big wall joined on which is built in a circle shape. There are two massive fountains and some big pillar in the middle, but I didn't look up to see if there was a statue on top because it was too bright. The time was 16:00pm and daddy wanted to go inside the Pope's house (which was the massive building) and look at the art. We were told to walk all around the wall protecting his house which goes through Vatican City, and had the other end of the building is a door leading into a museum. That was one big building! It took us about 15 minutes to get to that door, and that was walking at a fast pace. We got there to find that it was shutting and we couldn't go inside. So we walked all the way back to get on the bus and go to Trevi Fountain, which is what I wanted to see all day after the Colosseum - the others didn't seem that bothered about going! We arrived at the fountain and it was really busy. The fountain is amazingly beautiful, but there was a sea of people to get through to see it. There were rows of benches carved into the stone, so we stood on those and took loads of pictures. I'm glad we went and I think the others were glad when they saw it too! We threw a penny over our shoulder into the fountain which means we're going back to Rome. Apparently to go and see the city again, but I'm only going to get my cent back!
It was getting late, but there was a church which claimed they had the remains of Jesus Christ's manger, and we wanted to go and see it, but the bus stopped at about 6:30, so we couldn't. On our way around the city on the bus, we saw the Alter of the Nation which is a massive white palace with loads of statues around it, it was very pretty. We also saw the carriage racing next to the Colosseum, so we do want to go back to the city and look at more architecture. It was a very busy day, and we wrapped it up with a kebab which was the first kebab of my life, and it was lovely! We arrived back at the van at 23:30 and drove out to a motorway which was being built and was deserted.
On Friday, we left the motorway-to-be quite promptly, as the builders started work early and a guy drove up to us and looked as if he was going to ask us why we were there, so we got out of there quickly! Not a bad night there though, which was good. We were supposed to be driving halfway to Ancona that day to catch a ferry to Croatia on the Saturday, but every town we stopped in had some pasta festival or was to mountainy, so we ended up driving to a town which was 1/2 an hour away from Ancona. We were staying in a 3* campsite which had no WIFI, so me and daddy spent 45 minutes going around the town trying to find a WIFI zone. We failed as it was like stepping into a medieval town where no one knew about technology or spoke a word of English. We had a thunder storm that night, which wasn't popular as we had done loads of washing with the campsites washing machine (I know, the town has a washing machine but no WIFI!) and we had to get it in from outside where it was trying to dry. We all slept in the tent that night, and the rain just kept on coming down. It wasn't very pleasant, but I guess there are good days and bad days.
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