wEST

So I left Istanbul, with a final destintation of Paris in my sites. I have to be there by the third to pick up the

lads for the worlds cup, in between Istanbul and Paris were a bunch of boxes that still required ticking so I

needed to rush as fast as possible across the more bleak parts of Eastern Europe.

Here are my notes from the trip:

7:11 AM - Not moving, got boxed in by trucker SOB's over night.

I didn't get as far last night as I hoped, the moonshine headache I had when I woke after the GP was a

killer, 200 KM short of the goal.

7:25 AM- Underway

8:05 - 40 Mins, 70 km's, Bored.

9:00 AM- 1st sign for Sofiya, 320 KM's just shy of border.

9:05 AM- at the border, didn't get fuel before I did... Longish line, I'm bored- Praise the lord for Podcasts

9:23 AM- Slow moving line!!

9:45 AM- i'm about half way along I think

9:50 AM- Just got a rails run through the passport control, Thanks Turkish version of Skia.

10:05 AM- Have done the Turkey side of things, now the Bulgarian side.

10:06 AM- The EU? (no)

10:23 AM- For Fuck's Sake!

10:35 AM- I think the tour de France promo Sausage may be Contraband!!! (they were)

10:45 AM- Disinfection Charge?

10:47 AM- BULGARIA!

10:52 AM- On the way to Sofiya, 191.4 KM's, 66 KM/hr, 2 Hours 51 Mins

11:45 AM- Tough going, Single lane highway- Oriely hates the Muslims

12:10 PM- Can't even overtake- Slow

12:45 PM- Down to Hannity now, need to ration out the podcasts...

2:05 PM- I'm shattered, 20 KM short of Sofiya, need a break.

3:20 PM- Onwards to Belgrade (I skipped Sofiya due to poor signage).

3:30 PM- How do you get to Serbia?

3:43 PM- Belgrade, turn right- 380 KM - Hooray (CCR- CoComotion)

4:03 PM- Fucking cops everywhere here, Police State?

4:25 PM- Serbian Border less then 6 hours across the country... now have to get across the border, sigh

4:27 PM- Another rails run? Line of truckes was 1.5 KM long! Customs agents love to laugh about the fact I have no friends.

4:31 PM- Problem with Serbia is Kosovo and Land Mine... Lousy DFAT. Another problem is long line at Customs.

5:00 PM- SERBIA!
Almost too easy.

5:25 PM- No land mines yet.

5:55 PM- Prett Mountains and george.

6:30 PM- On a toll road, no currency...

7:00 PM- 150 KM to Belgrad, starting to struggle. 740 Km's, 75 KM/HR, 10 hours.

8:35 PM- After 3 stops at servo's I finally got some currency. Got to the toll both and htey accept Euro's///

10:30 PM- Back from a walk around Belgrade. Nice Town. Did Macca's test then went looking for Red Light

district. No Nudie Bars but lots, and lots of hardbodies, St Lucia campus flash backs.

10:55 PM- Zagreb sign!
307KM- Serejvo, 326 KM- Zagreb

11:07 PM- Servo- Stopped for the day.

Day 2.
7:25 AM- Full of fuel, away 4 the day. Target= Italy! Out of Podcasts so at some point will need interneet.

7:30 AM- J Cash- I'm so lonely I could cry. A new contender for Rhyso's Better Be Home Soon tear jerker.

8:15 AM- Croatian border- 2nd last??? (no three more)

8:21 AM- CROATIA
- Very quick border, there are two ticks in the note book.

8:33 AM- His Feet they used to Sparkle, and he always kept them on the ground. La La La La La.

8:50 AM- Stay on the road this long and you see some fucked up accidents. One in Turkey was was worse

but no way people walked away from that one. Less note taking and more running at 110 per hour I think!

10:00 AM- Now listening to some Anthony Robbins. I do feel totally Self Confident! 80 KM's till Zagreb.

10:52 AM- Missed the turn for Zagreb - now Slovenia?

11:05 AM- the Serbian Border!

11:11 AM- Nothing to declare. I need a ruling - I never actually put my feet down on croatian soil?

11:17 AM- SLOVENIA!!
Border guy couuldn't believe the poster of the Goddess of the Bus!

11:45 AM- Highway to Lubjlana just became a goat track, might not be in Italy for lunch...

12:30 PM- Full of fuel, just realised I havn't been in big blue for near a week - bring on the coast!

12:43 PM- First Italy sign. The end is in site... 1st a stop in Lubjlana.

12:48 PM- No way into Lubiljana- now heading away from Italy- this isn't good. 15 Hrs 1417 Km 82 KM/HR.

1:05 PM- Fuck It! Italy or bust.

2:00 PM- Lunch has been had- Lets finish this.

2:22 PM- 33 Km to go. Hooray

2:25 PM- Tom Tom is back to life. No roads yet, but close.

2:30 PM- Poor signsage near the border, am lost.

2:32 PM- Italian border.

2:35 PM- he made me turn on my lites???

2:37 PM- ITALY

No more Eastern Europe - This party is over. 1500 KM 18 driving hours average 82 KM/hr

One last thought- what the fuck was the little stuggling baby type thing in the Kings Cross scene at the end of HP??? I don't think it was explained.

Istanbul GP

So the entire itenerary of the post Italy trip was based on attended the Istanbul Grand Prix this last weekend. I have put up with a fornight of struggling against the rigours of touristing just so I could get along to the big race. So on Saturday I was quite excited to point the bus in the direction of Istanbul Park and the big dance.

Istanbul Park is located about 50 kilometres East of the city and due to its relative brandnewness it has excellent access roads, strangly though the course designers decided to make the access road as twisty, and turny as they possibly could, its excellent. Three lanes with perfect freshly laid tar, and as I was arriving nice and early no traffic. Considering the mind state of anyone heading to a racing car race it was an interesting descision by the designers.

Naturally I chucked the Messy back a gear and raced my way towards the track, lots of fun, nothing like 4500 kilo's of racing truck drifting into corners, late breaking- oh it was good fun. Anyways I eventually arrived at the racing car track- free parking, very good, set up the bus for camping and then went down into the track.

The Race Track is brand new so all the facilities are fantastic. The main area is around the big Grand Stand, with lots of food/beer stalls etc, and lots of merchandising, so had some fun thinking of things to buy, almost brought some Spyker kit but eventually thought better. The biggest problem with the set up of the track is that it is divided into small viewing sections, not all connected like a normal race track. That is, each Grand Stand/General Admin section is invidual, you can't walk from one to the other without having to go all the way out to the ring road that goes around the track, the good thing is that there is a bus that takes you from section to section.

So I watched the practice section at Turn 1, which was golden for watching the cars coming out of the pits. Then for the Qualifying Session I headed out to the draw card Turn 8, with its 4 apex's and crazy flat out bravery, it was a very impressive corner. Anyways, I was having a great time, there was a nice breeze blowing, lots of sun light, three fifths of fuck all people, and lots of motor sports. I ran into another problem when I was told by my little Muslim friends that I couldn't take any Alcohol into the General Admin section, but that wasn't that big of a problem. Anyways, QF was good, although Webber couldn't get through section 2. Sitting at Turn 8 was good, as you could really see the differential between those on flying laps (i.e. taking absolute on the edge approach through the corner) and those just cruising, who would be clearly easing off. As the final section came to a close it looked like Kimi was going to grab the pole- he was clearly fastest in sector 2, but then the loud speaker told us that Massa at managed to grab the pole (and Lewis was 2nd) Kimi had fucked it.

My day at the track was finished so I went up to the bus, which was at the top of a hill, allowing me to watch the GP2 race from the comfort of my house. I went for a drive to look for some Wi Fi, but couldn't find any, so went back to the track for some sleeping.

I woke up early the next morning and was very excited to be the first person at the track for the day, little things excite me. Anyways, I faffed my morning away, watching a movie, having a scotch, and watching as the track slowly began to fill up. Around 10 I headed down the hill to the track to get set up for the day. I packed all the essentials, a chair, my beach mat, sun screen, my Australian Flag, and the most important item, a bottle of moonshine (remembering that I couldn't get any alchol in the day before). My moonshine was a scientifically mixed concoction of Ouzo, Scotch, and the secret ingredient Pastsis (this may have been a mistake).

Anyways, I got down to Turn 1, which is where I decided to watch the race for the day. I brought 4 bottles of coke early as I didn't want to have to be walking back and forth to the food place all day. Anyways, I made some friends with some Brits who were sitting near me, and also made friends with my bottle of Moonshine- the day began to go very well...

Saturday had been quite cool, a nice breeze blew all day; Sunday, was the opposite, 35 degrees with no breeze at all, it was hot, very hot. I settled in throughout the day, the GP2 race was fun (timo glock won) and the Porsches were a little boring, finally it was time for the big race.

Anyways, by this time I was getting quite drunk so I have to look at my notes to see what happened in the race. The Ferrari's lead off the start, and Alonso sucked. Webber had a poor start and this was compounded when he was forced out in the 10th lap. The rest of the race was pretty much stock standard with little to no action, that was off course until the end when something bizarre happened, I will switch to my notes for this:

35- Kimi on the charge, 36- He will win it. 40- Kimi pits behind Alonso, 41- Now Hamilton on the charge, 42- Massa and KR 4th and 5th, Bill yells Hamilton will win it. 43- No Hamilton. Oh My God. No Hamilton they swapped him with Alonso- wtf?, 44- Hamilton = Fucked !!, 45- Ron Dennis = Deserves to Die, 46- Ferrari 1/2, Hamilton= Average, My Brit friends are dying. 47- Boo, 48- Boo, 49- Boo Boo, 50 - Mclaren are scum, 51- Hamilton +30 seconds, 53- The Fix is In!

I'm still not 100% sure what happened but something very poor happened to old Hamilton, if it turns out Mclaren cheated I hope they put them in jail. I was very drunken by the end of the race so I stumbled up to the Messy Days and sat around stewing in my anger at what had happened at the end of the race, no Kimi and no Lewis win- was their any point driving 3000 miles? Webber couldn't even get to a pit stop...

Anyways, I had a quick sleep to get over my hangover, and then began the treak West.

(Editors note: I have since learnt that Lewis had a puncture which is why it appeared as if Mclaren had screwed him over... still, I would put the bunch of them in jail)

Donna Martin Graduates

Donna Martin Graduates- and she deserved to too.

What ever happened that sort of grass roots politcal action? It certainly hasn't worked in the movement to get Turkey instituted into the European Union. I don't fully understand the politcal landscape myself, but if Greece is in, and Turkey is out, well then something just isn't right.

I left Greece yesterday, after spending a solid afternoon in Thessalonki (two days ago) I headed for the border. Thessalonki was a solid town, unfortunatly it came on the end of 6 other days in Greece so it didn't rub me the right way. Despite my feelings I can recomend it, a lot, and I mean a lot less slummy then Athens, nice boulevards, a good shopping district and an impressive Alexandar Statue. Anyways, despite my positive reaction it was noticably time to leave Greece.

So I headed East, for some reason North Eastern Greece is blessed with actually decent highways so I made good time, so good infact that I ended up pulling up for the night a good couple of hundred km's further east then I planned, I ended up camping on the side of the road just West of the first sign I had seen for a little place called... Turkey!

The plan for the next day was to go to the small town of Alenxadropoulis (ever a Grail quest despite what some commentators might say). Unfortunatly Alexandroupoulis was lousy for parking so it soon got cut, and I set my nose East in pursuit of Turkish Delights. A half hour short of the border I saw a sign for a natural spring, so thought it might be fun to check it out. It was the last sign I would see for this mysterious Natural Spring, I drove, and drove, for about half an hour down small back roads getting more and more worried about the fact that I was now completly lost. Panic slowly began to approach.

It arrived, in a full blown attack when the fuel light came on. I had driven for forty mintues, criss crossing the National Highway three times (without an entry/exit point) and had still not scene a servo, things were getting dire.

I continued along what seemed like a decent road until it started going up hill, which is when the road detirioted. Then I past a sign advertising I was in a restricted zone- no photos, no filming, no stopping- advertised in 5 different languages. I was in a tight spot. I continued on for a few minutes until the F&L decsended, panic is not a happy place, especially lost, 50 kilometres and about a dozen blind turns from where you had started;

I turned around...

I know, I know, I have spent years telling certain people that your first instincts are the best and that you should never question a decision once its been made, but in this case I felt it was prudent to use caution instead of the rock n roll approach that has dominated this tour so far.

Anyways, long story much shorter within 20 minutes I had hit gold and was on my for Turkey- saved at last.

Not long after I saw signs advertising the Turkish border, expecting an easy, EU style blast across the border I eagerly sped up, that was of course until I saw the M16 brandishing Greek Guard standing at one side of a bridge, things slowed down. Three checkpoints later I had acquired a visa, and also approached a check point without the neccesary documents- an Uzi brandishing, very angry man told me I had to go back. "Where?" I asked, he just seemed to think it was in my best interests to go back, so I did. After some wrangling, and a bunch of the old hands apart shrugging motions the little girls had given me the requisite stamps and I was on my way.

TURKEY!!!! Hooray.

After the hell that was Greece, Turkey was a godsend! Wide, well maintained highways, and, wait for this, massive, well apointed Service Stations- I was back in a real country. Shortly after the border I turned south to head towards Galibolu, and the Gallipoli peninsula.

I soon arrived in the south west of Turkey, the Cannakkle area and as I pulled into a servo for fuel I saw a few yellow signs that looked mysteriously like a wireless internet symbol and a fuel bowser, with a flame of hope rising in my chest I fired up the old Inspirion, and was met with the three greatest words in the English language "Unsecured Wireless Network Available" - okay so that's four words but fuck my spirits soared.

Ever since the Grinch, posing as my book keeper down South at Mirtna Headquarters decided I would be better off not using the Vodaphone modem I have been in a horrible internet black out, but it had all changed now. I was downloading podcasts, torrents, uploading pictures, and surfing the net to my hearts content. Vive Le Turkey! forever and ever.

An hour or so later I had downloaded the latest four epidsodes of Entourages (Drama nails a bird in a chipmunk suit- you have to see it to believe it) and headed down to the town of Gelibolu, what I thought was the sight of the Gallipoli landings. It was a nice little town, a good market, nice port, and some nice illusions to our shared past, but no signs for ANZAC, I began to worry.

After checking out the town I jumped back in Messy and headed north, Google Earth made it look as if that was the way to go, it wasn't.

A small country lane, a heard of cattle, and a deamon three point turn later I tried the southern side of town, also a massive strike. Without options I decided to try heading even further South, all I knew was that there was a national park somewhere, were 1000's of people better then I had fought a battle for a reason that few can still remember, somewhere around the area... but I couldnt find it.

I headed South, and SOUTH for what seemed like an age, it turns out that the town of Gallipoli is no where near the Gallipoli peninsula, ANZAC Cove isn't even on the fucking Dardenelles. Finally I saw a sign, written in Turkish but I could guess the intent and with my heart in my mouth I took a right turn- it worked! and I soon found myself parked at North Beach, Anazac Cove- sight of a certain landing on April 25 1915 that meant a lot to my people.

With sunset arriving I decided it would be a good time to go see the memorial, leaving the rest of the battle fields for the next day...

I could go on, this post is already getting lengthy though, and I'm not the kloss, I won't ask Joe Knorks to write something for me, but I don't know if I am ready to write about the Gallipoli Experience yet. Suffice to say it was an incredible experience that I wouldn't trade for anything else we have done on this trip yet.

After spending the next day walking the battlefields of Gallipoli I headed back North for a days touristing in Instanbul. Which was good, but by this time, 60 odd days into the journey some random ancient town was a little overwhelming. Anyways, I had a good time, I played a fun game of Eurpoe/Asia/Europe walking across a bridge on the harbour, then went to the Blue Mosque- I only counted 5 spikes, but who am I, then went to the Grand Bazzar- which was grand, and it was bizarre- OH MY GOD that is gold...

Anyways, once I was done I went back to the campsite, to rest up for this weekend, and the Istanbul Grands Prix- which is where I am now- its great.

Drunken Posting

So free camping on the side of the highway is the way to go over here, except for the fact that trucks are noisey things- so in order to get any sleep I have had to turn to the bottle, fairly heavily the last couple of days.

One of my favorite things to do when drinking is write stream of conciousness blog posts, so what follow's is what I came up with last night (completly unedited).

Enjoy:


We/I don't have tickets to the Ireland France game yet- we're are they?

love to share my thoughts when I get a little boozey, that 4 dollar Ouzo gets straight to the heart of the problem. I have so much to say, and thanks to the glory of Sergey Brin (and the other guy) I can rant all I want and be immortalised for ever.

I read once about a study where they showed that people rated beautiful peoples faces better, they're all about symetry. Denzel fucking Washington's Eye's Nose, Ears and chin all line up in a supposed romance to traditional beuaty, cepting of course for the fact that he is a negro... One of my eyes opens wider then the other, my smile is also lopsided and now that I am sporting my best Mulga Bill beard and hair it appears as if my beard is also lopsided, but on the opposite side of all the rest. Fuck Denzel Washington, I am georgous.

Life out here on the road is not for the faint of heart. My map has these crazy pictures that look like little coloumns, representing ancient archealogical area's of Greece. this is how I am deciding the agenda for this freak out. For instance today I went to the ancient city of Eritrea- a surprisingly good scene. Eritrea is a small town on the island of Evoia, which connects to mainland Greece on a bridge near Chalkida. 3000 years ago Eritrea was a happening hub, a natural port that allowed the locals to extend their reach far beyong the natural borders of their small Island. About 2,200 years ago a bunch of pesky Romans sacked and burned the fuck out of the locals so that their ancient city was lost for millenia.

Today the small town is similliar to trawling villages the world over. My first reaction was a strange nostaglia for the good old days of family trips to Yamba, the difference of course is that their is 3000 years of history poking its head into the day to day running of the town. I parked the Messy Days by the ancient Baths, then walked all the way through town to the Museum and the ruins of the old 'Western District' of town. Overall it was an extremely good piece of touristing, an amazing window into life a couple of thousand years ago bundeled into a resort town on the side of a picturesque fishing village- an out of the box box that didn't need ticking, but still got ticked none the less.

This is an example of things going right on the road. My aim for after Eritrea was to jet a little up the coast, find a beach, then settle for the night in a small town south of Lamia. Unfortunatly, when I arrived in said small town their was nothing open, mid afternoon on a weekend, and nothing (no market, no snack food places) was open- I was fucked, the plan for the day was shot.

So I headed North, when there are no solid plans the only thing to do is to borrow from the next days plans in order to come up with something to do. Northward I headed till I reached Thermopalyae- the scene of the ancient battle which was the target of tomorrow's touristing. Surprisingly Thermopalyae turned out to be an absolute bust, just a monument on the side of the national highway, with a statue to the Spartan king and an information point that told the story of 30, 000 odd Greeks who kicked the arse out of a million odd Persians for a couple of days sometime around the year 400 BC. Pretty mipressive when you think about it like that.

Anways,

fuck. Another god dam shepard is out the window, the other day one shut down the entire highway to get her sheeps across the god dam road- I wasn't happy. This monkey is out there till 9:15 on a Saturday watching over his flock, probably wondering how theose 2 (out of a 100) got to be black. Fucking Mendlestone (mendlestone? or some other Dav Rossi Jew name- the guy with the different coloured flowers... anyways) That's as complicated as life gets for the shepared. Look out for Foxes Mo Fo. Here I am trying to segue my "Expertise" on generational change in the workforce into a retention gig with Main Roads QLD and this monkey gets to spend his days watching a heard of fucking future lamb cutlets live their lives. Remind me again why I can't wind out my time on this earth sitting in a 6 wheeled trailer on thehighways of Eastern Europe?

Fuck Commerce!

That Billy Walsh knew what he was talking about - Are you kidding? I am Queens Boulevard!

Right- tough life on the road, without Mythos beer and a sense of adventure I don't think your average day tripper could survive. Some whores just stole Sander's Vet by hitting on him- what a character, if I could replace Kloss Diggity and old Dav Rossi with Sander's and Drama as bestest good touristing friends this trip would be off tap, baby. The problem with Greece (well one of the problems) is that they can't comprehend the concept of a 7-11, I have wailed previously on this blog as to the inadequicies of Greecean service stations, but I don't know if I really got my point across- let me try and clear it up- tonight was the second time in my life when I have had to have Chocolate Chip Cookies for dinner, the previous time was a few nights ago.

I know it sounds like a wild trip, being so far gone on the road, so deep into it, that all I can find time to eat for dinner is cookies- but seriously, the only reason I am in this funk is that its near impossible to find a grocery store in this backwards country- give me a nice reliable Champion any day of the weak. Anways, we're nearing the end of this rant. We're about 7 lots of 24 hours plus a couple away from the Istanbul Grand Prix and (the at least mental) turn towards home, or Paris as home may be next month. Fuck that, home is where the heart is as they say.

My four regular readers will know what I am talking about... Four- the three who know who they are will go wild trying to work out who the fourth is... where are we? Right- the run home. With only a week left i need to fit in as much gonzo touristing as can be handled, I also need to find sometime to finish reading a couple of books that require my upmost attention- I won't have the time come the worlds cup- it will be too wild.

P.S- I found out today that all the world cup matches are day games- which is a result as it means there will be a lot of time sitting around the bus reconstructing games on the Pastisis.

P.P.S- I have re started an old blog for the important worlds cup analysis- I don't want this descending into a useless sports blog- I will get the link here soon.

Athenia

So I brought a hair band, how do the dames put up with long hair? I mean really, its always getting in my eyes, or itching my ears... Very annoying. I caved in and brought myself a Berbatov style band, not a gay as all fuck Bracken band- but still, I'm not really certain if this is cool or not- on top of my cocco butter sun screen I am worried about where this is going.

So the whole trip is supposed to be about 'finding myself' and despite the opening of this piece I can garruntee I'm not the homosexuals. I have spent far too much time sitting on rocky beaches on the Med looking at very young hard bodies in extremly scanty bikini's, so we've solved that problem. Another thing I am not is a traveller, this punting about from place to place is really not all its cracked up to be. I mean, how many boxes can anyone person tick in a 30 day period??? I'm not as interested in Greek culture as I look...I'm thinking a beach up in Turkey for a couple of days later this week.

Anyways, I stayed in a small port town called Rafina while in Athens, it was a nice 30 km's out of town, but their was no train, so I had to spend an hour on the bus just to get into town- but that wasn't that big of a problem, I was SOOOOOO excited about my big day in Athens.

I finally arrived in the latest edition on the olympic city roster and my first impression was that it was hot, real hot, back home type hot- I was very impressed. The bus into town does not drop you in a particullarly nice section of the city however, so I spent my first 45 odd minutes just wondering around trying to work out where I was, the normal play is too find a tube stop near where you need to be to get your bus/overland train home and use that as a base- it worked in Rome, Naples, Paris, Monaco and others, but in Athens it was turning out to be quite a hassle.

Anyways, I finally took the right turn and ended up on one of the major streets of down town Athens- its a little bit 70's slum, but overall its just a town. I had heard good things about the Athens Metro system, but finding a train station turned out to be the hardest part- when that job was finally done things got a lot easier. I caught the tube a stop down to the main touristing section and then did the touristing- not really many better ways to describe it then that.

The Acropolis/Pathenon/Agora is a very impressive part of town, really they appear to have just left a large section in the very middle of town empty for the ancient ruins. Of course

(Is it sad that I live a life with two different digital camera's? My view out my window is currently of some lights over on the main land across an Ageian Bay (I'm on the Island of Evoia, just out side of Eritrea) anyways, its quite a view, not every day you get to camp seriously 4 metres from the edge of the water, I tried to take a photo with the Kloss Kamera but it wouldn't come out, then I tried the Happy Snapper but it didn't work either. Oh well, you'll just have to believe me. Back to the 90210 - seriously, best move of the entire journey was coming with my multiple BH 90210 and Entourage DVD's- keeping me very occupied at night, that and the Mythos Hellenic Larger Beer and the $4 bottle of Ouzo- very occupied).

Where are we? right, touristing in Athens. I walked around, and around- and I mean around, its a fairly massive hill, and finding the way up can be quite challanging. Until eventually I got all the way to the top, and the Acropolis- very outstanding. 3000 years old. I liked it. BUT it was very quickly over with- its just an old shell of a building really, I had driven thousands of kilometres and was done with the big ticket items of the town within about 100 minutes. This touristing just isn't what its cracked up to be.

Anyways, my two day Athens experience was nearing completion after only one long morning, so I needed to come up with something exciting to make Athena catch fire in the old imagination. Thankfully the Athens Happy Train was there to save the day (I'll add a photo later). Dav Rossi and Kloss Dogg had poo poohed the last tourist train we saw (in Monaco) but this time I demanded satisfaction. It was a lot of fun, really it just went over the same route I had done in the morning, but I was riding in a cool minature train this time so was definatly the toast of all the people who waved as we drove past. It also took in a couple of cool new areas of town- such as the shopping district and the parliament area- where we saw some people in extremly foolish costumes- but they looked fairly serious with their bayonets, so I didn't throw too much sass.

Once the train ride was done I did the Macca's test, then caught the train back to the bus stop and bailed on the whole Athens trip, back to Rafina and my favorite bottle of Pastisis- it made everything seem good.

Overall I would give Athens a B-, parts of it stella, boxes that have to be ticked no matter what your stance on ticking boxes is, whilst other parts where a bit yawney, and others we're extremly divey- I wouldn't award it the Olympics over Bris Vegas, but I would still recomend it as part of the itenerary- not a destination, but a good point on the route no matter what.

Worst day of the trip

(Off the Ferry, Amstels are a killer, they don't even use the same alphabet, no money, Lost, Camping Ioannion, no highways, Fear and Loathing Greece, Delphi, the side of the road)

So I got off the Ferry and was officially in Greece, I had no money, no map, and very little fuel. I went into the small ferry town Igoumensta, which saying the name of is about the most interesting part. I had a quick look around town, its basically a port, and went looking for a map, it turns out the good people at the Tom Tom corporation havn't realised that Greece exsists. There were no maps for sale in this small town, so I went to a pub and had a couple of the local brews, which I couldn't find so had some Amstels instead, they were good, and much needed after the horrors of the cruise (seriously the funniest thing you will ever see is the poor schumcks sleeping on the deck of the car ferry, when you've got your own 5 star super bus to sleep in comfort in... although I failed to empty the facilities before I got on the boat so had to share a bathroom with 300 or so camping on the deck people, wasn't great).

So after a few beers I got back in the bus and went looking for a map - but old Greece isn't very helpful when it comes to that, apparently they haven't heard of decent servo's in greece, they don't sell anything but oil etc, no snacks, no drinks, nothing useful, especially no maps, many also don't take credit- a big problem... anyways, I drove along and along looking for a place to get the map. Eventually I had gone about 100 km's to the next major town, so was happy to bail out at a campsite I found. I went for a quick tour around the town, got some dinner, and finally a map (written in Greek- but it would do) and was happy to collapse in the fort bed for a decent nights sleep.

With my new map I very quickly planned out a couple of days worth of touristing and set off in the direction of Athens, with the intention of stopping off at Delphi on the way. Unfortunatly it turns out the stupid fucking Greeks still think that what was acceptable as a highway 2000 years ago is fine in todays high paced world.

Seriously, I had to go about 350 KM's today and it took me 6.5 hours to do it- it was terrible. Single lane roads up and over 4 different mountain ranges, the first 80 km's took me 2.5 hours to cover, I was in no way happy about this fact, I don't like driving at the best of times, so when you add slow going and stressful downhills I really don't get happy.

Anyways, the long, long day went on and on, with my opinion of Greece going down and down as I went, I drove probably 200 KM before I found my first 4 lane road, the loathing was taking hold. I turned of the Athens road towards Delphi at around 3 and was extremely incensed when I realised that their was another mountain to go over before Delphi, I pulled over to the side of the road for a quick break before tackling the final climb and when I got back on the road I noticed that a new indicator light had come on, the one that looks like a little orange engine.

Immediatly the cold grip of the fear tightned around my heart, the mixture of the loathing I was feeling and the fear that had just descended meant an extreme blow up. I can't describe the mood I was in as I drove over that final mountain, but imagine driving six hours and then having a full blown attack of the Fear and Loathing in a strange country with an even stranger language - it was not great.

The rest of the drive to Delphi was horrible, but I managed to relax after I got online and found out that the indicator light was only for the Fuel Injection System and I could keep going on with it on - I relaxed a little and went and enjoyed the ancient ruins of the Oracle, it was quite enjoyable.

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow the fuel injector cleaning fluid I put in the fuel will have its effect and I get to Athens in one piece, at the moment I am on the side of the road, thinking that things can only get better then today.

There's still a fortnight of this left?...

So I quickly fled Italy yesterday, but I am starting to wonder if that was the smartest move I could have made. Months, and Months ago I became aware that I had to try and kill a month between the end of the Tour De France and the Start of the big dance.

At the time it sounded easy, even a little exciting, a whole month in the captain's chair of the (then unnamed) HMAS Messy Days Express with all of Europe at my feet. I quickly made my plans, I wanted to see: Puccini Fest, Rome, Cannae, Athens, and the Istanbul Grand Prix. Unfortunatly at the time I didn't give any thought to the fact that this accounted for perhaps 8 days of touristing, when I had to fill over 30.

Now, I am at the coal face, spending each day trying to get more and more touristing done, and I have realised that I have a certain limit to the amount of rediculously unimportant boxes that I can tick at any moment. For instance, three days ago, pure box ticking in Naples- possibly one of the boringest afternoons of my life. Another example, my current situation, I fled Italy as I was bored and over it and am now in Greece... But the problem is I don't really have anything I really, really, want to see in Greece. Sure there is the obvious boxes of the Acropolis, Thermopoalae, Delphi, Knossos, and Marathon, but apart from that I can't really think of what I am going to do.

Seriously, I have come up with about 3.5 days of touristing to cover the next fortnight- add on Gallipoli, Troy, and maybe the sights of Istanbul on Grand Prix day and we're at about a week- this still leaves me a week short.

What to do for a week in Greece/Turkey? Seriously, I am looking for idea's here people. I have gotten all the idea's I possibly could of our friends at Poundster.com, and am still short- so any idea's are welcome in the comments section.

Also, I have to get from Instanbul to Paris between the 26th and 3rd of September. I have Venice and the Last Supper in Milan on the list for this period, but that is maybe an afternoon, so need some other things to do that weekend.

Folks, I am down to re reading Tucker Max and my Thomas Clancey that I read on the way over to the UK, I am desperate for things to do to fill my days. Suggestions Please.

So I was done with Roma and headed South, I wanted to fill a few days before heading off to Greece with some more pointless box ticking, so I went for Naples and Pompeii. This was planned as two seperate days of touristing, but I soon discovered that Pompeii was a suburb of Naples so I decided to camp at Pompeii and travel to Napoli by train, it turned out I should have saved the train fare.

Naples was an incredible disapointment, well not really a disapointment, but it failed to excite at all. It was dirty, poorly laid out, full of terrible traffic, and badly in need of a coat of paint. My view of the town could have been soured by the fact that I was coming off three hard days touristing and was therefore very tired, but I just couldn't get enthusiastic about anything in town. There were a few things I kind of wanted to see, the Duomo, The Archealogical Museumm the Castle, and the Catacombs, but the lousy lousiness of the town in general killed my buzz in such
away that I couldn't be bothered. I walked and walked (its a poorly laid out town) until I finally found the Doumo, a great big church, I went into the museum, which sucked, and then couldn't get into the actual church - my enthusiasm meter offically dipped into the negatives, and I decided to cut the rest of the town. I would find out the next day that this was a huge mistake as most of the good stuff they found at Pompeii is now ono display at the Archealogical Museaum, but whatever- if I had gone to the meuseum I wouldn't have been in the mood anyways.

I got a solid afternoon/evening's relaxing in thanks to my piking on Napoli so woke up bright and early the next morning to go see the ruins of Pompeii, the ancient Roman town which was famously distroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in about 74 BC. I spent a bit of extra time preparing my outfit for the day, I wanted to be in my best Archealogist Outfit, unfortunatly I lost my cool hat in a drunken haze in Arny Le Duc, but I think the bull whip set off the outfit well- people had to know what I was all about.

Pompeii is very much well worth the visit. Back when I was an actual history type person I was never really interested in the whole, this is how they lived their every day lives, type stuff. But Pompeii is really quite interesting. My favorites where the Basillica, House of Mysteries, the small Theatre, and the small version of Collosimo. There was a slight downer however, in the fact that it involves a lot of walking, I don't know what I was expecting, but it is a complete town, and too see the whole thing you need to walk alot - my doggs still weren't 100% so by the end off the whole town I was a little tired.

The next day was time to sign out of Camping Sparticus (we're I was staying) so I set off early once again, this time to go up to the top of Mt Vesevius to get its prospective on the whole destruction of the town thing. The climb up to the car park was enough fun, the Messy Days only just handled the trip, it seriously took about 40 minutes driving straight up- easily out of category - 12-13 km's climbing up 1000 metres - quite serious.

So this climb gets you to the car park which still leaves you a couple of hundred metres below the top of the Mountain. I eagerly set about the climb however, as I was very keen to see some Lava, and get some use out of the Aniken skywalker costume I was wearing, but in the end it turned out their was no lava to be seen, no smoke neither - all in all, probably the most disapointing of all the Volcano's I have ever climbed. Nonetheless, great veiws, and something tells me that Vesuvius will get the last laugh, there are now 3,000,000 people living in the area's around the mountain, if it decides to blow its top again it will do some serious damage- I would care, but I was watching that World Cup round of 16 mach, maybe they could try their take a dive antics then... lets see how that works against the lava you greasy itai fucks!

Anyways, son I was finished Vesuvio and it was only 11 in the day. I needed to come up with something to do for the rest of the day, Amalfi was only a hundred odd KM's away so I headed off in that direction. However as I got closer and closer I started to wonder why I was doing this- I had no interest in going to Amalfi, which was good news when I got to the 20 KM to go mark and some charlie was blocking the road and told me I had to turn around- I didn't know what he was saying, but it made Amalfi offically to difficult for my tastes, so I turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

I had to admit to myself that I was now offically over Italy, there is only so much of one place you can take, and apparently 10 odd days is my limit. So I headed across the country towards the Adriatic in order to tick the biggest italian box I had on my list and then catch the ferry to Greece.

There were four absolutes when I got on the plane to come over here: Monaco for GP, Tour De France, Cannae, and the RWC. I had compelted the first two and today gave me a great opportunity to kick a goal and see the ancient battlefield of Cannae, on the adriatic coast in the Puglia section of Italy. Cannae, as all the 2nd Punic War freaks out their will tell you is the great battle where old Hannibal wiped the floor
with a much larger Roman army, bringing the Roman's to their knees for the first time. The battle (around 216 BC) was so long ago that all that remains are some rough idea's as to where it actually occured, but the museum at the ancient Citadel of Canne serves its purpose well. You can climb a big hill and look down on the whole valley, there upon imagining the slaughter that occured below. In the space of a day, Hannibals army inflicted near 50, 000 deaths on the Romans, whilst only incurring 6000 deaths on their side. They used what was to become the classic, draw your oppenent to far out onto the battlefield then come around his flanks and butcher him to pieces manoveur - it was to become this move as this is the first time in history that anyone used it- that Hannibal, if only he had some political will he may have been able to turn towards Roma itself after the great battle- unfortunatly the powers that be back in Carthage demurred, and so changed histroy forever (theres a lesson in there for old General Patreaus if you know what I mean)

Anyways, I'm sure you can infer that I was very excited by my visit to Cannae, a top twenty item on the hundred list I was very happy to get the box ticked. I was also very happy that I managed to get it done by about 4 pm, I still had time to blast down to Bari and see if I could get aboard a Ferry to Greece - which is where I am know, I told you I was over Italy. The boat was supposed to sail at 10, and looking out my window (its now 10:38) I think we are still in port, but it seems about ready to leave- so when I wake up I should be in Greece, and the real ancient leg of this trip can begin.

Collosomo

The only words I can read on my bottle of skin cream are Vitamen E and Cocco Butter - is my sun burn fixing lotion secretly turning me the colour of Cocco Butter. I got sun burnt in Roma, this and more were just some of the adventures I enjoyed in the Eternal City.

So after the adventures of Florence I headed further South, down to Rome, the capital, and ultimate tourist direction in Italia. I got an excellent campsite, Camping Tiber, which was about 25 minutes out of the city on the train. After
setting up the Messy Days I took the train into town to see the sites, I stood staring at the list of stations on the metro map for a few minutes before eventually deciding that the station I needed to go to was the one called,

COLLOSOMO - I mean with a name like that it had to be good?

I came out of the station and was surprised to see that this station was in fact the home of the Flavian Amputheatre (hows that spelling?) At first I thought that the Itai's had sold out and called their metro station the western name for the Colleseum, but I later found out that the Colleseum is what they actually call it - Nero had a Klossus erected their, which is what the area became known as... the things you discover on the road.

Anyways, I spent a long time standing in a line- probably about 90 minutes, when I got in I have to say I was a little bit disappointed, its really a bit of a boring, just the ruined insides of an ancient ampitheatre really - but hey- boxes ticked if you know what I mean. After the Collosomo I headed up the hill to the Roman Forum- it turns out Sexy Kendell was right, they were just a bunch of rocks- seriously though, is when she knocked over that lolly jar in the off liscence the funniest thing that happened this year??? probably a close second too when the Texan told Dav that people get less for murder when Dav told him he had been with Bubbles for half a decade.

Right, The Forum, it was excellent - very much just a ruin but really a good way to get an idea for the way they rolled back in those days. I did some serious photo journalism, but the happy snapper isn't really set up for this kind of photographing. Anyways, the Forum flows neatly into the Pallitine Hill, which is where the nobles used to have thier palaces etc. It was a snore factory- once again just a bunch of ruins, you couldn't really work out what was supposed to be what and it was very hot - seriously it felt like I was going up and down hills all day -seriously probably around 7 - but I wasn't counting (c'mon - that's comedy gold people...)

Where were we? oh yes, the lame arse Pallitine - eventually I ended up at the old imperial palace overlooking the Circus Maximus, after spending a few minutes pretending to cheer for Judah Ben Hur I was over it. The problem with the Pallitine is that to get down to the actual Circus you have to walk all the way back through the Pallitine, across the Forum and around a couple of blocks- by the time I had done the whole Circus Maximi, my doggs were barking something fierce - I told them they should take better care of themselves, they said I should lay off the hamburgers, so I reminded them I was the boss and they were just the doggs - they should follow orders- they got me back by crippling me with some horrible blisters for the next couple of days.

So I was ready to go home now, but then I found this neat mueso which had been designed by guess who - Michealangelo- I am a sucker for the guy apparently. Anyways, it was a good little muesuem- the highlight was the original statue of the wolf mother feeding the young Romulus and Remus- very famous statue. There was also a cool painting with Hannibal riding an Elephant- I liked it. Finally I was done for my first day in Roma, I headed back to Camping Tiber and had a nice night at the little bar they had there.



The next day I got up nice and early by Messy Days standards, 7 AM in order to get down to San Peitro in order to get into the Sistine Chapel without waiting in the big line, how I was mistaken, I got to the museum around 9, a full hour before it opened and was shocked, appalled even to find the longest line in the history of mankind. There are two metro stops for the Vatican, San Peitro and the one for the museums, the line went all the way from the museum back to the San Peitro tube stop - we're talking about over a kilometre people- people we're lining up for 1 KM worth of lining up - I was shocked and appalled at their craziness, the Sistine Chapel was very quickly cut from the too do list of boxes that needed ticking.

So I headed off into the basilica - I have long ago decided that my favorite type of monuments in the touristing game are the living buildings, the churches, parliaments, theaters etc, the buildings that are just there for the purpose of just being there don't really do it for me - case in point Collosomo from the day before. Anyways, the basilica was incredible, easily the biggest and the best church I have ever seen - easily beating St Vitu's and St Paul's the previous front runners. I saw all the sites, including: The Coupla, Michalengelo's Pietra (the second one???), a Donatello masterpiece, the treasury museum, and the tombs of the Pope's - all very impressive, when the bird in front of me broke down in front of JP 2's tomb I thought it was a bit much- but you can't question peoples religions...



Finally I came out of the church, in a very good mood, by far one of the best touristing things I had done to date. I decided to give the Sixteenth chapel another go, just to see how long the line was now - it was still long, but not as long as it was in the morning, probably only 3 hours now instead of 6 from earlier. I have however, run with the Kapitan long enough to know that sometimes its just worthwhile to spend the extra cash and get the first class treatment, I signed on for a tour and within 25 minutes we were entering the Vatican Museum- a 30 euro investment to save 2.5 hours - a result. Also the tour guide was a complete hard body - second result.. she was also very knowledgeable which helped, cause I didn't know that much about old M'angelo's 16th Chapel - it turns out it is really quite impressive.

People have whinged in my ears about how its not really worth it, you wait in line for hours then just get processed straight through and don't really get to look at the paintings that well. Well, I guess I'm lucky I'm bigger then most people (and still had my hard body tour guide with me) cause we got to spend a good 30 plus minutes in the chapel- which was very impressive.

Anyways, after having done Chapel I was on a high, St Peter's had been great, and I had managed to see both a Donatello and a Michaelangelo in one day - now all I needed was a Leonardo and a Raphael to complete the set - you may not know this but the Vatican is dripping with Raphael's so I went back into the muesuem to tick that box - can't remember what the name of the painting but did he really need to do the crazy eye's on the kids??? it might have had something to do with resurrection so the kids we're scared of the Ghost that had come back to life after three days, but still- crazy eyes. Still, it was a box ticked- all I needed was a Leonardo, which was ticked very soon after as I went into the next room and there was a Da Vinci special! Job done, all four Ninja Turtles in one day - my Art site seeing career was complete. So, after an exceptional days touristing it was time to head home, 8 hours on my doggs was long enough - Unfortunately, Roma has the worst lay out in the history of town planning so I spent the next few hours walking around trying to find my metro station. Finally I got back to camping Tiber and collapsed.

The next day was check out time, I was officially over Roma, but still had some sites left to get all the boxes ticked, my doggs had gone on holiday so I was in a tough spot for any serious touristing - so I jumped aboard a City Tour Bus to see some of the sites that were still outstanding. It was good, I saw the church that is the setting for the first act of Tosca, and also got a better look at Castle St Angelo, the site of the third act of Tosca. After the very good bus tour I went to the Spanish Steps (a yawn but a box none the less) and I was finally done with Roma.

Transition Stages

One thing we learnt with our new Tour de France experience was the importance of making everyday, not just the big ticket items, jam packed with action. So I decided that the small days on the Tour De Bill would have to be as full of excitment and adventure as I possibly can make them. The big tickets items have been fairly easy to identify, they are the things I knew I was going to do before the whole thing started, i.e. Antibes, Puccini Fest, Rome, and then we're not to sure what happens after that..., but anyways there are little days between each major centre which need to be filled with action and adventure.

I left Puccini Fest, and Torre Del Lago behind on Sunday morning with a bit of glee that I was finally getting away from the money hungry small town, but sadend that I would miss out on the chance to see La Boheme. The nearest town to Torre Del Lago just happens to be a small town called Pisa, I thought I was in luck with a chance to visit the home of Pizza, unfortunatly this is not what the town was famous for. When I arrived in town I was very worried that it appeared as if their local Tower was going to collapse within the hour, I come from a post 9-11 world so am trained to immediatly report anything that looks out of order. The problem was the local authorities didn't seem all that concerned when I reported that their tower looked like it was going to fall over, seriously it was on a huge incline.

Anyways, I soon got over those sorts of jokes and decided to stand around and judge the rest of the tourists who were all more interested in getting a photo of themselves either pushing over or holding up the Leaning Tower, few at all seemed interested in the actual history of the church. Seriously, it was 9 am on a Sunday morning, there were probably 1000 people in the square/area around the church, and 350 of them were standing around pretending, with another 350 taking their photos, the other 300 were in the WC line (which I soon found out). This all lead me to decide that it was time to introduce a new item in the litany of Mirtna Group Prizes - the Mirtna Group Prize for Ultimate Tourist Photo - this $100 prize is being offered to anyone who can get a photo of them selves either a) holding up, or b) pushing over a historic tourist attraction. That is- get a photo of yourself actually pushing against the Leaning Tower of Pizza and win a prize- think about it, it would be the ultimate picture.

Unfortunatly, when all a town has to offer is a Tower on a rakish angle you can pretty qucikly cover your days touristing goals. So it was about 10:30 in the morning and I was done for the day. I had to add a few items to the itinery. The best thing about TomTom is it offers an option to avoid toll roads - if you choose to do this it means you will be spending a lot longer getting between places, in this case this was a bonus. I took a long country drive around Tuscany, before ending up in Lucca, a Tuscan town famous for being the brith place of Puccini - keeping the theme of the weekend going... Anyways I got to Lucca with just enough time to find a pub to watch the Hungarian F1 - Lucca it turns out it lame ville and had no pubs with the F1 on, seriously, Maranello is about 2 hours away- they couldn't find a TV to show the race - long story short I got to Lucca and needed to find a TV quickly, I hired a bike and headed off on my search, I rode and rode, along the cobble stoned streets, around the outer wall of the Roman ruins, and up and down all over town - but there was no TV to be found, defeated I went back to the bus and had to make do with the 3 by 4 inches of Messy Days Vision. Hamilton won, it was boring.

Next day I was off to the Medival town of Florence, home of the Meddici, the Uffizi Gallery, Michalengelo's David, and birthplace of Machiavelli. So I drove towards town, and after much fucking about finally found a place to park the whale for the day. Optimistically I paid for parking until 8 pm - knowing that I was going to be spending a long day touristing. I headed into town on foot and quickly came to the Medici Palace, the original location of the David, there was a fake, which was quite impressive - old Michalangelo knew what he was doing if you know what I am saying, anyways I went through the castle and marveled at the tresures inside, in particular Michealangelo's Victory. I was firing myself up for a big visit to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest gallaries in the world, I left the castle and went to the Statue of Truth and Light, otherwise known as the statue of Nicoli Macchiaveli- the prophet. That's why I'm so much better then you at 500 and 10, 2,3 Dav Rossi, I am euridite and you didn't know history went back more then 150 years...

Where were we? oh yes, the Machiavelli statue was good, and I was primed to go into the gallerey, After nearly 9 months of travelling I was finally going to an ultimate Medieval gallerey, that is until I realised that the Uffizi was shut on Mondays- I wasn't happy. The good news is that I still had an ace in the hole, Florence was also the home of the David, so I headed off to the Acadmia to see that, until I then found out the Acadmia was also shut on Mondays, I was now furious. Florence, as far as I could be concerned could go and Fuck its self.

Fortunately there were many other things I could do in Florence on a Monday... Of course, with the towns two biggest attractions closed for the day it meant that the other attractions had thousands of people at them. The very impressive church had lines longer then anything I have ever seen, so I cut it. The doors on the baptistery where very impressive- when I have the chance to google I will remember the name of the artist- but very famous doors... I also managed to go to the museum of the Church, which housed Michaelangelo's Prega - or something like that, which was also very impressive. The meuso also had the original panels from the famous doors (above) I looked on, barely able to stifle a yawn till I noticed two chaps carrying some sort of chest over their shoulders, with a squint I realised that it was supposed to represent a certain box known as the Holy Grail - stangley in the form of a box holding the Ten Commandments, not in the form of a decendant of the line of the Jeebers'- Why would Dan Brown lie I asked myself? (more to come on this later) but I soon got over it and moved on.



Anyways, I was know about done in Florence, I weant for a bit of a hike, including going up the big hill that looks down on the town, and then went back to the Messy Days, my long, long day of touristing was done, by about 4:30, my parking booking had been far too optimistic.

Anyways, two good days, but in the wash up at the end of the day Florence is off the list- why would you have your two biggest attractions shut on a Monday? Stupid Roman Wannabees.

Puccini Festival

NOTE: I am currently a little out of sorts, so if this post seems a little angry you should know this in advance, I am doing a flying one day visit to Florence in order to tick a few boxes, I have just found out that both the Uffizi Gallery and Academia are shut on Mondays. Florence can go fuck itself - they are just lucky their is at least a fake David in one of the squares...


Festival Opera appears to be a little bit of a bloodsport. The battle being fought between a mixed group of people thrown together for a short while each year, all with different loyalties and drivers.

There are the towns people, intent on squeezing every dollar out of the festival, setting exorbitant parking prices, 7 euro's to get into some house the Maestro used to live in, lots of bars and restaurants that conveniently share names with famous opera's, VS the customers, mainly tour groups who come in, in cost saving maxi coaches with coolers and thermi (or is it thermoses?) sandwiches and cakes, one libretto between three or four (don't think the towns folk will supply subtitles) all to ensure that the towns folk don't prosper too much.

Then you have organizers and principles, desperate to forge or improve their reputations, genuinely swept away in the brilliance of the Maestro's work, conveniently looking past the fact that their theater has no roof (what if it rains) and the fact that the shows can't start till 9:15 because of the light, VS, the ushers and musicians, drawn to the festival by the promise of a few weeks worth of eating money; desperate to finish each nights work as soon as possible in order to get out of town, back to the normality of their Monday to Friday, 48 other weeks of the years lives, don't use exit 1 immediately after the final curtain, you will be swept away in a sea of black clad muzak types swinging their instrument cases like weapons in order to ensure they get thru the crowd first and out fo the traffic.

Despite all this, for all Puccini Freaks out their (and I know my readers are all Puccini crazy) I can give a five star big thumbs up rating to Puccini fest. I got into town on Friday night in order to see Madam Butterfly, which was very impressive - so much better then the ROH version, however my opinion may have been influenced by the lack of obstructed view in Torre Del Lago Puccini - Joe Knorks - Did you realize there was a kid in show???? Anyways, very good- the customers/set designers in the Puccini Fest team are extraordinary, as was Butterfly. Pinkerton, or Stinkerton, as I think he should be called was also very strong. The theater is incredible, right in the banks of the lake, you have to walk across this bridge across the Marina in order to get in.

Anyways, I slept the night in the car park then the next day headed off to explore the township, one thing I can say about these Tuscon's is that they love their push bikes, every inch of road was taken over by the things, driving the whale through the town was quite difficult. Once I parked the thing and began walking along the streets I was constantly dodging cycles, bells ringing everywhere, if you closed your eyes it was like being back in Saigon in 72, it reminded me of that time I had to save my friend Christopher Walken from a game of Russian Roulette in a back room off the harbor... or wait- was that Deer Hunter???

Anyways, after I shoke off the Nam flashbacks I went down to the beach where I spent the course of the afternoon. The best and worst bit was the sand, I love sand at the beach, much better then the stupid rocks of many other beaches. I don't love sand when I return to my motor home and have to try and get it all off... Coarse Black sand that they have over here, gets everywhere. Anyways, overall the beach was good- lots of hard bodies, and windy enough that you could almost pretend like you were catching a wave as you came back into shore after a swim. Before the show I went to the Puccini fest, just near the Theatre, which was very interesting, and was where he lived for a long period around the turn of the century.

That nights show was Tosca, one I hadn't seen before, but I quickly read the Libretto before the kick off so I had a fair idea of what was happening - another outstanding performance. Although with the extra intermission it did go very late into the night- we're talking quarter to one before it ended- so I don't think old Kloss dogg would really be able to handle Puccini fest... The other problem with night two was I could only get a more expensive ticket, so it met the budget was blown for the Sunday night performance of La Boheme, but I felt I had covered Puccini Fest anyways, so decided to head off on the tourist trial the next day.

Alone

So I lost the dead weight that was the Kloss and Dav Rossi show on Monday, I was finally truely off on my European adventure. The Tour De France was amazing, but we didn't really do much touristing at all, so my goal for the next month, while I tour around Europe between the Tour and RWC, is to do as much solid touristing as possible.

I dropped the lads at Charles De Gaulle around 9 AM on Monday, and immediatly turned south, with an intial goal of Antibes, but the real destination was Italia. Keeping in mind my goal of achieving as much touristing as possible I decided to use my new absolut power and visit the Vercingetorix Memorial in Alesia (which the lads had vetoed last time we were on the Autun plain). As all history nuts, or alternativly most of you Asterix nuts will know Vercingetorix was the Gaulish King who led the tribes of the Gauls in their battle to end all battle's against old J Ceaser. The Siege of Alesia, the final battle, has always been a favorite of mine, even though our only primary source on the matter is old J Ceaser himself.

However, know that I have been there I can confirm that it is a battle worthy of its place in history. the Vercingetorix Statue stands 8 metres tall above Mount Alesia, looking out over the Autun Plain. The pure, unbelievable gall (sorry about the pun) of the Romans turning up on the Autun Plain, staring up a mountain at an army, nay a race of people, hell bent on defending their homeland, and still attacking has to be respected. As a bit of a millitary history buff I was expecting to be impressed by Alesia, but the sheer magnitude of the battle ground, and the numbers of people involved were inspiring. On the hole Alesia was a perfect way to start my touristing career. A huge box ticked as well as a bit of a sense of my own insignificance, good times.

Energised as I was I jumped aboard the Messy Days and beat my way further south, early the next morning I had finished the drive and was in Antibes, there to visit Cheese and do some more touristing. As I drove into town I saw a large Blue Boat, roughly the size and shape of Seafirma, my heart dropped as I realised that J was leaving town. I spent the morning adventuring around the old town of Antibes, lots of small cobble stoned streets, and very impressive walls and ramparts. Eventually I left the old town and went looking for an ATM, unfortunatly Antibes is lousy for ATM's, so this took longer then expected. Pretty soon I was getting extremely frustrated with the entire town when a large, balding chef jumped out from behind a tree - it turned out it wasn't Seafirma leaving at all. Jason had radomly spotted me walking along the street.

Tuesday night we got together for a big night out in Antibes. First we had some Rose, Pate, and Fromage on the grass outside the boat - secretly Jas just likes to talk to the tourists who ask questions about the boat, then we had a couple of six packs up on the top sun deck, before finally we headed into town - it was all very well to do.

Jas, as it turned out had an ace up his sleave, an Absinth Bar, very quickly the evening turned messy. I can't fill you in on the full details, but briefly we went to another couple of bars, I made a friend, and the next thing I knew I was walking home towards Villnerve Loboit (where the camp site is) at 4 AM. As I passed along the rock wall on the beach I briefly sat down on what looked like a comfortable rock, next thing it was 5 AM and I still wasn't home, infact I was still on the same rock, 30 minutes later I had finally reached the Messy Days.

After a brief sleep I got up and tried to spend my day keeping busy to stave off the horrible hang over I knew I deserved, I spent time on the beach, checked out the big Fort that looks over the Antibes Harbour, even copped a work out. It was to no avail, around 5 oclock my body started to crack up as the mixture of delayed hangover and lack of sleep caught up with me. I was supposed to go meet Jason so tried to have a few heart starters to get me going. Unfortunatly, as can sometimes happen the heart starters had the reseverse effect and ended up stopping all potential momentum, a beaten man I went to sleep.

Thursday Jas was due to leave town for a month in Spain (on the boat) so I scheduled my own depature. My touristing for the day consited of a visit too the medieval town of Eze, built high atop a moutain overlooking Monaco. We are talking seriously right up on the very top of a mountain, their are no streets, just small walk ways interescting with multiple stair cases which work their way up to the Garden's on the top of the hill. It was well worth the visit, not just for the views but for the history captured in the small town.

After some lunch I kicked on and headed for Italia, I went the long way, via Menton, so I could have one last dip in the French version of the Med, parking was difficult but I finally found a spot about 150 metres short of the border I stopped and had a quick dip. Dav Rossi's multiple jokes about the likeliness of my driving around Europe in my birthday suit were still ringing in my ears, so as I took off my wet boardies and toweled off I decided to call the bluff and cross the boarder in a fairly unique outfit, I was Nude.

Shortly afterwards I pulled my shorts back on and drove off into Italia. The highway from France to Genova is horrible, its seriously 130 km of bridges and tunnels, there is no road shoulder, there is no extra lanes, its an hour and a bit of trying to squeeze past large trucks in tight tunnels and bridges, I did not enjoy it. Eventually I found a truck stop and slept for the night.

Friday dawned stormy - not a good sign for my relationship with Italia, however it eventually cleared up just as I reached my first stop in the new country, and Fridays touristing spot, Maranello. The home of the Ferrari Factory, but more importantly the Ferrari F1 team and Piste Firorano - a huge box that had been in the 100 list for a long, long time. I wandered around the small town for a while, checking out the many small stores which were all packed to the gunnels with Ferrari merchandise, all the while working my way closer and closer to a high pitched whine I could hear somewhere in the distance, I knew I was getting near to the factory, and more importanly Firoarno.

I spent some time walking around the factory, looking at the huge new wind tunnel, finally ending up at Galleria Ferrari - as the name suggests it is a Ferrari Gallery- lots of old school Ferrari's, both racing cars and production- quite enjoyable. Finally I tried to find a place where I could actually see onto the track, but to no avail - I could see one little part of one of the corners, but the cars had come off the track while I was in the Gallery, so it was no biggy.

With my days touristing done I headed off for the weekends agenda, Torre Del Lago Puccini, the Puccini Festival, where I briefly went to the beach and then headed off to see Madam Butterfly, which I have just done, there will be more to come on this in the next post.

Le Tour De France

The tour is over, it was one of the funnest trips of my life. There were too many huge memories to get down on one blog post, driving the car into the ditch, 50 hours on the mountain, 2,3,10 tournaments, people on the road, car trouble in Geneva, and our language abilities to name a few. But there's one memory that I think encapsulates the entire trip in one day.

The last stage on the road was from Cahors to Angoloume, a tranisition stage with little to no importance on the overall race, but the beauty of the tour is that even the nothing stages still pull a huge crowd and all the fan fare associated with the grand stand stages of the Alps, Pyranees, Time Trials and Chumps Elysee. We arrived in Cahors the night before the race and stocked up the bus with the essentials, cheese and Rose. We then drove around the town for a little while looking for the tell tale Yellow Arrows that would show us where the race was going the next day, when we finally found them we were set, the Yellow Arrows mark the entire route, all 3500 kilometres, every fork in the road the arrow tells you where to go. Yes, in the arrows you can trust.

We drove down the route for around 16 kilometres, to a spot just on the far side of the first minor climb of the next day's stage. The difficulty of the entire trip was that the Messy Days Express is such a huge whale we often had trouble finding a spot that was firstly big enough, and secondly strong enough to have the Messy Days rest on it for 24 hours. After the troubles of bogging the bus in Belguim (aliteratoin baby) we always had to be extra careful to test the sturdiness of any grass we stopped on to be sure that the bus didn't immediatly sink to the axles. Anyways, after 16 kilometres we finally found a nice rocky spot on the side of the road that we could safely park the bus so we pulled over and set up camp.

We quickly set up the card table, tied Roger the Kangaroo too the bus, and got out our jug of Rose, the party soon got going. Kloss dogg was nose deep in Harry Potter, so Marty and I were left to 3,2,10 it out between ourselves. We had arrived in Cahors early, having bagged seeing the finish town of the days stage in order to get a prime position on the next stage, so we were kept entertained as we sat in camp watching as other camper vans kept coming past, giving us friendly waves as they stared in amazement at the primo number one position we had managed to snaffle. With all their friendly waves it was a little sad that they didn't realise we were yelling abuse at them for running so late and not getting as good camping spots as us.

The night wore on and the Rose started to have its welcome effects. The 10,2,3 tournament was hotting up and we decided it would be good fun to do some painting on the road. That is what we do on the Tour, we write messages to the cyclists to tell them good luck. Most crazy Frenchie's have more experience then us in this, so come prepared with paint tins and rollers, but we're Aussie's from the street so could make do with spray cans (with all my experience on the various train bridges around Bris Vegas I was a natural writing on the roads). We had a ball writing various messages on the road, mostly along the lines of Go Cadel and those sorts of positive thoughts. The night descended into a little bit of maddness after this as Kloss finished the book (three days for the first 400 pages, three hours for hte last 200 - beards were stroked in wonder) so the party got going.

The next morning we woke up and had a fry up of eggs and bacon before settling in for the mornings waiting. The Tour is an incredible mixture of helter skelter races from town to town chasing the bikes, and then spending hours sitting on the side of the road waiting for the cyclists to race by. We're talking three hours driving, for four hours of sitting on the side of the road, for 50 seconds of cheering as the mighty peleton blows by (on the mountain it was more like 50 hours waiting for 50 minutes of cheering...). We spent our morning testing our minds with a 500 tournament, some reading, and watching the locals as they arrived to watch the tour for the day.

The good people in the Tour De France organisation are experienced enough with their race to know that they need to do something to keep the people entertained, so they send through the publicity caravan. The caravan is 45 minutes of pure joy, we decided to have a competition to see who could get the most free stuff for the day. The early running was dominated by Dav Rossi, he wasn't good in the one on one wrestling type stuff as we went for the scraps the people were throwing, but he was incredible at the scrapping around and picking up the dregs of what Kloss and I deemed not worth our troubles. The entire competition turned in an instant however when the girl on the Simpsons car took pity on the Kapitan and threw an entire box of Bart and Lisa masks to him, we called Shenanigans.

Finally forty minutes after the caravan was past the leading cars began to come past. We got out our flags and began warming up the vocal cords for a bit of Cadel supporting. There are probably 1000 cars attached the tour, its unbelivable how many team/organisation/and sponsors cars were required. There were five red cars attached to the top organisers of the trip. First the Arrival Judge would come past, a few minutes later the offical Chronometer would drive past. There would then be a lull of a few minutes before the Assistant Director would come by, finally about 15 Gendarmes on bikes would go past and we would know that the race was finally getting real close. The fourth red car was the one to get you real excited it was the Directors car and would be immediatly in front of the Peleton. Half a minute later the cyclists would be disapearing into the distance, our Tour experience finished for the day.

The fifth red car would then pass amongst the team cars, we had no idea who was in it because we wouldn't be watching, we would be busy packing up and getting ready for the Fin De Course blue van to tell us we good move on for the day.

Thats the Tour De France experience ladies, that's living.