All roads lead to Roma

Ave!

Here we are on the Italian Riveria, sipping wine from Orvieto and baking in the sunshine. Although don't feel too jealous - I (Claudia) got sunburnt through my top while biking, I've got 1001 itchy bites and we've got to put up with hairy near-nude Europeans who insist on ditching all but their speedos the second their feet hit the campsite. But these are our crosses to bear, just as work is yours.

Rome was a gluttony of sightseeing with all the usual suspects spotted - the Fountain of Trevi (had to settle for throwing our English pennies in as couldn't find our sesterti), St Peters Basilica and Square, the Roman Forum, Colosseum (next to Via Claudia!), various piazzas, the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, the Spanish Steps, and several gelaterias and pizzerias. Whew! George Bush Jnr even had a cameo whizzing past us twice in his excessively large motorcade (it included three helicopters).

There's probably only material enough for 3 complete buildings in Roma - the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon had to be requisitioned for an altar in St Peter's; the Colosseum marble floors have supplied various projects; and it sounds like the city has been in a revolving state of ruin for centuries.

From Rome we got back on the bikes and cycled north through Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany. The Tuscan countryside is justifiably famous although relying on our legs for propulsion we feel it's been under-reported in terms of its hills. Vineyards, olive groves and cyprus trees are the norm, interspersed with medieval hill-top towns. From a distance they resemble a castle on top of a hill, but encompass a whole town of cobbled streets, narrow alleys created by jumbled stone buildings, and the obligatory cathedral. The Gothic style came as a surprise but features large - lots of black-and-white striped zebraesque buildings with intricate facades of multicoloured marbles, mosaics and statues.

This is the paragraph on food. Our culinary tour of the world continues, and what beteter place than Italy? To this end we've learnt Italian, "Due espresso per favore!". What more do you need? Well, you need to be able to get 200g of cheese, salami, and proscuitto, and we can do that too. Our tried and trusted method of snack buying in Asia was to heft things, figuring more grams = more calories. Thus we were delighted to find you can buy pizza by the weight in Italy. Other favourites include gelati which comes in every flavour you can think of including local specialty wine varieties, and of course the wine itself. This must be the only thing that's cheaper than home, $7 NZD will buy you 5L if you're keen. A bottle of nice wine will set you back $10.

Aside from the wine Italy, in true Roman style, is plundering our coffers. A campsite here costs $40-50 NZD per night. Some tell you the showers are "free", others charge extra. At least after 5L of wine you don't really care.

Our last stop was Pisa, a seedy town with a leaning tower and zero ambience. It was a bizarre town with one main piazza filled with African touts and American tourists, and even a "native" North American Cherokee busking squad. The tower is astonishing and surrounding buildings are also amazing but its certainly not a place to linger (in fact we set our highest average speed today hightailing it out of there).

Tomorrow we're heading to Cinque Terre, five villages on the Riveria "clinging to the cliff faces or concealed in miniature inlets" (thanks tourist brochure). Then its over the Appenine mountain range (make it sound easy don't I?) which will take two days with the sun burning from the outside and lactic acid burning from within, down to Venice.

Ciao with love
C&D