Will, Ben and Nevil

Probably the best thing that’s ever happened occured. We went to Perugia on our way back up North and encountered a Fiat Cinquecento 50th anniversary procession!! Also the best accordian player I’ve ever seen (apologies Maria, but you’ve never played for us ) all witnessed whilst sitting quietly in a sunny piazza chatting to Wiebke, a lucky perugian erasmus student on her first day! There were so many fiats I had to sit down.

We’ve since spent a really nice couple of days with John and Laura on the beach and in Pisa, and 24 hours of luxury on Elba with Yas and her extensive family. I discovered that the nets around the entrance to the swimming area were to stop large jelly fish, John managed to prop the toy-like tower up so no one has to worry. Elba is really beautiful, I’m quite jealous of old Napolean, he had quite a nice gaff. Yas and a few select members of her family snuck us into a flat with seaview belonging to Grandpa, we had to keep it quiet to avoid over stressing Grandma, who at 86 had just been host to the whole family for 60th wedding celebrations! We had a little soiree off the very full “low season” beach and went rock jumping and snorkelling round the corner off the family boat, it was definitely worth the row home when the engine packed in. Thank you all Mowats and Barassi’s!

We’ve now kidnapped Yasmin and are waiting in Firenze for Mr. T Adcock to arrive this evening, there isn’t really much to see or do so we’re doing our washing and sitting in an internet cafe… (I did get up for a cycle and sunrise round the sights of florence, oh and we might do the Gallileo museum if we can find it – had enough of Catholic churches i think, I’m dying for a Mosque!)

Planning on getting out of Italy sharpish now, we’ve conquered the language and so things are far to easy. Just run out of gas,

- “Dove posso prenderi gas per favore?”

- “ddjkfd dlasfdf fkdjj ere ti dkf tkjdkjf”

hmmm, i think she said left…

ps. Fi-Pi-Li is the main road from Fi__ to Pi_ to Li___… descriptive!

Buon giorno di napoli! We had an interesting night a couple of days ago as we approached naples passing many well-dressed young ladies on the way who were providing a seemingly popular local service. Naples is well known for the best pizza in the world, the best buffalo-milk mozzarella and a mafia more industrious than most. It is not the place you want to park a big white british van – it doesnt really blend in. For starters it hasnt got nearly enough scrapes, dents to look napolitan (this may suprise those who have actually seen our van!). Anyway we had been warned not to leave a vehicle in the city at anytime of the day, so for the night we managed to find a beach side car park outside of the city surrounded by heroin-fuelled locals on crime sprees and which required a guard dog, a night watchman and a locked ring fence. When day broke Ben had great fun driving through the city unfortunately receiving no bonus points for hitting any crazy italian motorcyclists. After a hot but interesting visit to pompei we said sad farewells to Lucy and Sam who are heading home soon. Now heading back north beyond rome to meet up with Laura & John near Pisa, Yas in Elba and Tom somewhere as yet undecided!

Rome was amazing, particularly the pantheon. The history of the city was impressive, as was the number of tourists we saw! Quite a shock to hear the dulcet tones of the north london accent after several weeks of hearing mainly italian and french. As well as the tourist sites we couldnt resist that other popular tourist past time, being robbed. Will and Sam were both relieved of their wallets in a busy bus, which, in order to find the police station to report this led to some epic walks around the city thanks to the dubious talents of will and sams map reading! Two days in a hot city hostel away from our lake in bracciano where we left the van was enough though. We headed back after a slightly bemused visit to the st peters basilica, home of everyones favourite religion.