MILAN...THE CAMPSITE THAT CARED (A LITTLE TOO MUCH...ALMOST LIKE A STALKER)

Milan

Friday 16^th September

The whole room was leaving today to catch the bus so we took the opportunity to annoy the weird girl as a team by saving our packing for the morning and doing it as loudly as possible. Courtney was heading to Barcelona while we move on to Milan but she was taking with her the presents we gave her – factor 60 suncream and a collection of shit books we no longer wanted.

Several autogrills later we pulled into Milan and followed the useless directions to the campsite (we decided it was time to return to Vango after a few weeks of hostelling). We were clueless as to which stop to alight the bus at, then wandered in the boiling sun through a run-down council estate before arriving at the site which was next to a waterpark – our hopes were dashed when we realised it had closed for the season.

More bad Italian customer service later we dumped our bags and not having the energy to even put the tent up took a nap on the grass until we saw A DONKEY AND TWO PONIES roaming free!!!! Further investigation led us to goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and the farmhand who let us feed the donkey and ponies! 

As we are back to relying on daylight hours we hit the bar and re-planned the trip bringing the end date forward to December time. Although knocking off 6 months of the trip we decided we had done well with hitting 20 countries and over 40 cities, and decided to tackle Russia in the future in style on the Vodka Train. This way we can dress appropriately with furs and cocktail dresses.

Saturday 17^th September

This morning we found a new found respect for Raciti and his bunny catching ability when we tried to catch the bunnies running round the tent – we failed and gave up after 10 minutes.

We headed into Milan for dinner quickly learning that this city is a designer shoppers dream place but for us doesn’t offer too much other than overpriced food. 

We settled down to overpriced pizza when suddenly the dark cloud that had been looming for the last hour let loose and torrential rain began.  This would have not been too much of a problem had we put the tent up properly but instead we had just thrown the waterproof layer over and left our stuff everywhere – so it was time to get home as fast as possible, after a quick bakery stop for desert. Arriving at the metro steps to walk back up to street level Alex turned to see Bex looking like Simba in the Lion King during the stampede when she looked up at the rain. We were drenched in seconds running for the bus but we got home to find the tent had survived – thanks to the campsite staff who had fixed the cover for us and moved our stuff inside it.

We decided we couldn’t cope with another Stuttgart storm night in the tent so moved our tent to underneath the marquee - luckily Vango is stupidly small so it only took one trip to move home in the rain. Once we laid all our stuff out to dry we were amazed at how much we carry and how much of it we don’t really need.

Sunday 18^th September

We were woken to the panic of flooding as the rain was still going strong 16 hours later so had to move further inwards. Alex decided to carry on sleeping on a picnic table while Bex continued to sleep on the concrete cushioned by all the clothes we own underneath the sleeping mat.

Finally the rain stopped and we strolled to the co-op to find it shut so gave in and ate at the bar. With nothing much else to do we formulated our life plans including things such as owning a tea-cup pig, learn to shoot and our holiday plans for the next 5 years. We were interrupted though by the farmhand who was just starting the stalking of us, he followed us back to our tent to invite us to his cabin for tea and eggs(!). So we hesitantly accepted the offer and enjoyed a cup of tea while watching Mr Bean and using google translate to communicate – however it took several attempts to find the language which was his.

After being invited to sleep in the lounge room we made our excuses and left to continue with our life plans, create the new holiday adventure that is AUSABOUT and play on the roundabout.

Monday 19^th September

As we re-planned the trip we will no longer hit Lake Como on the BusAbout loops so decided to take the train to go in search of George Clooney. Before we could leave the site our new stalker accosted me to show me a spare tent he had found that we could have, after saying I would need to speak to Alex he went in search of her in the toilets and herded her towards me. We had no choice but to accept a bigger tent so left him pitching it for us and moving our stuff to it while we got ready for Lake Como.

Once there we took another furnicular to the top for some stunning views and to get closer to the properties – hopefully one would be George’s. We found an amazing house we plan to turn into the best backpackers in Lake Como once we win the lottery and had a nosey round the area. On the way back down we sat with 3 American ladies who had been on the Limencello all day and were accusing every celebrity who lived in the area of being gay – the rest of the train could not accept that George Clooney is but were not really bothered about Robert Pattison.

Back at the site we tried out the new tent and realised we should never abandon Vango as we were freezing cold the whole night – what will it take to learn that he serves us better than we give him credit for!

ITS NICE TO BE NICE IN NICE

Nice

Tuesday 13^th September

Today was check out day for all house members, apart from a new American girl who insisted on testing our patience with questions like ‘where is the espresso machine’ and ‘what did you guys do while you were here’ (in a famous heritage listed hiking area). We actually left by the instructed 10am time only to find the office where we needed to return the keys to (in exchange for our passports which we had kept forgetting to claim) didn’t open until half an hour later. After trading keys and money for passports we headed back to La Spezia to catch the bus to Nice and had a reunion with house members at the station as they were waiting for the train to Rome. While waiting a transformer with the biggest feet walked past which got everyone’s attention.

Finally on the bus to Nice, where we reunited with Courtney, we went via Monaco taking in the Grace Kelly death rock and picked the mansion we each wanted, not that we could live there just yet as we need to raise the £1million application fee for residency – non-refundable. This probably goes towards the diamonds in the road to make them sparkle.

We stayed in the ‘hotel’ drop off point and quickly met the most retarded roommate in a long time who insisted on sitting in the dark as the lights gave off too much heat – we ignored her and took the more usual approach of just turning the air-con on. Desperate to get away from the nutter we headed for Chinese food and wine – the fancy bottle opener at the hostel caused lots of confusion and corkage though. Alex joined in on the drinking games (which always seem to be so confusing) while I went to annoy nutter by turning all the lights on in the dorm room.

Wednesday 14^th September

Room 20 was mostly hungover this morning but no-one had any choice to be up at 9am thanks to weird girl making as much noise as possible. With the hostel handily situated next to the supermarket we bought breakfast goods which we ate to the sound of Metallica like girl skyping her whole contact list to share how drunk she was the night before. (She also nearly spewed on Courtney last night).

We headed to the beach where we quickly realised topless/borderline nude sunbathing was the go regardless of age and gender. A pair of wrinkly old ladies were soon joined by a wrinkly old man wearing a g-string. Not being able to take anymore wrinkled arses we headed to the supermarket which sold everything you would never need we bought dinner and a new mouse for the netbook making it operational again (now the mousepad has died and the ‘Y’ key is missing). We returned to the good old game of googling for dinner entertainment before craving chocolate and heading back to the supermarket. Bex alarmed security when her light coloured leggings made it look like she had no pants on then a shelf stacker called us all crazy. Magnums caused some maths issues while we annoyed weird girl by sitting in the room with the light on past her bedtime of 8pm.

Thursday 15^th September

Yet again we were woken by weird girl then Mettalica like skyping everyone to tell them again how drunk she was last night. After a leisurely breakfast Courtney and Alex headed to the beach to buy rubber rings & goggles to try and do a cheap version of the snorkelling tour we couldn’t join. As the new bus in Alex saw the opportunity to sell on the inflatable toys while Courtney went in search of a white singlet as since losing her last one most of her wardrobe cannot be worn.

We tried to get as dressed up as much as a backpackers wardrobe allows to go to Monaco for the evening, we didn’t need to worry about being let into the casino as the minimum bet is 75 euros. Courtney had to apologise to the group for her new shirt being rather tight around the boobage area but we decided it was acceptable and went in search of the bus. This required us to ask in a hotel, who were more than happy to help just to get the dirty backpackers off their premises, and once we found the bus the driver got off and disappeared for 20 minutes. Finally we arrived and saw the casino, several escorts and amazing cars, but not so good parking skills – the best attempt involving a ballgown dressed lady stepping out of the car and pulling a no-parking sign out of the ground so her husband could bumper to bumper nudge his way into the spot.

As always when Courtney and BALEX are travelling the return journey was not easy. After sitting at the bus stop for half an hour we checked the times back to Nice and learnt there weren’t anymore. Luckily we found a Turkish man to walked us to the train station through lots of marble lined tunnels – definitely a different feel to London underground or Paris metro.

THE CINQUE TRAMPS ON THE CINQUE TERRA

Cinque Terra

Friday 9^th September

Despite being told reception is open 24 hours there was a few fellow busabouters and us getting more and more agitated about missing the bus as there was only a nightguard on duty. Finally we made our way to continue on to Cinque Terra and for the first time in a month or so we weren’t the last on the bus. We were however the noisiest and giggliest prompting accusations we were drunk to which Alex asked if the rep had any evidence or way to prove it and that we were stone cold sober. Slightly lost for words we set off to Cinque Terra via the leaning tower of Pisa. Unfortunately for the rep we heard her announce a paedo picture competition (instead of Pisa) setting off the giggles again, as those type of pictures are definitely not OK and would land the whole bus in jail.

The Indian man was on the bus with us and he caused as much chaos as we came to expect from him when we lost him at Pisa. Finally pulling into La Spezia for the first stop of BusAbout where all passengers need to think for themselves and get to the next village and hostel – this meant chaos at the train station. As usual, we had no accommodation so followed the NZ girls again hoping for space where they were staying – luckily there was, unluckily the key had been lost and a new one not cut yet. We managed to find somewhere that was up 7 flights of stairs and a mix between a brothel and immigrant house – delightful! 

Tonight we dined at NZ’s place loading up on carbs in preparation for the tramping ahead of us and came across a cupboard full of old clothes and shoes leading to a dress up evening, also now everyone had shoes to tramp in, who said we were never useful.

Saturday 10^th September

We met the NZ girls at 9am to take on the Cinque Terra trail; 5 villages over roughly 10km connected by trails which could reach up to 600metres above sea level. We were all staying in Riomaggiore so walked in the direction of Monterosso; it seemed his direction had far more steps and hills than the other way but we persisted mainly thanks to the prize of ice-cream and the sea in each village on the way. As we passed through Vernazza we watched a wedding party cruise through the little street to clapping and cheering from the other pedestrians.

The final walk between Vernazza and Monterosso was daunting from the start when a woman walked past us saying ‘don’t do it – I have just had to turn back it is too hard’ but we were confident that with youth on our side it would be fine…..it was a BITCH!!!! Endless steps but then suddenly amazing views of the sea and other villages, and then the end was in sight and it was all downhill. We all collapsed in a heap at a restaurant dripping in sweat yelling for water before getting changed to swim, some of us didn’t even leave the table we were sat at to get changed.

Tonight BALEX invited the NZ girls to ours for dinner of eggs & toast – an odd craving everyone was having and also the cheapest meal of the trip so far at 1 euro a head. Gina singed most of her arm hair off when lighting the gas but it was worth it for the good feed!! Unable to move, talk or do anything we all headed to bed for the best night’s sleep in a long time after 6 hours of tramping.

Sunday 11^th September

The NZ girls left today but we had 2 more nights to tackle more trails. We missed out the detour trail between Manarola & Corniglia yesterday as the girls only had one day to cover all the villages so that was the task today. It took us long enough to make our way down the 75 steps from the apartment as our calves had seized up from yesterday which concerned us as to how we would cope over the next 3 hours. And concerned was the right thing to be; we trekked 400 metres into the mountains which meant a lot more steps but luckily the views were even better than yesterday. 

We passed through grape vines and even people’s front gardens before crossing through a woodland area which felt more English Countryside (or Little Switz for those Hessle readers) than Italy.  Alex got slightly lost during this part of it, as she followed a dog that took a wrong turn.  Somehow we beat the recommended trail time by hour proving we are much fitter than we thought and actually should be at this point in the trip. Fears that it wasn’t a sunny day as it was chilly at the top of the mountain were quickly cast aside when we arrived at a beach to tan, nap and snack (and mainly delay climbing the steps back up to our apartment!).

When we arrived home we were clever enough to realise once we are at the top we won’t want to climb the steps again so bought everything we needed, including ice cream, so we wouldn’t need to leave until the morning. We met our new roommates, three American girls who were also injured and exhausted from canoeing round the coast leading to endless whimpering in pain all night in the apartment.

Monday 12^th September

No more tramping (or hiking for the non NZ readers) today. No, today was for resting, napping in the sun and trying more of the local gelato. As we seemed to have a never ending supply of eggs and toast we breakfasted before a wander round Riomaggiore. I was entertained by a group of Indian men trying to learn how to scuba dive when they couldn’t even swim.  For the afternoon we headed to Vernazza, the only beach out of the five places with sand rather than pebbles. While wandering round the harbour we bumped into Courtney, on a day trip from Florence – our skills at finding her amaze us everytime! I fell asleep in the sun after ice-cream meaning I achieved all the goals set for today and it confirmed I am unable to burn at this point no matter how long I lay in the sun for.