Italia

Our first few hours in Italy were lost under a shadow of mad drivers, driving on the wrong side of the road, driving in a car with hand controls that allow me to brake and accelerate at the same time, no map, no petrol stations that sold maps, and no idea how to get out of Milan and to Verona.

After driving around Milan for almost an hour and getting nowhere, we headed off on a motorway following a sign to Venice and hoping for the best. At the first petrol station, Clare managed to ascertain from the guys there that we were indeed heading towards Verona.

So I’m trying to learn how to drive with weird hand controls in a crap box that doesn’t like to accelerate very quickly, whilst facing 3 or 4 lanes of traffic (depending on the mood of the drivers) determined to run me off the road. Apparently the speed limits are a rough guide of what a grandma might drive. Indicators seem to be implied by the fact that you are about to be squished into the side barrier by a truck. Compound all this by the fact that our hire car has German numberplates. Does anyone like the Germans? Even off the motorways it seems that driving in Italy is an extreme sport. Try driving round a blind bend at 60km only to have some fwit almost take you head on because he attempted the same corner from the other direction at 120km only to find that he wasn’t able to round it at that speed so he just swung wide into the oncoming lane. This happens daily. We tend to limit our driving to a bare minimum these days.

Still, miraculously we made it to Verona safely and found our apartment really easily.

Enjoying a 'home cooked meal' in our lovely little apartment;

Clare was very excited by the amount of pre-prepared Italian meals in the supermercato - we spent about 3 hours in there buying some amazing ingredients including this lasagne which was better than most we've had in Sydney restaurants, and a 2L bottle of Merlot which cost less than $3! (and actually tasted pretty good!)

Verona is full of beautiful scenery - but we have not gotten around to finding out what it all is yet. This is some old church at night;

And now for a few randoms of the Arena.

Finding internet over here has been fun...

That little bush scene above was some old Roman Ruin as far as we could tell. Lost in the middle of some hospital grounds with no plaque or sign. It seems Roman ruins grow on trees over here.

I have managed to find time to join a local protest. Not sure what I was protesting. Probably the legalisation of cannabis judging by those in attendance.

As promised, here is the first of the belly updates; (15 weeks)

Baby or gelato? You be the judge. (Clare is trying to get through every available flavour of gelato in her time here).

And a balloon.

More to come soon. Hope all are well.

Simon