Olgiata, Rome 01.08

This morning, we were planning to meet up with some of Artur's friends in Olgiata, near Rome. They were leaving on a holiday later in the day, so we had to hurry to get there by 11am. We packed up our tent at about 7am, about 5 hours after we got there. We decided that seeing as no one had woken up to greet us the night before or that morning, and we hadn't even camped on a normal pitch, or used their bathrooms, so we might as well leave without waking them up, and without paying for the facilities that we didn't use.

We left and headed back out onto the road again, for about 220km. The drive back down through the mountains in the daylight, was much more exciting and beautiful than it had been the night before. The highways were quite narrow, and usually only 2 lanes. Most of the roads had high cement barriers between oncoming traffic lanes, to prevent them blinding each other with their headlights. This made it feel like we were on a race track, and we started to realise that most Italian drivers, drive like maniacs. We came across a few 'Valentino Rossi' wannabes on their motorcycles, and a few small cars who thought they were Ferraris.

Soon we found the farm, where Fabrice and Claudia, Artur's friends from Australia live. Just as we were going to call him, Fabrice rode up behind our car on his Vespa and opened the gate for us. He led us through the farm, to one of the buildings that was being rented out as housing. There were quite a few houses on the property, making it like a little village, with fields everywhere around on the horizon.

Fabrice showed us around his huge house, and introduced us to his new baby boy Emil. He had big mischevious blue eyes that never stopped staring at the world around him. Loren got to hold him at one point, and he became fascinated by her eyes. Every time he saw her after that he started to laugh or smile.

We sat down to talk, and eat some lunch. It was a Roman specialty; canteloupe with prosciutto. We also had a delicious omelette whipped up by Fabrice. We had a great time chatting about Italian Polititcs and what it was like to move to this country from Australia.

They had to leave on their trip soon after, but they offered us the use of their house while they were gone that day and when we got back from our own trip to Sardinia. We collapsed in the spare room for a well deserved rest, and looked after some more admin for the rest of our trip in Italy.

Later on that evening, we walked along the main road with our suitcases, praying that the crazy Italian drivers wouldn't hit us. We took the train to the city, and then changed trains to go to Civitavecchia, where a ferry was waiting to take us to Sardinia. The station was so big at Terminal (central station), we felt like the walk to our train was at least 5km. We were in a rush, so it seemed to stretch before us like a never ending road filled with people pushing between each other to get to their platforms.

When we arrived at the Civitavecchia station, there was a free shuttle bus to take us to the ferry, which was very helpful. There were lots of people lining up, crowding the gates surrounding the shipyard. Everyone was desperate to secure a place for themselves on board. We were hungry, so we left them to their pushing, and had some dinner in the ferry terminal. We rejoined them later, just as the gates opened and people were allowed to get onto the ferry.
We didn't have a room on this ferry, because they had run out of cabins, but they still let us book a place. Hundreds of other people were also in our position, and as we reached the huge lounge area, people were already setting themselves up on the couches for the night. It was midnight, and the ferry was set to arrive at about 7am in the morning, so people were trying to make the best of the hours that they had.

We found ourselves a nice stretch of couch, and lay down on it to secure a body length each for sleeping. We were lucky to get a place, many people were stuck on upright, single chair couches. Unfortunately our luck ran out there, as there was a live band playing Disco Pop music at full volume. We could barely hear ourselves think, even through our earplugs, let alone sleep. For some reason, a group of young girls managed to find a rythm somewhere in the noise and decided to dance along!

The rest of the lounge was in shock at the noise, considering the people running the ship knew there would be hundreds of roomless people hoping to sleep. Somehow we managed to fall asleep, although it was in short bursts, as the couch was not very comfortable. Loren woke up in the middle of the night, unable to move her leg without pain. She tried to walk it off but it persisted, and got worse everytime she lay down. This pretty much ended her sleep, and when she lay on her other side, it started on the other leg. Finally, we arrived at Olbia in Sardinia, and made a run for it, far from our boat from Hell.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Olgiata pictures