It has been 3 weeks of fun in the land of beer and sausages and pizza and pasta. Looks like we dodged some crook weather back home. Now it’s time to kick back and enjoy the service on our ride home.

Its hot out there, the three days we have been in Rome the temperature has just about touched 40 degrees. The pavement is like a hot plate and the rubbish well lets just say its not the nicest smell and the garbos really need to come collect it more often. Anyway the city has so much to see, the traffic crazy no rules. Most scary place ive driven and ive driven NYC, Paris, London and LA freeways. Its insane.

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The Rome ruins were spectacular at night with the lights bouncing off the old stonework. Some of the structures date back over 2000 years. The colosseum is spectacular, it’s about as big as the MCG playing field just as high.

The Vatican- what an incredible place, this mob must have raped and pillaged the world for centuries to build their head office so magnificently. The amount of gold, marble treasures and splendour is breathtaking..and the size 40 metres longer and wider than MCG and 50 metres taller than the light towers.

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Next stop we catch up with friends at a villa deep in the Tuscan hills. Bells ringing, birds singing and tranquility nothing to see other than wineries, olive groves and spectacular blue skies. I don’t want to leave.

We pick up our Fiat and head south stopping off at Sienna. What a place, This town was built on a hill there were about a dozen excalators up from the carport. You just couldn’t walk it or use stairs you would be going for ever. Up on top the city was a series of tight lanes filled with surprises which all let to a huge centre square surrounded by an amazing church, restaurants and shops. We stoped for a beer (or 2) and the best pizza ever and enjoyed the view.

We jump on the train for the hour or so trip to Florence and the senses are in overload the architecture and sights are even more spectacular the Bologna. The humongous cathedral in the centre of town is awe inspiring covered in green and white marble, other than a bit they didn’t get around to finishing. Food is also out of control and the prices don’t seem to vary much between places with views and the back streets, and its all rather reasonable. A slice of pizza around $3AU beer $5 (500ml) and the best pasta you have ever tried around $12-16 AU. Theres sausages, cheeses, hams fresh veggies in little stalls everywhere you walk and things are fairly compact so you can see a lot in a short time.

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Our first stop in Italy is in Bologna, The city is so old there is no new buildings everything is centuries old with many having modern interiors inside the crumbling exteriors. The detail of the stone and brickwork is amazing you wonder how many craftsman were needed to do the highly detailed sculptures, mosaics and decorative features all without the technology and tools we have today. This place is the birthplace of Bolognase so we had to try some. Delicious but much less tomato than we have in ours.

We hit the train and with in about an hour we had left Germany gone through Austria passed Liechtenstein and were in Italy heading for our next port.

Because several litres were not enough at the last venue after a fresh we hit Lowenbrau another of the city’s huge beer halls. This place was massive and pretty flash with its tower, sculptures and chestnut trees.

The Hofbrauhaus is Munich;s biggest beer hall. It has seating on the ground floor for 5000 another 500 in the beer garden and a reception hall up stairs 45 x 17 metres- and the place was busy. We popped in for a ‘look’ around 3PM and it was more than 50% full and it’s a work day. Litre size beers were the norm and pork knuckle was a menu favorite.