Welcome back all! To Part 2 of my European Adventure in 2016. If you haven’t read Part 1 of my trip please click here to view it then you can proceed to read this one.

So after Switzerland we headed to Nice, France on the French Rivera, but before we reached France we needed to cross the boarder of the Motherland… Italia, well if you saw my face it was lit up as I was so happy to finally make it to Italy after all these years of waiting to go. We pulled over after an hour of crossing the board at an service station off the Autostrada (Fancy Italian name for Highway) which blow me away because it had its own Deli and food court with so many choice of Italian Cuisine.

Out all everything I could have chosen Pasta was the number one choice to experience first, even though it wasn’t made in a fancy restaurant or by a local Nonna is still tasted amazing. I even got a bottle of San Pellegrino Chinotto to finish it off.. ahhh Bellissimo!

Eventually we headed off towards the French Boarder onto Nice and the stunning views of the Côte d’Azur, but we made a pit-stop at Fragonard Perfumery where we saw one of the worlds finest factories in the French Rivera. It smelt unreal in this place and the way the products are made was not what I was expecting! I did manage to buy a few little goodies for myself and a few others,  I couldn’t miss out on buying these executive products.

We went got to our Hotel which may I say was a complete dump – the rooms smelt, bed sheets were dirty and the breakfast buffet table was full of ants. So instead of staying around I went out for a little walk along the Promenade des Anglais (Walkway of the English) and was relied to finally make it to a beach side town to cool off in. That night we went to a Spanish or Italian restaurant that served traditional French Rivera cuisine, after we headed to Downtown Nice for a walking tour which after that we needed a drink badly, so then we went to a bar called Wayne’s Bar which had a live band and ended with us dancing on the table with our Long Island Ice Teas.

The following day was a free day so me and a few others headed to the beach, shop a little and prepared for a big night in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Once we got to Monaco you could tell that we were in a playground for the rich and famous, the whole town was full of luxury cars, shops and even boats. Restaurants were quite expensive so we ended up going to the cheapest and familiar place of McDonald’s LOL. I was lucky enough to win 100 euro after putting 20 euro in the slot machine, even since then I have not won anything close to that equivalent in Australian Dollars. After dinner me and the boys went for a walk along the beach-side and whilst getting a picture taken infront of the Marina. #TopDirection the not-so boy band of  Topdeck was born.. (because from a distance we looked liked a boy band from a picture taken by another fellow traveller)

So that’s 2 nights in Nice, France done now were do we go? oh of course back to Motherland and off to the City of Florence – Birth Place of the Renaissance. Before we head to Florence we made a Pit-stop at a landmark I’ve been wanting to see for years. Pisa and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, now this Piazza that the tower is in is well maintained with the greenest grass. Outside the Piazza is the complete opposite, a very run down city with its only main attraction a tower which if wasn’t there I don’t think I’d ever go to Pisa. We had fun in the square taking our funny, random pictures with the tower which lead to us going a bit to far.

After a stop in Pisa we headed on the bus for another 1hr and 20mins towards Firenze, we didn’t do much sight seeing as it was late afternoon – we headed straight to the hotel to freshen up before heading into town to a traditional Tuscan ristorante. Later we went to Red Garter for Karaoke Night, unfortunately I’m not a singer so I didn’t participate! but I did manage to have a few drinks which lead to a massive hungover the following day for our Florence and Rome walking tour  #notideal

Rome was the next destination on our itinerary here we said goodbye to 3 members of our group but gained another 7 the following day. Eric (Awesome Bus Driver) dropped us off in Piazza del Popolo where we begin our Rome Walking tour, Nuala lead us through to Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), The Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, Roman Forum and on to the Famous Colosseum. After a long and exhausting the only way back to our hotel was to take the Metro, 8 Stops later we reached our hotel. A shower, quick brevy and bed sounded so bloody good! after all it was that hot under the Italian Sun, I thought I would be able to fit my whole trip in 2 blogs but it doesn’t seem like I will – I will leave the story to be continued! stay tuned 🙂

Peace Out.

TZULS 😛