Florence, Siena, Pisa, Cinque Terre and stuck in Genova

Hi again!

Wow, I do have some readers it seems. Puts pressure on me :) Anyways thanks for all the comments. I usually have very little time so I cnat answer to each individual comment; sorry for that. I ll try to touch upon the points brought up in the comments somehwhere appropraite in the text. And excuse me for the spelling mistakes, no time for a spell check.

I visited a lot of places since the last entry and I'm past my half point mark a couple of days ago. I m a little behind my overall plan but I dont give a shit. This post will be sohrt cause I dont have that much time. Weird thing is, I missed my train from Genova to Nice so I m stuck here for some time but not long enough to go out and visit some places. Instead I ll be sitting in an internet cafe and writing my super-duper-cool blog.

Firenze:
- As I said I stayed in a shared tent when I was in Firenze. And my sleeping bag really saved my ass
- My "tentmate" was a mexican guy who did not look like a member of Apachi, he was more of a Luis type mexican. He did not steal anything from me.
- Firenze is just beautiful. I really liked the place and the people (italians i mean) were somehat different (in a good way) than the other places i visited
- Michelangelo was not human. If he was, must have been really sick. Besides all the statues all over the city; the famous David is really amazing.
- Speaking aobut statues, I am tired of seeing statues and paintings.
- The Duomo (cathedral) of Firenze is extremely fancy outside and has an extremely simple interior. I guess the pope did not want it to match the greatness of Vatican. It took 30 mins for me to climb to the top of it (i had to kill approximately 50 people to get there) and the view was really cool. I thought about trying to spit to the head of people below but than decided it wasnt a good idea.
- I am very surprised to see that there are no statues of Fatih Terim in the city although he is the smartest, coolest and most succesful human being ever lived there.

Siena
- I went to the nearby Siena for a day trip.
- I just loved it. They saved all the buildings and all the city looks like 500 years old. One of my favorite stops so far.
- The only emplyer in the city seems to be Montepaschi di Siena bank which also sponsors a cool basketball team. Ergin Ataman calistirdiydi ordan aklima geldi.

Pisa
- Another day, I went for a day trip to Pisa.
- I did nopt really like the city itself but the square where the duomo and the tower is located ios just amazing. But again I did not like it. It is totally disconnected from the city and feels like Venice: Very beautiful but as much touristic.
- Oh boy! The leaning tower is leaning. So much.. The idiot engineers. ehehe. When I first saw it I had to laugh because the tower is leaned too much. It s worse then Veli Gocer's buildings in Turkey.
- Dont worry, I did not do the clichè snapshot of pushing the tower. Instead I took pictures of tens of people doing the same thing.

Cinque Terre
- My next stop was Cinque Terre, an area consisting of 5 small villages on the sea side.
- The italians are saving the area so good. It s a natural park and unesco site so very well preserved. It is getting a bit touristic but still has the feeling that you are visiting somewhere really unique.
- Here comes the best part: I rented a couch! As usual I just went there without any bookings and found out that absolutely no bed left in the site. (of course there were some but I d like to kindly remind you that I can spend a little more than a Faktum guy on accomodation.) So after searching for somewhere to stay for 30 mins under 35 degrees and a 20 kg (it grew Ender, it is heavier now, i dont know how it happened) I wnet to a hostel I talked previously and offered them to stay in their garden. It turned out that they did not have a garden :) So after a lovely conversation and heated bargaining in Italian I got the couch in the 12 bed dorm for 10 euros! (A bed costs 30) ehehe.
- I had so much fun in my only night there. I met a group of party animals and drank for hours. Even jumped into the mediterannian in the middle of the night from the cliffs nearby and other cool stuff too.
- The nature there is simply amazing and the hand made food and fresh fruits groiwing in the region are really goood.

Genova
- Then I moved to Genova which is my last stop in Italy. I was planning to come here early in the morning and stay for some hours and catch a train to Nice for the second leg of my journey
- But since I really had a hangover, first I messed my tran Fromn cinque Terre to Genova. Then because I messed it, I missed the train to Nice. And since I missed it and since I did not reserve a seat in the good train now I have to sit in the cafe for the next crappy train which will take me to Nice.
- On my bus ride, I saw Genova is really lovely but I m gonna skip here and leave it for another time. The turks would remember Genova as "Galata", they onced held ground even as far as in Istanbul.

Other shit;:

Here come some weird experiences in no particular order of level of irritation:
- I decided to skip Bologna too. I want to spend a little more time in Spain, especially in Andalucia.
- money is gonna be a problem :)
- I m sick of seeing churches. But this time I did not see Jesus that much. The weird thing in Italy, espeically in Vatican, is that they pratically worship the popes and saints. They mummify them, save their bodies in churches, draw shit about so called holy people and popes everywhere, build statues of them and etc. Jesus is present only in the awesome dome of Vatican, nowhere else in the St Peter s but you can see almost all popes somewhere.
- I hate kids. I hate travelling kids more. They always scream, they are little so I can smash them with a single hit of my backpack and they are so many.
- I also hate tourist groups. There are so many groups and they enter everywhere together and the guide starts speaking with the irritating tourist guide voice and there is no space of silence left for me in the place.
- But I really like freeriding the tourist groups. When the place is crowded the guide has to speak up and if I m around I can listen to the stuff for free :)
- I feel that I have to expalin how I m visiting the cities a little bit better. When I say "I saw everything" I dont mean just walking like crazy and going to everywhere on the guide and taking photos like Japanese. I usually try to spend as much time as possible anywhere I go and try to get a feeling of the place. I read almost anything I can find about the places before I go. I usually sit down doing nothing in places I like. For exampole I could have finished the ancient Rome site in 5 hours but it took 8 hours just because I sat down and try to imagine the place as it is used to be.
- To gain more time for this kind of sightseeing, I walk really fast and in a high tempo. My left leg is practically dead now. My knee injury (jumper's knee) got worse and my ankle and hip are hurting cause they have been compensating for the knee. I really need a rest and that s what I m gonna get in Nice. No walking, just lying and swimming, and drinking and socializing at nights of course :)
- Another rule I have is, I always am alone during the days. I never take company with me when I m walking and seeing things. This way I have a lot of time to think and talk to myself and it s very benefical, I beieve. At nights though, I m never alone. That s why I try to stay at hostels even though they are not the best places to sleep in. I meet hundreds of backpackers like me everyday, drink woth them, get to know them and etc. That s the best part. I had a lot of friends and liked a lot of people but every single one of them comes in, and goes the next day. This part of the journey is very helpful, a personal therapy for me as a person who has attachment issues. Changing places every day also helps in the same way. Wow got really serious, I ll get back to the original mood immediately
- Itlaian trains are really bad. They are slow, dirty and really low quality. I even rode one fast train from Napoli to Rome but it was way behind its German counterpart in terms of comfort and quality.
- Italy has great food. Although I cant eat good food that much bevcause of budget issues, I try to go for the specialites in each town and so far I m just loving it.

We have a winner of the first "Where the heck is Cagdas faithful reader" award. Mehmet Abi wins this special prize which did cost me no more than 2 euroes. It is a 2 piece gift and I hope you ll like it. Please write me your address so I can post it to you. Until the day you receive it, i m gonna keep it as surprise:)

So I now have to leve or I m gonna mioss my 3rd train in a day which would likely to be a world record. Now the next stops will be Nice, somehwew too on the Cote d'Azur, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Valencia, Toledao, Granada, Sevilla, (Morocco, if I have time) and finally Lisboa. Just as a note -both to myself and to anyone interested, here s the list of places I stayed, visited, or really spent time in: Dusseldorf, Koln, Munich, Salzburg, Fuschl, Innsbruck, Venezia, Napoli, Rome, Firenze, Siena, Pisa, Cinque Terre.

I ll keep you posted.

Take care!

Cagdas