Public Transport woes and Super Touring

Our apologies, again, for leaving such a long empty space in our interweb life for a while. We have been very short on reliable internet, sleep, and free time lately.We had one seriously crazy week of touring after we left Ponteginori, doing two days each in Florence, Rome and Naples. In both Florence and Rome we stayed at campsites in tents provided by the site which was much cheaper than staying in a hostel in the center of the city. In Florence, an extremely walkable city, our campsite was located about five minutes from Piazza Michelangelo, a sort of hilltop piazza from which you can view all of Florence. In Florence we did a lot of walking around the city, eating in little gelaterias and cafes and visiting the Duomo, the Uffici and Santa Croce. Florence was beautiful, cool and far less jammed with tourists than we expected. From Florence we took a train to Rome, where we really picked up the pace navigating various types of public transport to get to our out of town campsite. In Rome we strapped on our chacos and sunglasses and wove our way into the masses of tourists trudging through the Colloseum, the Pantheon, The fourum, the Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Vatican city. Visiting all of these sites in 48 hours was a bit of an overload, but amazing nevertheless. I think I cried in the Pantheon and the Sistine Chapel and Nathan had a great time seeing the Colloseum and the Vatican City-a pretty surreal place to visit. On our last evening in Rome we made it to Giolotti, the world famous and highly reccommended (Thanks Erin and Chris!) Gelato shop where we helped ourselves to seconds and tried 6 flavors each-a great dinner. In our opinions the best were "The Italian Opera" (Hazelnut, pinenut and pistachio together), and the famous dark chocolate Gelato. The most interesting was the Champagne, which they had somehow made carbonated so when you liked it you felt the fizz along with the champagne flavor! We went to bed with sore feet and bellies full of sugar and woke up thinking we were headed into the center of Rome to hop on a direct train to Naples. About this, we were mistaken (skip to the next paragraph if you want to sidestep a story about struggling with public transport). What we have learned since that morning is that when all of Italy's public transport system goes on strike, they notify the public about a month in advance. Thi message however, neither passes onto the tourist offices or campsites and is forgotten by half the Italian public who, upon realizing, books every taxi in the city as a means of national travel. Thankfully we joined forces with an equally stranded British couple and planned our escape by Coach to Sorrento in hopes of getting a private train from there to Naples. With them we took a shuttle run by the campsite to the Vatican, where we managed to hail the only available taxi in the city of Rome and took it to the central train station. Upon arrival we discovered that the bus we had booked picked up from a different station (yup) so we waited in line outside the terminal for taxis that charged double the rate and took one to the bus station. We made the bus by ten minutes and took a four hour ride to Sorrento. Upon arrival we found that the Circumvesuviana-a private train circling Vesuvius had decided to join up in the strike for kicks and was not running until 5am. The amazingly kind couple that we had journeyed with let us sleep in their tent in Sorrento that night and in the morning we were able to get a trian to Naples. Whew.
Upon our grateful, though exhausted arrival at Giovanni's, Giovanni himself gave us a 45 minute talk about what to see and do in Naples and insisted we begin our tour immediately. Though not immediately, we were out eating Napoli pizza in the hour and took a tour of the subterranean Roman cisterns by candle that evening (so cool). The next day we took the 8am train and managed to see Herculaneum, Pompeii and Vesuvius all in one day. We had dressed for Italian weather and were quite surprised to find the temperature dropping drastically on the bus halfway up the mountain. Hiking 30 minutes up to the crater was a windy, chilly experience in shorts and Tshirts, though well worth the climb. THere were clouds in the crater that day swirling in and out with the windcurrents and, though not the warmest, it was a really amazing experience. From Naples we had planned to head to the Amalfi coast for a week but, persuaded by the ever passionate, enthusiastic Giovanni, we decided to go a bit further down the coast to Praia a Mare. Here in Praia we are taking a short break from traveling in a beautiful hostel just a ten minute walk from the 40km volcanic rock beach next to an aqua blue Medeterrenean. While here we've taken a boat tour to the various grottos in the surrounding Islands and gone cliff jumping from 5, 8 and 15 meters above the sea. Our next wwoof site is outside Torino on the 4th so tomorrow we are heading to Interlaken Switzerland for a long weekend before hitting the soil again. Our next wwoof site is a community of Bahai (sp?) people, and while there we have to abide by a set of respect for nature rules including taking the name of an animal or plant while we are there. Our contact, Turkey Walnut (not kidding), will hopefully be waiting in Chivasso station on the 4th and will drop us back there so we can head to Germany for three days before flying home on the 16th. No reliable internet connections in sight so look forward to more pictures from Germany or good ol Iowa. Until then, suggestions for our animal/plant names? Prayers to Gaia to get us safely from Praia to Interlaken in one day? Heres hoping the public transport powers will shine favorably upon our sore backs. Ciao!