Back to life, back to insanity.

From Florence to Rome to Dublin to Cork to Rome to Marseille. It's be an interesting couple of weeks! I'll start off in Florence, where I left off last time. After the Pitti and the Bargello there was only really one feasible next stop - the Uffizi Gallery. It's one of the most incredible collections of art that the World has ever seen, containing pieces from Ancient Greece, Rome, early religious pieces, Renaissance, Old Masters and much more - Caravaggio, Van Dyke, Titian, Holbein, Raphael, Michaelangelo &c. &c. The list goes on and on. The queue for entrance when I arrived was approximately six hours long - such are the prices to pay for being cultural in the height of the tourist season. Thankfully the price for skipping the queue was only an extra three Euros on top of the entrance fee! I had thankfully heeded advice and called ahead to reserve my ticket, and after 20 minutes of rushing round like an idiot and joining a few of the wrong lines I thankfully found the right one, quickly acquired my ticket and went straight on in. Reservations over the phone are an absolute must for those of you who want to visit it. I was absolutely astounded that more people didn't take advantage of this, but it's their loss! I spent far too much time in the gallery, about five hours in total but it was fantastic and a real eye-opener and well worth the time. Afterwards I made a quick visit to an exhibition held by a shoe-shop of all places! They had supplied many of the shoes for Marilyn Monroe back in the day, and now, 50 years after her death, were holding an exhibition - my Godfather had lent several of his pieces to them, so I felt a little familial obligation to pop in on his behalf! After heading back to the campsite and spending another evening trying to ignore the Olympic water-polo (it was exceptionally boring) I packed up my bits in readiness for the morning and when that arrived I loaded up my bike and headed back in to Florence to grab a train to Forano, just outside Rome, to see France in readiness for heading back to Ireland for Christian and Leonie's wedding. I spent a couple of days stuffing my face with local Italian goodness before jumping on a train and a plane to Roma Da Vinci airport and jetting back off to see my family. The re-union was great, and reminded me how much I've missed my family in my short time away. We spent a couple of days with Leonie's family feeling the warmth of their ever-present hospitality before my Dad and I hired a car to drive around the west coast of Ireland taking in Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher, a truly stunning pass through the mountains, the Ring of Kerry, Tra Li, Galway, Kenmare and much more. Ireland really is a beautiful place and it's easy to see why they call it the Emerald Isle. As the locals said, if they had the weather to match it would be the nicest place in the World! The wedding itself was epic, with everything that was planned (and there was a heck of a lot of it) going perfectly. Huge congratulations again to everyone involved, and especially the (very) happy couple. After the wedding (and a much needed day of recovery) I jumped on a bus down to Cork and flew back out to Rome. When I was greeted by Franco I was told of the weather that had been brewing in my absence - a heatwave that the locals had nick-named "Lucifer". According to Franco (an Italian native who lives in Jersey) he had never seen anything like it - temperatures hitting 40-45c in central Italy, and not much better on the coast. All Rome needed was Nero with a fiddle... With this sort of weather I knew that there was no way in hell of carrying on travelling down and with great reluctance and a tinge of disappointment I jumped on a train and headed up north. After a lovely 24 hours of travelling including bedding down in a train station with about a hundred other travellers for a couple of hours between 1.30am to 5.00am I arrived, tired and tetchy in Marseille. I grabbed a bite to eat early on and headed off for a lovely little 40km ride out of the city to my first campsite back in France, Camping La Mas near Sainte-Croix on the Cote Bleu, which is where I am now! After that ride I know that I made the right decision. Although the weather was a full 10c lower than the weather I would've encountered in Italy and the humidity significantly less, it was still incredibly taxing. The water in my bottles was fit for making tea by the time I had finished, and I had to stop for an hour and a half's siesta in the early afternoon as it was too hot to even read in the bus shelter by the side of the road. I'm planning on staying here for another night - doing a little shopping and a little swimming in the gloriously blue mediterranean sea, as well as planning for the next few days and heading off again. I'll let you know in due course where I get to! Ciao once again for now.