We had no trouble making our way to Marina di Massa from Verona, having figured out how the roads work, and we quickly booked ourselves into a huge hostel overlooking the ocean and moments from every Italian's holiday destination (they were everywhere!!). It wasn't the cleanest place, the staff was less than friendly or helpful, and our roommates were definitely not the best. However, for 44 Euros a night for the four of us, including breakfast, it was too good a deal to miss.

Barry and Connor were stuck with an absolute disgusting single man, who slept all day, snored and coughed all night, and who should never have been there, in our opinion. In Bavaria, for example, youth hostels are for 26 year olds and younger; or families, like ours. Tessa and Margaret shared a room with four young ladies, one of whom partied until all hours (not a problem), but kept coming into the room all night to get different clothes, make-up, etc. The problem was that she would turn on the lights to rummage around and talk to whichever other girl woke up. She would then sleep all day, making us feel bad if we went into the room. Not great.

However, we didn't know all this until later, so we walked down to Euro Pizza and had a great meal, then went back to the hostel where we spent the evening playing cards, listening to U2 out of a car stereo in the parking lot, and people watching until midnight when we called it a day.