Tag: Italy

Rome and The Vatican, Italy 2017

August 1, 2017 / terry

Rome 26-30 July

The trip from Naples to Rome was the most comfortable for several months, mainly because we were back to being able to use Flixbus. Somehow, the Flixbus line seems to be able to do what others can’t, make things work without fuss and on time. The trip took two and a half hours and was a direct route along the Autostrada so it was smooth and relaxing.

Things even went well once in Rome. The bus dropped us off at the bus station in Turbunia and it was a very short walk to the adjoining Metro station. It was so refreshing to walk around a bus and train station area that was neat and clean. Even the graffiti was far less than it had been in Naples. The Metro train whisked us five stations to Cavour then another 300m walk took us to our accommodation, although a couple of flights of nasty steps did get in the way.

Our apartment is set in what used to be a monastery right in the heart of old Rome. The apartments have been beautifully modernised and have all mod-cons, although nothing much in terms of a view. However, the view up the nearest street is one of the glorious Santa Marie Maggoire, a Papal Basillica that dates back to the 5^th Century AD. It is owned by the Vatican but remains on Italian soil. Back the other way and around a corner the street ends in the Colosseum, so we are certainly well placed. So much is easily walkable, the Roman Forum, the Piazza Venezia and the Trevi Fountain. Beautiful eateries and bars abound in this part of Rome. Just going for a stroll is a fantastic experience, with stunning piazzas, historical ruins and grand buildings visible from every vantage point. It is a true visual feast.

Ancient Rome

We booked up for a Segway tour as a way of getting to lots of places in the historical centre quickly and with a guide to explain things. The Segway tour of Paris we took back in 2012 has remained as a highlight of our last trip to Europe and this one proved no different. The group was small, an American, a couple of Norwegians and us. Together with the guide, Patricia, an Italian/German girl, we had a lot of laughs, mostly at Christine’s expense because she kept letting out little screams or calling out “Shit!” when she hit a bump or felt she might crash, which was quite often.

After a brief familiarisation and practice session we set off on our Segways, working our way through the ancient Roman Forums, the Forum Romanum, and the Forums of Julius Caesar, Augustus and Trajan. Then it was on to the Colloseum where the crowds were staggering. Inching our way through the huge throngs of people waiting to gain entry was actually a lot of fun and quite easy. Segways are so easy to control and so versatile.

The Segway Tour, showing The Forum Romanum, Colloseum, Constantine’s Arch and The Circus Maximus.

The Colloseum is one of those things that is more impressive and bigger in real life than the pictures. This is so often not the case but the sheer size and scale of the structure is quite breath taking. We have seen so many ancient sites and ruins on this trip but nothing quite stacks up to the Roman Forum and the Colloseum, all overlooked by the Palatine Hill, probably because of the sense that this is where it was all centred. Moving on we admired the Arch of Constantine then on to the huge Circus Maximus, the enormous arena featured in the chariot racing scenes of the movie Ben Hur. At its peak, the Circus Maximus was capable of seating more than 150,000 people, putting the MCG to shame. Around the outer parts of the seating structures, the porticos housed numerous shops and artisan stalls so the complex was an important part of Roman life even when not being used for games or events.

From the Circus Maximus we climbed up the Avertine Hill to get some terrific views over Rome and the River Tiber. It was a wonderful relief after all the hill climbing we have done to just glide up the hills on our Segways, whizzing past all the other tourists struggling up the streets in the heat. From the Avertine, we had to use the roads, which was a little daunting, but Patricia showed us how to fit in with the traffic and just go with the flow. We climbed the Capitoline Hill, the supposed site of the founding of Rome, and took in the amazing views over the Forum Romanum. I have always enjoyed reading Roman History, right from my early teenage years, and it was a very special to be able to look down on the places that had been the centre of so much history and home so many great people.

From the Capitoline Hill we worked our way back down to the end of the tour, a brilliant three hours of history, fun and the thrill of riding a Segway through one of the World’s most significant cities.

The Vatican City

A Metro trip took us across the River Tiber to the Vatican City. We had purchased some “Skip the Line” tickets on the Internet and we were so glad we did because the line for people waiting to get in was horribly long. The “Skip the Line” system operates across all the attractions and is basically a pay more and get in system, making you pay around 10€ each more than lining up in the case of the Vatican, but considerable more for The Colloseum. You have to book a specific time and tickets are limited. We had time to kill and had a coffee at a cafe opposite the entrance, waiting for about 40 minutes. The line did not appear to move in that time. When our appointed entry time came we just walked straight through.

The Vatican Museum is enormous, housing many of the Christian World’s finest art works. The complex of buildings is an art work in itself, with every ceiling, wall, door and window frame being something special. There are displays of Greek, Etruscan and Roman art works. Strangely, there are displays of Egyptian antiquities, purchased in the late Nineteenth Century by the Vatican. It defeats me how they can still justify keeping these pieces. They should be returned to Egypt.

Our main aim, as with most other visitors, is to see the four Raphael Rooms and Michaelangelo’s painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Both are located at the far end of the building complex away from the entrance, which means a very long walk through the halls to reach them. The guide books suggest a 20-30 minute walk without stops but it took us a little longer. The crowd is very manageable, controlled by the ticketing system but there are a great many beautiful distractions along the way. We are certainly not students of religious art but the works were simply glorious.

Along the way there are many fine classical sculptures, mostly nudes in the classical manner. The females are always demurely draped but the poor guys had mostly got the “chop”, their penises removed by various Popes through the ages. Some had weird looking fig leaf things covering their naughty bits but others had just been “done”. Apparently, the balls are OK, just not the other things.

One fascinating room was the Gallery of Maps, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in the 16^th Century. Skilled artists were brought from all over Italy to paint a series of enormous maps, depicting all the areas of the Italian Peninsula and islands. The major cities were also depicted in map form, leaving a lasting and significant historical record.

The Raphael Rooms date from the early 16^th Century and are simply stunning. Many of the frescoes depict quite violent episodes throughout early Christendom or stories from the Old Testament. The paintings adorn the walls and parts of the ceilings of four rooms, mostly used as reception rooms for Papal visits. Below the Raphael Rooms lies the famed Sistine Chapel, a small chapel but one of the best known because of Michaelangelo’s ceiling paintings, completed between 1503 and 1512. Art historians generally agree that it, along with the enormous Last Judgement that covers the altar wall, is one of the greatest artistic achievements of mankind. What I was surprised at, is just how small and relatively insignificant the centre piece of the ceiling is, the famous Creation of Adam, that is so recognisable and so frequently copied as a symbol of art. It is no bigger than the other panels, just more famous. It is a requirement of entry into the chapel that shoulders and legs be covered, causing a bit of anxiety for many of the female tourists who choose to wear the fashionable Italian fashions. Fortunately, the gap is filled by the numerous wrap sellers outside the Vatican who do a roaring trade. Inside the chapel, the visiting crowds are requested to remain silent and photography is not permitted. Al this is largely ignored of course, so at regular intervals, a very loud announcement screams out “Silence!”, which produced the required effect for 10 to 15 seconds before the noise returns. When someone is spied taking a photo, a guard will rush over and yell at them, so they look sheepish and put the phone down for a few minutes rest.

St Peter’s Square and Basillica, Vatican grounds.

After leaving the Vatican Museum, we walked around the vast walls of the city to re-enter at St Peter’s Square. This most famous of all Rome’s Plazas is certainly impressive and must be an awesome sight when it is filled with people for a Papal blessing or appearance. Backed by the huge St Peter’s Basillica, the square is framed by two enormous arcs of colonnades, producing a truly impressive sight. In the middle is an enormous obelisk, originally erected in Heliopolis in Egypt by Augustus then later moved to Rome by Caligula. All the way around the long colonnades was a heavy line of people, queued waiting to gain access to St Peter’s Basillica to climb to the top of the famous dome. Unlike the line to get into the Vatican, this one appeared to move, although slowly. We had no thoughts about even trying. We decided to leave that pleasure to the Pope.

We walked a few streets away from the Vatican until the menu prices at the restaurants dropped to an acceptable level and settled down for a sandwich and a beer, alongside a group of three Aussies (of Italian origin) from Melbourne. They had done the climb up the dome but had not waited in line, electing to pay the extra for “skip the line” tickets. It is really a bad system when you think about it but an absolute necessity if you want to get in to something.

Around Rome

We relied heavily on the Metro system to move around the city. With only two lines, the system is not extensive but it is cheap and very reliable. Even the crowds are not too bad, except near the Termini Station, which is the cross-link between the two lines and also the Central Railway Station. Here the crowds can be crushing and I even had to pull Christine back from the doors once when they started closing. Only a few weeks ago, a woman was dragged along the platform, caught in the doors. Plans are afoot to expand the Metro but money is always tight and progress is slow once they start because any digging means coming across ancient buildings and buried monuments.

There is also a tram system, quite old and noisy but useful for accessing areas that the Metro doesn’t go. There is also a bus but it has a poor reputation, even with locals. Using busses within a city is always our last option, mainly because they are difficult to work out unless you know where you are going and can recognise landmarks.

Around Rome. Our street and apartment is at bottom right.

It would be easy to spend days just visiting the many piazzas dotted across the city. Most are big splendid affairs, full of history and usually with an incredible fountain as a centre point. The Piazza Repubblica was not far from our apartment and is an enormous semi-circular piazza on the site of Diocletian’s Roman Baths. At its centre is the Fountain of the Nymphaids, depicting four nymphs fighting various creatures.

Of course, Rome’s most famous fountain is the Trevi Fountain. The fountain is situated at the junction of the modern water supply and Rome’s ancient Aqua Virgo aqueduct. Only a few weeks before our arrival, Rome’s Mayor had decreed that poor behaviour by tourists around Rome’s monuments must be stamped out and that throwing things into the water or bathing or washing in the fountains must stop. This was wrongly reported in the press as being a ban on throwing “three coins in the fountain”, a popular pastime with the Trevi Fountain signifying that one would return to Rome. This is still permitted. However, there were a number of police stationed around the fountain who would blow on whistles and point to people in the crowd. No one knew who they were pointing at or why, but then no one seemed to care. No one jumped in either, but there were coins flying everywhere. In fact, there is over 3000€ a day thrown into the Trevi Fountain, all thrown by the right hand over the left shoulder. The money is retrieved and used to support a supermarket for the city’s needy. Beyond all the hype, the fountain is certainly very beautiful, especially since a major refurbishment was undertaken and completed in 2015, leaving it all gleaming white and free of cracks or chips.

Around Rome, including The Trevi Fountain

All of Rome’s fountains are currently getting a lot of press, with the city in the grips of one of its worst ever droughts. Water supplies are becoming critical and there has been talk of closing down fountains. These are not the big display fountains that adorn the piazzas, but the tiny little continuously flowing faucets that are spread throughout the city to ensure that one can get a cold refreshing drink wherever one is. They are dotted all over the place, more than 2500 of them, all with a trickle of water and no tap. It is a luxury that Rome cannot afford in the current climate.

Our final packup was a moment of sadness. Although going home brings with it seeing family, neither of us reached the point where we had had enough of travel. Had we kept going, a major relocation would have been called for, maybe Scandinavia or Poland, because we were ready to leave Italy.

It is impossible to describe all the delights of Rome without writing a book. I think we could come back here many times and always find something new or interesting to see or do. Our scratchings have been very shallow and there is much remaining to be explored. Patricia, the guide on our Segway tour, described Rome as like a lasagne, with many layers. This is so true on both a historical level, with city built upon city, and also on a social level, with so many people all with different reasons for being in the Eternal City. We never did throw three coins in the fountain but I think we will be back one day.

Getting to the airport was so easy, a short walk to the Metro, a ride to Termini Station, then a very comfortable trip on the airport train (The Leonardo Express, 14€ each). It being Christine’s birthday, she wore a special Birthday Badge, which she shamelessly brought to the attention of the check-in girl. The girl apologised that she could not upgrade us to Business Class but did make a phone call and managed to get us front row seats, giving loads of extra legroom. It made all the difference to the 10 hour trip to Bangkok, although I had a guy next to me that just hogged the arm-rest between us for the entire trip. We had a rushed 40 minute layover, made tight by the increased security precautions in place for flights to Australia then a 6 hour flight home, all on Thai Airways. In the total flight time of around 17 hours, I slept about two hours and Christine about three so between us we did some serious movie watching.

We arrived in Perth to a twelve degree very wet day, dressed in shorts of course, bringing to an end nearly five months of travel and living out of our backpacks. I know the exhaustion will set in as we unpack. If we get too tired, we can always take a holiday somewhere.

GALLERIES:

Rome City

Vatican City

Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento – Italy 2017

July 28, 2017 / terry

Naples 22-26 July

The ferry from Palermo was due into Naples around 6:30am so it was an early rise and out to reception with our bags to watch the entry into port. As the boat cruised in under the gaze of Mount Vesuvius, the notorious volcano, we were amazed at just how small it looks compared to the gigantic Mount Etna in Sicily. Vesuvius has not erupted since 1944 but the scientists are somewhat concerned about mounting pressures, including some building under Naples itself. Hopefully, it can hang on for another four days.

The problem with arriving so early is finding somewhere to kill time with heavy bags before getting access to accommodation. Our apartment hosts had promised access at 9am so we had a few hours. There was not much open as we made our way along the via Nuovo Marina but we eventually found a little cafe-bar serving coffee and croissant. Christine was wearing her Aussie cricket shirt and the proprietor was from Pakistan so we were most welcome and he used his limited English to strike up a bit of a conversation.

We found our apartment block, a clean and neat looking block set in an area of tight narrow streets. The streets were absolutely filthy, as were most of the buildings. Naples is famous for being dirty but it is hard to imagine just how filthy the streets can be. Litter is everywhere, obviously just discarded without a care. Dog crap is also a continual problem when walking and the streets are sometimes easier to walk on than the broken sidewalks. I find it quite depressing to think that the people of one of Europe’s foremost countries can actually live in these conditions, beautiful apartments on the inside, top quality clothes and the best of fashion yet streets that are in worse condition than parts of South East Asia. People just seem to shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s what it’s like here.”

After a wait, our host arrived to let us in to a very comfortable apartment on the fourth floor of a six storey block. The owners have a number of apartments and have themed each one with a colour. Ours is a pink theme, very pink, pink is everywhere. It gets quite dazzling at times. However, the apartment is comfortable and very well located, right on the edge of the historic centre and a block away from Corso Umberto 1, the main shopping precinct, where shops sell high fashion goods at Perth K-Mart prices. We located a nearby supermarket and found a lovely little fruit and veg shop across the road. Around the corner is a fishmonger with a big range of fresh seafood. We are settled in and know where the rubbish bins are.

Around Naples, with Vesuvius at the top. Our street is at top right and the ferry from Palermo in the centre.

Further up the hill beyond Corso Umberto and along via Duomo there is a tangle of tiny streets and alleyways that are quite delightful to walk through. They contain hundreds of touristic shops selling a wide variety of goods, but most prominent are the miniature models depicting working life scenes from old Naples. There are doctors, weavers, laundry workers, gardeners and every conceivable occupation, all in beautiful little miniature and each beavering away at their task. The dentist was rather grizzly and one of the doctors was working hard on someone’s buttocks.

Many of the larger buildings are undergoing extensive repairs, and are shrouded in mesh netting and scaffolding. Thousands more are in urgent need of attention. A decent earthquake, not all that uncommon in Naples, would take its toll. The Metro underground is being expanded as well, also causing a lot of disruption around the central historical part of the city. This can only be a good thing because reducing the number of cars would have to be a top priority. Cars choke every street and footpath, making walking in some places very difficult. Around a quarter of these cars appear to be permanently parked, covered in a thick layer of grime and squeezed into space leaving mere centimetres between each one. Most have scratches and bumps around all sides and no car more than a year old looks untouched. Those that do make it into the traffic spend most of their time at idle, trapped in the endless snarls, then accelerating hard when a gap opens up only to slam on the brakes a few seconds later. Many other European cities have simply banned cars and motorbikes from the central areas and rigidly enforced parking rules. If public transport is cheap and efficient, the need to own a car in a big city is lessened. All it needs is the will and determination to change, something I suspect is lacking in Naples. France and Germany already have a timeline for the end of petrol and diesel powered vehicles. Italy needs to catch up and Perth needs to start learning some lessons before it is too late. Naples is a vision of the future we can expect if we go on as we are.

Sorrento

Naples serves as a hub for excursions and there are too many choices of what to see and not enough time. We chose to catch a train to Sorrento to check out for ourselves whether the amazing reputation is warranted. We had a kilometre walk to the huge train station complex at Piazza Garibaldi, stopping along the way to walk through a side-street market that specialised in loud men shouting “Prego!” and piles of cheap odd fragments of clothing. The Piazza Garibaldi area is reputed to be the worst for pick pockets, in a city where petty theft is a major industry. We had gone prepared, with no credit cards, passports or excess cash and things stored in deep zipped pockets. I also had a “man bag” for other essentials for the day.

The train to Sorrento is the Circumvesuviana Line, a narrow gauge line that services Herculaneum, Pompeii and Sorrento, as well as dozens of villages around the base of the volcano Mt Vesuvius. I declare it to be the worst railway I have ever travelled on. It does not run as part of the normal Trenitalia system. The tickets can only be purchased at two little windows and each transaction is carried out at a snail’s pace, resulting in ridiculously long lines. Pickpockets move through the heavy crowds relieving people of their belongings (not kidding). We eventually got two tickets and located platform 3, just missing a train and having 30 minutes to wait for the next one. The crowds swelled along a lengthy platform to near bursting point, made worse by the fact that many people had luggage, using the train as a way of getting to Sorrento to stay. We struck up a conversation with a Scottish/Norwegian couple and there was a group of four Americans next to us. Finally, a train arrived and stopped with the last carriage nearly ten metres beyond us. The crowd surged on and somehow we managed to push our way onto an ancient dilapidated old carriage and find a spot, standing shoulder to shoulder. One of the Americans felt a hand in his pocket and confronted the culprit, who raised his hands, said sorry and made for the door. He and a mate got off as the train pulled into the first stop, just as another of the Americans found they had lifted her purse from her handbag, complete with credit cards and around 400€. I know how she felt after the same experience in Rimini. It just destroys you but in this case there is almost no defence.

The train was impossibly hot, terribly rattly and ridiculously overcrowded. It must be making a huge amount of money through Pompeii, Herculaneum and Sorrento but little appears to be going back into rolling stock. Thankfully, after Pompeii, about two thirds of the way along, more than half the crowd alighted and things settled down for the rest of the trip. At least we got to be uncomfortable sitting down.

Once we got to Sorrento, we ran into the crowds again. There were tour groups everywhere, each following a guide holding up a stick with a grubby worn fluffy doll of some description. We wandered down through the streets, admiring the beauty (and cleanliness) of the town. A maze of tiny alleyways were filled with the usual souvenir and craft shops, many featuring some really pretty local porcelain pieces. In places, the crowds thinned out, only to recur around the next bend. Sorrento is built on top of a long high rock cliff overlooking a lovely bay containing several small harbours. We arrived at a small park that provides a perfect lookout situation to gaze down at the crowds of swimmers and sunbathing masses below. A steep path is cut into the cliff and winds down in four long zigzags. The pathway looked like hard work but fortunately, there are twin elevators cut into the rock and provide easy access at a Euro a trip, money well spent.

We looked at the menu of a restaurant overlooking the cliff and gagged at the prices so decided to hang back a couple of blocks away from the water and pay half the amount. We found a converted 16^th Century monastery that was converted into a library of historic papers and books and served as an excellent restaurant.

Around Sorrento

The front of house spruiker was so entertaining and pretty successful at dragging people in. He like Australians and involved us in some of his banter. “Hey,“ he would call out to a passing couple, “How about a cold beer in a frosted mug? My friends here have had four (an exaggeration). They’re Australian.”

We shared a delicious prawn salad and an amazing spinach cannelloni, leaving feeling replenished but not full to bursting. That takes some doing in the restaurants in Italy because the serving sizes vary between enormous and gigantic. We have even overeaten when ordering only an appetizer.

After another wander through the streets, we used the elevators to descend to the beach areas. From below, it is easy to really appreciate the wonder of Sorrento. The work that has gone into bricking up parts of the cliff and constructing ramparts and walls is staggering. Beautiful (and expensive) hotels line the cliff tops, some having their own elevators that run down through the cliff to service the beach area. In Roman times, Sorrento was the summer residence of the rich, with villas sitting on top of the cliffs to catch the cooling breezes. I imagine the wealthy were carried up the pathways to the top.

We caught a high speed ferry back to Naples, a lot more expensive than the train but infinitely more comfortable and quicker. The motion of the boat across the Bay of Naples was soothing and we both slept most of the way.

In hindsight, we would have been far better off staying in Sorrento instead of Naples, despite the high cost of accommodation in areas near the centre and beach. It would have served just as well as a hub to visit Pompeii and been far more pleasant.

Herculaneum

Herculaneum is lesser known than Pompeii and closer to Naples. The original Roman city suffered the same fate as Pompeii in 79AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted, raining millions of tonnes of volcanic ash over the town and cities on its slopes, covering them for nearly two thousand years. Herculaneum was later built over as the modern day town of Ercolano, and it was not until the 17^th Century that knowledge of what lay beneath prompted the beginning of the extensive excavation program. Herculaneum (named after Hercules) was a port city, perched high on coastal cliffs. With the extensive infill from the volcanic ash and subsequent eruptions, the excavated city is nearly a kilometre inland and well below the current level of Ecolano.

To reach Herculaneum, we had to board the dreaded Circumvesuviana Line train again. We left it later in the day, hoping the crowds going through to Sorrento would have eased and we were right, the train being only filled to 90% capacity instead of 120%. The heat, sweat and odours of the previous day’s train were the same but this time we didn’t witness a pickpocket operation. Once at Ercolano, we had to walk down the main street to Herculaneum. The taxi, bus, restaurant and tour guide touts were out in force and showed signs of being persistent. After the heat of the train I was lacking in patience and yelled at the first guy that tried to press his case. Another girl crossed the road to secure our business and she got snapped at as well. They really didn’t care less but it made me feel much better.

The first sight of the ruins is from above, allowing an incredible overview of the city uncovered to date. There is still a great deal lying under modern day Ecolano, including a huge amphitheatre and a number of large public buildings and temples. These have been partly explored by tunnelling in from the existing excavations.

We paid our 11€ entrance fee, secured a map and an excellent guide book then set off to explore the ruins. Many areas and buildings remain open for the public to explore and wander, while some more fragile or important buildings have restricted access. The guidebook gave a terrific insight into the various buildings, many of them family homes, as well as various shops, bars, restaurants, bakeries and blacksmiths. Many buildings were complete except for the roof, the hot ash having set fire to the timbers or the roof structure being unable to support the crushing weight of the ash and rock. Not all timber was totally destroyed though, with some remaining in a charred and blackened state. Down at the dock area, the foreshore warehouses were filled with skeletons, over 300 of them, presumably of people who were sheltering in the beachside overhangs from the ash fall. We wandered the streets of the city and through the buildings for over an hour, using the guidebook to add meaning to the sights. The heat was oppressive and I wondered what it would have been like in Roman times during summer, when the necessary use of fire and the smells of animals, sewerage and people would have made conditions in the narrow rock lined streets unbearable.

Herculaneum

We found Herculaneum to be an amazing place and it demonstrates just how advanced the Romans were with their civic works and way of life. We have seen a lot of Roman ruins on this trip but to see them without the advanced state of decay that two thousand years of exposure brings is wonderful. A lot of people have told us that Herculaneum is a better experience than Pompeii itself. Tomorrow, we will find out. Unfortunately, it means another trip on the dreaded train.

Pompeii

Pompeii meant one last train trip, actually, two counting the return. We got a pleasant surprise when the train pulled in. It was a modern looking affair and actually had air-conditioning. Because we had waited until just after lunch, the crowds were also down so we had what almost amounted to a pleasant trip. We needed one because once at the Pompeii ticket area it was frustration plus. Two ticket windows serviced a line of at least two hundred people, probably more. The wait is often said to be over an hour so I guess we were lucky and managed tickets in a half hour. They are so inefficient! It is so bad that I can only assume it is deliberate and that they feel all foreigners on Italian soil need some form of punishment. I could ask a class of ten year old children to come up with a better system and they would produce at least five ways of selling tickets quicker. The line snakes down across an exposed concreted area under the full blare of the sun. A misting fan is thoughtfully supplied at one point, although I would have thought a patio roof or shade cloth would do a much better job. Finally, tickets in hand, we went through to pick up a map and guidebook. Sorry! No maps left. Tough luck about your 13€ payment but you can’t have all that you paid for. The ruins get 2.5 million visitors a year. I think the authorities can do better.

The entrance to the ancient town is through the Porta Marina, the gate that originally serviced the road to the coast, not very far away before the eruption. Once through the gate, a long straight road stretched out before us, bordered on each side by small buildings, similar in appearance to those of Herculaneum. But that is where the comparison ended. The road led to the Forum, the key part of all Roman cities, the place of government and worship. In only a short walk it appeared that Pompeii was a much more important and significant city than Herculaneum and the richness of the Forum and surrounding temples displayed its significance. However, this was not actually the case, Herculaneum being the richer of the two cities. The difference is that most of Pompeii had been uncovered whereas the majority of Herculaneum is still buried. At the time of the eruption in 79 AD, the city had a population of around 11,000 people. Founded by the Greeks in the 7^th Century BC, it was already an ancient city when it was covered and the buildings that have been preserved by the ash build-up ranged in age from almost new to five hundred years old. Therefore, there is a wide variety of architectures and building techniques in evidence.

The cobbled roads seemed to be either vehicular roads or pedestrian only roads, the later being bared to vehicular traffic with large barrier stones like bollards. The vehicular roads often bore the worn ruts of wheels worn over the centuries, further evidence that Pompeii was already a very old city when it was covered.

Pompeii

The whole area is enormous, covering around 68 hectares. Most of the city is a collection of houses, shops and workshops, much as any city. The Forum dominates, along with numerous large temples to various Gods and divinities. Further down the hill there is a large amphitheatre. Some of the houses are very large with private bathing facilities and magnificent reception courtyards. As with Herculaneum, most of the roofs were destroyed and many of the painted frescoes decorating the walls were damaged. Those that remain show the skill of the artists of the day.

What did surprise us both was the extent to which the Romans relied on brick to build. So many of the ruins that remain today feature stone and marble columns that I had assumed that these were the main materials used. Solid stone was in fact used in only the most important of buildings and most were actually built with brick columns and a cement plaster outer coating. In many other ruined cities, the brick structures have long since fallen and only the solid stone buildings remained over the centuries.

We were glad that we had deliberately left our tour of Pompeii to a day forecast as cooler and with a chance of rain. The rain did not eventuate, save a brief shower on the way home, but the clouds gave some relief from what would be a very hot and exposed environment amongst all the stone and brick buildings.

Eventually, the kilometres of walking and steady heat took its toll and we headed for the exit. We had looked forward to seeing the smaller items , the pottery, jewellery, weapons and so forth but there did not seem to be a display of these objects other than a small collection of pottery near the exit. There is a new rail station under construction one stop down from Pompeii called Antiquarian that I am assuming is part of a new project to house the smaller museum type pieces from Pompeii. It is difficult to really get information. Fortunately, we had both been to a magnificent exhibition of Pompeii relics at the WA Museum only a few years ago.

Which was better; Pompeii or Herculaneum? Pompeii won hands down in our opinion for the sheer size and scale of the city and the importance and grandeur of the large public buildings.

Summary

We came to Naples to use it as a hub to see Pompeii, Herculaneum and Sorrento. Naples itself did nothing for us, other than turn us off. It is a city that displays everything that is wrong and dysfunctional in Italy. It is dirty, crime ridden and crime controlled. The traffic is appalling and public infrastructure worse than many Third World countries we have visited. I acknowledge that we did not see all that Naples has to offer and that living in the area that is essentially the port side of the old town things may be more run-down than other areas but we did travel around a fair bit of the city and little that we saw really impressed.

We should have gone to Sorrento instead, paid a lot more for accommodation but been better placed to travel and enjoy the good parts of Campania. It would have made it more convenient to visit the Amalfi Coast, south of Sorrento, an area that time ruled out for us. Still, we wouldn’t know that unless we had been.

GALLERIES:

Sicily, Italy, 2017

July 23, 2017 / terry

Catania, Sicily 14-18 July

We had to catch a train up to Reggio Calabria Lido for a ferry across to Messina in Sicily. We thought we had things detailed with a 9am train but when we got there the board did not show anything until 9:40, which meant we missed the connecting ferry and had to wait until 11:05. By now, we are used to this sort of thing happening with Trenitalia and with transport in general. The ferry trip was a mere 35 minutes across the Straits of Messina and we walked away from the dock up to the central rail station. Since the dock area and around the train station is often the ugliest part of any city we were unable to form an opinion of Messina. There were several trains available to take us to Catania and we chose a 13:20 train to give us time for a bite to eat. We found a great eatery close to the station that served a wonderful potato and cheese bake concoction so we washed it down with a beer.

Back at the station, we set about purchasing some tickets from the ticket machine. As we were processing the payment at the auto ticket machine, a couple of African guys asked for help buying tickets. The machines will operate in English if it is selected and their English was fine but it was apparent that neither could read. They had a handful of coins each. We worked one on one stepping them through the selections. However, when they came to the type of ticket they both wanted to choose “Child” at half fare(3.80€). I told my guy that the conductor would fine him for cheating but he said he only had enough for a child fare. Unknown to me, Christine’s pupil was wanting the same. If we were working together we probably would have just agreed to buy the adult tickets for each one and be done with it but in the end both guys bought child tickets and thanked us profusely for our help.

We boarded the train on time (a good sign) and immediately encountered a conductor checking tickets, quite a rare event on regional trains in Italy. We worried for our African guys and I managed to watch the encounter with one from a distance. The conductor checked the ticket then reached for the notepad in his hip pocket and I thought he was gone. He went into a very good show of subservience and pleading until eventually the conductor scanned his ticket and moved on. Well done mate!

The train carried us south, under the shadow of the volcano, Mount Etna, the summit shrouded in a mixture of clouds and volcanic smoke. We passed through numerous small villages, all very neat and surrounded by lush gardens. Here, citrus and olive groves flourish in the rich volcanic soil and the market gardens are unbelievably productive. There are some upsides to constantly living under the threat of death by volcanic eruption.

We reached Taormina, a town of outstanding beauty perched along the cliffs under Mt Etna. Below us, a fortune in yachts and mega power boats lay at anchor in sparkling clear waters. The train stopped at the station, a lot of people got off and the police got on. What followed was a lot of talk and phone calls between train officials, police and a large number of people on the train that seemed to actually know what was going on. We didn’t know whether we were facing a terrorist threat, a hold up or what ever. No one seemed to be giving any information, either in Italian or English for quite some time. After 20 minutes or so, after which we had decided that the gun toting police were not too upset, we found out that there was once again a fire on the track ahead of us. One of the police came through the carriage and ascertained that we were not trying to get to Catania Airport. Those that were got taken off the train onto a bus. After the experience in Calabria a few day before, we were keen to stay on the train. After an hour and a half, the train got mobile again and we finally rattled into Catania Centrale.

We usually choose accommodation within a 1km walk of a rail station and we thought we had this time too. Off we went, following Google Map instructions with our 17kg backpacks on in 35°C heat until we had walked far enough to check on the distance left. We were struggling and still had another kilometer to go. Obviously we had stuffed up with the distance from station to our accommodation being around 2.5km. It was a major walk in trying conditions but we finally found our apartment in a little street called via Pulea off the major avenue of via Etnea. On the plus side, we had walked through some beautiful parts of Catania, not around the rail station, which was ugly and dirty as is the case in many cities, but later on when we walked through majestic streets and several glorious piazzas. It promised a lot of wonderful exploration.

The apartment provided the basics, including an air-conditioner that just managed to cope with the heat of Catania and a toilet cistern that needed special treatment to prevent it from producing a terrible death-rattle noise as the float level valve was closing. The owner was a collector of “stuff” and couldn’t bare to throw anything out. The trouble was that he hadn’t collected all the right stuff, including a kettle, a pot big enough to boil pasta or more than one dinner plate. Fortunately, he had a kindly neighbor who was happy to cover his deficiencies in his absence.

We found some locally made fresh ravioli at a nearby supermarket and enjoyed the first meal that hadn’t come from a kebab shop or panini stall since leaving Montenegro. Here we are now surrounded by many great looking restaurants and we are back to apartment living and cooking our own. Some good local Sicilian wine supplemented a beautiful meal.

Catania Old Town

The next morning we set out in city walking mode to explore the many sights in this World Heritage listed city. Catania has a distinctively different look to it that sets it apart from other Italian cities and it is the result of the use of a dark grey volcanic stone rather than the soft white limestone or sandstone so common elsewhere. That, along with heavy layer of soot and grime covering much of the lighter coloured stone does produce a dirty look but the lavish architecture and Baroque styling overcomes much of that. Part way down the via Etnea we stopped for a while in the Piazza Stesicoro to admire the remains of the 1^st Century Roman amphitheatre buried beneath the city. It was a huge stadium, originally built in 300BC but rebuilt in the 2^nd Century during the Empire. It was built of lava rock and marble and survived largely intact until a large earthquake destroyed it in the 17^th Century. Much of the original is now foundation for many other buildings and the portion visible represents only about 1/8^th of the oval shaped structure with seating and holding areas for gladiators, performers and the like.

Around Catania with the Roman Amphitheatre at the top.

We walked the length of via Etnea, marvelling at the sheer scale and opulence of the buildings and the magnificence of the piazzas. The best of the piazzas was the Piazza del Duomo with its powerful cathedral and the Elephant Fountain. The elephant is the symbol of Catania, although the exact reason is shrouded in mystery and folklore. Another fountain, the Fountaina dell’Amano, a beautiful white marble affair, sits in one corner of the Piazza next to via Giuseppe Garibaldi, another street of some renown. The fountain is one of the points where the Amenano River can be seen. It flows beneath the city in three arms. Originally it was a surface river but volcanic eruptions in 242BC and 1669 covered the river over. Beyond the fountain is the noise, bustle and smell of the famous fish markets of Catania. The smell is powerful but fresh and all the fish looks to be in top condition. The sellers yell and scream, whether they are battling each other or appealing to customers is unclear but it adds to the atmosphere. We watched a guy shelling small prawns by hand and the rate of about one a second and a couple of other guys butchering a huge swordfish.

A short distance down via Giuseppe Garibaldi we found a travel agent that does tours of Mount Etna to book a trip for Sunday. The young girl in the office was so entertaining and her description of the tour was a real performance. Later, we asked about hop on hop off bus tours but she was scornful and said we didn’t need it. She produced a map of Catania and proceeded to circle things and give the most amazing description of what there was to see and how to reach things. Her talents are so wasted in an office. We left the office with tickets for an Etna tour and a heads full of knowledge about what next to explore.

The Greek-Roman Theatre is a typical semi-circular stone outdoor theatre first built around 500BC by the Greeks then built on to by the Romans in the 1^st and 2^nd Centuries. Over the years it has been partially built over or covered and subsequently uncovered. Today it is in a condition that allows it to be used for regular performances. The lower sections of the seating is in marble and the upper sections in lava rock (bringing a cushion to sit on would be a must). At its height it catered for an audience of 7000. We enjoyed exploring the labyrinths and storage areas behind the scenes and underneath the seating areas. It is incredible to think of the story behind this place, interwoven with some of the great events of history and bound up with the eruptions of Mount Etna over the centuries. It is also sad that so much of one of the great buildings of antiquity was so carelessly built over during the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries.

The Greco-Roman Theatre in Catania

We pushed on to the Castello Ursina, a 13^th Century castle and now a museum. When it was first built it was on a cliff overlooking the sea but it is now a kilometer inland after lava flows from Mount Etna and a series of earthquakes changed the landscape. Even the original moat was filled in with a lava flow in 1693. It is quite amazing where humans choose to live.

On the way home back up the long stretch of via Etnea, we stopped off at the huge sprawl of street markets that fill the streets and alleyways off the main street. If we had more luggage space it would be possible to buy a lot of very cheap clothing and shoes at these markets. Bathers are particularly prominent and one can see two piece sets for as low as 6€ a set. It is a teenager’s dream.

Mount Etna

Our trip to Mount Etna was wonderful, one of the highlights of the trip so far. A very funny and chatty guide picked us up from our apartment in a not so new Nissan 4 wheel drive and we squeezed in along with a young French couple and a young Italian couple. The guide, Andreas, talked non-stop on the drive up the mountain. He had to really because he had to say everything three times, in Italian, French and English. Like all Italians, he spoke with his hands and made plenty of eye contact the whole time. The trouble was he was driving! He was a real riot but I must admit he did seem to know where he was going and the poor exhibition of attentive driving never seemed to put us in danger so we just accepted it.

The drive took us to the South Base Camp at about 2000m above sea level. Along the way we stopped once to look out over the view of Catania below us. As we got back in the car, the rain started and by the time we got to the Base Camp it was pelting down. Fortunately, we had been advised to take jackets against cold winds and we had packed raincoats with hoods so we just set off anyway. It was cold when the wind was up but the rain eased as we climbed up to the first set of craters. The whole scene is like a lunar landscape, excepting the odd bits of low vegetation and a few cafes and small pubs that service the tourists. There are several accessible craters (not currently active) in the immediate area and an enormous lava flow that snakes down the mountain and stops at the road, right next to one of the pubs. The surrounding area is a mixture of black loose volcanic soil and ash, hard jagged lava flows and iron stained basalt that glows a beautiful shade of red. That marks the furthest extent of the flow of 2011. We climbed on foot up another 200m of altitude along a path carved out of the volcanic ash to look down into a larger crater. The climb was challenging and the descent, down a narrow path of very loose material even more so. Christine was very controlled and only screamed a few times.

As we got back into the car, a thick cloud descended on us, cutting visibility to only a few metres. Andreas drove very slowly, avoiding pedestrians as they materialized out of the heavy fog until eventually the mist cleared and we were able to reach the next destination. We stopped at the entrance to a small lava cave. It had been formed in the 1972 eruption but only discovered when road works after the 2011 eruption uncovered it. We donned hard hats and got torches to climb down beneath the roadway and into the tunnel. Much of the wall was smooth, apparently the result of lava cooling then re-melting in a later eruption and in some places there was a distinct yellow staining indicating the presence of sulphur. The roof of the cave was filled with stalactite type formations which were actually solidified drips of molten lava. We could only go a short distance before an eight metre drop halted us. There are over 200 known lava caves dotted around the mountain.

Exploring Mt Etna

After the cave we pushed on, stopping at a vantage point to look out over the Valle del Bove, a huge valley on the East slope which is an enormous caldera or collapsed volcano. A gigantic magma flow is the main feature, a lot of it created during the big eruption of 1793. At the carpark to the lookout, Andreas, knowing we were Australian, pointed out the National Park rules on a sign that depicted a kangaroo on a leash and stated that it was forbidden to bring exotic animals into the park. What made them pick on a kangaroo is anyone’s guess.

As we descended the mountain, we made a final stop at a village produce outlet to sample local Sicilian produce. We normally hate this part of any tour, mainly included to get a commission payment for the driver. This one was different and we spent a great half hour wandering around sampling different honeys, amazing olive oils with a variety of infusions, some interesting liqueurs, wines, pesto and other assorted tasty morsels. Often you can’t think about buying anything because you don’t want to lug a large container of stuff around as you travel but they made small quantities of the produce available at very reasonable prices. We bought some Pistachio Liqueur, a beautiful pesto sauce and some rosemary infused olive oil.

All in all we had a fantastic day, well worth the 55€ each for the day. I’ve always wondered why humans would choose to live on the slopes of an active volcano and suffer the death and destruction that occurs at intervals throughout history but I guess it is different when you are born and bred in the area. As Andreas put it, Catanese regard Etna as “The Mountain”, a lady of different moods. The extreme richness of the soil and agricultural areas shows how the volcano repays its debts.

Syracuse

We had one more day to use on excursions from Catania and it basically fell into a choice between Taormina and Syracuse. Both offered incredible history and beautiful old towns, Syracuse more so but Taormina offered the amazing coastal views. Andreas, our guide on the Entna tour, along with the Italian couple on the tour, voted for Syracuse. Andreas felt that Taormina was worth a half day at best and didn’t offer nearly as much as Syracuse. We had at least seen the gorgeous coastline and Bay of Taormina from the train on the trip from Messina so we took their advice and went to Syracuse. We came home exhausted but far from disappointed.

The local bus system in Catania let us down badly (as usual). We waited at a bus stop in via Etnea for 40 minutes without a sign of a bus. Other people came and sat, then just gave up and left. A guy at the botanical garden next door just said that the buses were very unreliable and shrugged his shoulders. In the end we walked a kilometre down via Etnea and got on the new Metro system to travel one stop and get out at Giovanni XXIII Station near the rail and bus station. Then we spent half an hour wandering around asking people about a bus to Syracuse. One ticket seller had a sign up saying “Urban Bus Tickets only. No advice given.” I shuddered as Christine went and asked him about Syracuse. She was lucky, given the sign, to just get a sharp reply of “No!” Finally, we found that the regional buses left from another bus station about 200m away, bought our ticket and just made a bus, leaving Catania just under two hours after leaving home.

The 55kms between Catania and Syracuse is largely filled with heavy industry on the coast and mixed agriculture further inland. The volcanic influence can still be seen in the soil and things grow very well. As we drove into Syracuse, I started to question whether we had made the right choice because we weren’t seeing much more than blocks of apartments, shopping centres and some large areas of vacant land filled with weeds. Even when we got out of the bus and walked the length of Corso Umberto towards the island of Ortigia, which houses the medieval part of the city, things failed to impress. Once over the bridge and onto the island, it changed for the better.

By this time it was midday so we decided to sit, relax, have a beer and share a pizza. A table of Aussies were next to us so we exchanged a few “Oi Oi Ois”. It was tempting to just settle in for the day and get back on the bus later but we had some serious exploring to do.

Syracuse was one of the most important of ancient Greek cities, certainly amongst those outside of Greece itself. The great mathematician and scientist Archimedes was one of its famous inhabitants, killed in Syracuse during the Roman invasion of 212BC. We checked out the ruins of a Temple to Apollo, Greek in origin and built in 570BC, marvelling at the sheer age of the structure and the skill of the stone masons. Over the years, the temple had been repurposed as Byzantine church, an Islamic Mosque, a Norman church and Spanish barracks. Another amazing example of this repurposing of Greek temples can be found in the beautiful cathedral Santa Maria delle Colonne. The magnificent baroque church is built around the Temple of Athena from Greek times and the Doric columns of the temple can still be seen embedded in the walls of the church.

Ortigia Island, Syracuse

We strolled along the beautiful Foro Italico, a seaside promenade and admired the beautiful freshwater spring and pond called the Fonte Arethusa, only one of two places in Europe where papyrus reeds grow wild. Some small shops around the area featured paintings on papyrus grass paper.

Unfortunately, the major attractions of Syracuse are spilt into two areas, the Ortigia Island area and the Archaeological Park area a couple of kilometres inland. Both need visiting but the distance apart is an issue. We solved the problem with a “Hop On Hop Off Bus”. We have avoided these things of late because they usually represent very poor value for money. Not so with this one, a mere 5€ buying a whole day of touring with English commentary. They are also frequent with a regular 30 minute interval, so we headed for Piazza Archimedes and hopped on.

On alighting at the Archaeological Park we looked around for the entrance. Eventually, on the far side of the car park there was a sign advertising tickets. We entered to find a young man seated behind a glass screen reading his phone and looking bored. No sign was evident to tell us the entrance cost. He barely looked up and said “10€ each”. We did a jaw drop and offered a 50€ note but he waved his hand and shook his head. It was 2pm so what the hell had he done with the other takings if he couldn’t change a 50? We reluctantly gave him a 20€ note, leaving us without change. He grunted and pushed two tickets under the screen and went back to his phone. “What? No map or information?” He shook his head. We left, muttering about a crap 20€ spent. Outside, we realized we had no idea of where to go next. No signs, no maps, nothing. We went back in and asked but he just shrugged and said, “No, nothing.” We had to leave the car park, cross a major road and head down a driveway to find the entrance, where we found we could have bought the same tickets anyway. Still no maps, and as we were to find later, no signage in English either. I think they have missed something here.

The attractions inside the Archaeological Park are wonderful. The main feature is a huge Greek Theatre, in good enough condition to be still used today, although wooden planks cover the stone decks of old to preserve our modern buttocks. The original theatre was built in 470BC and was one of the largest and most important in the Greek world. It catered for 15,000 spectators. Incredibly, the theatre was not built up from stone blocks but actually carved out of solid limestone. The seating therefore is one huge solid piece. Given the current controversy about Perth’s new stadium it is mind blowing that the Greeks could have achieved this 2,500 years ago.

Syracuse Archaeological Park – The Greek Theatre

Underneath the theatre is an area with ancient quarries and a couple of huge caverns. It has never really been established whether the caverns are natural or man made but the largest and most spectacular, the Ear of Dionysis, is most probably natural, caused by water seepage many millennia ago. It served as a prison in ancient times and had amazing acoustic properties, which along with the shape of the entrance leads to the name.

Syracuse Archaeological Park – Ear of Dyonisis, Roman Amphitheatre and the Rope Maker’s Cavern

Another theatre is a Roman amphitheatre, built in the 1^st Century. It is not as big as the one on Catania nor as well preserved as the one on Verona but it is certainly impressive. The Romans built the amphitheatre out of carved blocks, unlike the Greek one and it has shown a lot more erosion. Surprisingly, there appears to have been no effort made to control weed growth in and around the ruins. I would have thought some carefully controlled use of herbicides and gardening would have been in order.

Collectively, the ruins represent an amazing experience that enhances an appreciation of the life of the ancients. They managed to create so much with so little but the thing that always strikes me is the sheer sense of determination in their endeavours.

We managed to just catch a bus as we left the park and had a short walk back to the main bus station for a bus back to Catania. Most of that ride was spent asleep after all the walking. By the time we had caught a metro to a station about 1km further up via Etnea from our apartment and walked down the hill to home we had covered just on 10km for the day. Syracuse was done and dusted, definitely a must see when in Sicily.

Palermo 18-21 July

Not wanting to trust the buses again, we walked a kilometre to the Metro station and then on to the rail station for a train to Palermo. The train trip was fast and comfortable, with no fires across the tracks, and took about three hours. The countryside along the way was quite beautiful. In the early stages, we got changing views of Mount Etna as the route skirted around its base. There seemed to be more smoke issuing forth than there had been on previous days. Once into the interior of Sicily, the country became quite reminiscent of Australia, the brown fields of newly cut hay mixed with very common plantings of eucalyptus trees adding to the effect. With the numerous hills and valleys it bought to mind parts of NSW inland of the Blue Mountains.

Once in Palermo, we tossed up how to get to our apartment, more than a walk away from the station. We had directions for the bus and knew we needed a 101 bus to Poliamentia-Liberta bus stop. The 101 was easy to find, they were common. How to buy a ticket was more of a puzzle. We got on one bus and Christine went to buy a ticket from the driver. “No” and he pointed vaguely to a building. I got off with the bags but the doors shut and the bus started off, with Christine still on board. She had to shout at the driver to open the doors and let her off. Christine took off with some American girls to locate the ticket office. There wasn’t one but they did find the newsagent that sold them. Back with tickets, we tried to get on the next bus, behind the American girls but it filled up and we couldn’t manage with our big backpacks so we got off again. We got on the next bus and took off. As we went, we realised that there was no signage to indicate bus stops so all we could do was use Google Maps and wait until we got close enough to get off and walk. I don’t know how people managed to travel before Google Maps. Finally, we found the place, met Carmello, the host, and settled in to what was a large and comfortable apartment. We even have rooms we won’t bother to use.

After unpacking (getting a little sick of that operation) we walked a block to via Liberta, one of the main drags in Palermo and settled down at a gorgeous little restaurant for some fried mozzarella cheese, potato frittas and bruchetta, all washed down with a beer of course. Then it was off to the supermarket to stock up and home to bed. Life is definitely catching up of late and the bones and feet are protesting somewhat.

Palermo is very reminiscent of Spain, possibly because of its history. It has been described as the most conquered city in Europe and almost every foreign power has controlled it at some point in history. The Arab influence is present and has even returned to some extent with the influx of refugees from Libya and Tunisia in recent years. It had a golden age in the 12^th Century when under the control of Norman invaders.

Around Palermo

We found Palermo to be very busy, crowded and the traffic was terrible. The road system fails to support the number of cars. The bus system is chaotic and we found our experience of the first day was repeated on other routes. The crowds on the buses are terrible and people don’t seem to make way for others or consider their needs. We saw elderly people struggle to get through the crowd so they could get off. They are developing underground Metro systems and tramways but these have a way to go.

Near our apartment, the large arterial via Liberta ran for most of the length of the modern part of the city and provided a lovely tree lined avenue filled with high fashion shops and other places that hold little attraction for us. However, it was lovely to stroll along when the temperature allowed. There are several large piazzas spread around the city and some buildings of note, but much of the older town was destroyed in WWII and was not rebuilt.

The city is surrounded by towering peaks, one beautiful massive marking the western end of the Bay of Palermo. Beyond that is Mondello, famed for its long white sand beach. We took a crushing 30 minute bus ride to Mondello for a day at the beach. So did everyone else! The beach was the best we have encountered so far in Italy but it was VERY crowded. So much of the beach is given up to private hirers who charge 15-25€ per person for a spot amongst the sea of umbrellas and bathing huts. We strolled the length of the bay before returning and selecting an area of public beach where we could dump our stuff and access the water without treading on bodies. The water was clean, warm and not nearly as crowded as the sand. Not all that many people actually get wet.

Cefalu

On our last day in Sicily, we had a day to kill, having left our apartment but the boat to Naples not leaving until 8pm, so we decided to spend the day in Cefalu, a seaside town about an hour’s train journey to the east of Palermo. Our host was able to store our bags for the day so we headed off, once more on the local bus to the central train station. As before, the bus was impossibly crowded. At one point, I had two guys sandwiching me. I actually felt the zip on my shorts pocket slide down. I turned quickly and a guy in a black shirt eased away through the crowd to the door and alighted at the next stop. After being pick pocketed while in a bus line in Rimini, I keep my wallet on a lanyard anyway but this was yet another attempt. Later, while boarding another very crowded bus on the way back, I felt a movement on my backpack and when we got on board we found the zip undone. I suppose it can be seen as good practice for Naples!

The train journey was very beautiful, following the coastline along many headlands and lovely little bays and beaches. As we pulled into Cefalu, it looked an absolute picture, with a prominent high headland, a cluster of stone buildings hugging the low cliffs and a sweeping white sand beach filled with umbrellas. The train station is mercifully close to the town itself and we spent a fascinating hour exploring the narrow streets and walkways, stopping to admire some of the more notable buildings. The cathedral or duomo dominates, as they do in most European cities. The town had a healthy population of tourists but not so many as to make moving around difficult.

We stopped at a shady restaurant overlooking the beach for lunch and ordered a Sicilian platter to share and got a wonderful mix of meats, smoked salmon, a couple of fresh oysters and salad, with a basket of ultra fresh bread to help it down. It was the perfect mix; especially with a four hop beer (we don’t usually count the hops).

Fed and watered, we hit the beach, hiring an umbrella with a couple of lounges to spend a few lazy hours, swimming, dozing and reading. It was nowhere near as crowded as Mondello Beach and the water was much better, crystal clear and a perfect temperature.

Beautiful Cefalu

By the time we had caught a train, followed by a bus, back to the apartments to collect our gear we were fairly done in but we managed to re-organise our beach stuff and load up the big packs for the kilometre walk down to the ferry for embarkation to Naples. We boarded about 7pm, found our neat little cabin and had a much needed shower before finding a bite to eat. It was all we could do to stay out on deck to watch the ship leave harbour at 8:15 before retiring to our cabin. Naples awaits, but not before we have had a damn good sleep.

GALLERIES:

Southern Italy 2017

July 14, 2017 / terry

Bari, Italy, 8-10 July

The 8 hour crossing of the Adriatic Sea from Bar in Montenegro was comfortable and suitably boring. The seas were dead flat and the boat (Dubrovnik) was only at around 15% capacity so we were pretty much free to wander anywhere. We had booked recliner seats for a few euros more and they proved good to catch up on some sleep, although I suspect we could have used them without paying because there were so few passengers and no one ever checked our tickets. Once out of sight of Montenegro there was little to see other than the occasional fishing boat or yacht and we pulled into Bari on time at 7:20pm. There was a brief moment of panic at immigration after Christine had gone though when the man played around with my passport for a while then referred me on to someone else. I worried that they were going to do a count of the number of days we had been in the EU (we are only permitted 90 days). An accounting would show we were OK but it would come right down to the wire. In the end, I think the first guy just couldn’t find the right stamp and I was sent through without an issue.

A taxi took us to the City Hotel, a small boutique type of thing that was clean and pretty. The bathroom was designed for a fashion model with a toilet you had to sit sideways on and a shower recess that was like one of those magician’s boxes that they fold up and make you disappear in. The only large object was the hand basin which took up more room than everything else.

We had few expectations of Bari, assuming it was a dirty noisy port city. However, we were proved wrong. Our hotel lay just outside the high fashion shopping area, filled with Gucci, Prada and the like, while lovely open pedestrian malls led down to the old section along the waterfront. The huge castle (Il Fortino Di Sant’Antonio), dating from the 11^th Century, dominated one end and a maze of tangled tiny streets worked their way through to the Piazza Mercanti at the other. Once again, we had only a Sunday to explore the town and it was shut up so tight it was difficult to buy even a bottle of water. The old town area was busy though and around 50% of the shops and eateries operating. As the day wore on, a lot of the fashion shops also opened but the small markets and supermarkets remained closed.

We spent a couple of hours exploring the tiny streets of the old town. One fascinating street was lined with women sitting at tables making a local kind of pasta, using semolina, hand mixing the dough and hand forming each small shell. It then sat for a while in little racks to dry a bit before being packed into plastic bags. Later, for dinner, we sampled some of this local food, in a rich tomato based sauce and served with a little roll of richly spiced beef (like a beef wellington). It was really good, my biggest regret was that the beef thing wasn’t twice the size because it was so delicious. We also had a white wine to accompany the meal and a red at a café later. Both were local Puglia wines and of excellent quality, much appreciated after the very coarse and harsh wines of Croatia and Montenegro.

Bari is not a place that I would mark down as a must see but it is also not a place to be avoided if circumstances bring you this way. With its ferry connections to different parts of the Adriatic, it has its uses.

Villapiana Lido 10-12 July

A bus took us from Bari south west through Puglia down towards the “heel” of Italy and then across the “instep” to Calabria. There was no train route suitable, the line from Taranto along the coast having ceased passenger services. We decided to break our trip and stay a couple of days on the holiday coast at Villapiana Lido to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of an Italian beach resort area. No such luck. What we got was a run down semi-deserted coastal backwater that had once been one of the “in places” but now was a forest of for sale signs and boarded up shops. The beach areas were filled with umbrellas and sun lounges with a lot of cafes and restaurants but a great many were closed down or shut. This is July and one would suppose it is high season. August is the really big month but I would have expected more. There was no sign of life at the many fun fairs and amusement parks set up along the beach area. I am glad we don’t have investments here.

Our accommodation was a neat B&B run by really nice people, very keen to please but having even less English than we had Italian. The room was OK and met our needs, there was a lovely shared area downstairs and a kitchen for guest use upstairs. The main problem was communication but after Christine showed them Google translate and the voice function we actually managed a fun and informative conversation with the owners. As always, they got a lot more friendly with us when they realized that we were Australian and not British or American. The breakfast is unusual by any standards. Cereal is supplied, but no milk or yoghurt is in evidence, or even cereal bowls. Ham slices in a very dry bun seems to be the main fare, although there is usually a variety of sweet cakes. The couple comes in to shout at us and ask if we need anything, which is sweet but they can’t understand our reply anyway. The strange thing is that none of the other younger guests can understand English either, whereas we have usually found that the younger generation speak some English. This is the first town we have stayed in where we have not found anyone to speak English. Maybe this is a difference between northern and southern Italy?

Next door is a great little bar that serves cold tap beer and pizza but by this time we were looking for more than pizza, something a little different even. For the second town running we walked the streets desperately trying to find somewhere to eat that served something other than pizza, failing in the end and having pizza back at the pub next door. The guy who ran the bar was very helpful and our combined five words of English and five of Italian got us through. Based on the number of people we saw on the beaches there are quite a few tourists staying in Villapiana but I’m not sure what they find to eat or where they find it, unless they are happy to eat nothing but pizza. The second night we headed down to the beach area, where it appeared that there were more restaurants available. There were certainly more people around and a lot more pizza and panini restaurants but little with a diverse menu. Finally, we found one that offered some fish and pasta selections and was decked out as an actual restaurant. It was 7:15pm but the place was empty. Eventually, we asked some girls who were setting tables. They looked at us as though we were aliens and said there wouldn’t be anything until at least 8pm. We had a delicious hamburger from a roadside bus.

Buying a train ticket out of town proved just as difficult. We found the train station but it was overgrown with weeds. There was a timetable posted, supposedly current based on the dates displayed but it only showed the times for the route back towards Taranto. The other half had been torn down. While we were looking, a loud speaker came to life and blared something about the train so we figured there was something happening. Our walk had taken us past a Tourist Information building so we went back to it and entered. A woman barked at us and I understood enough to know that she could not give tourist assistance and there was no tourist assistance. We typed in a question about trains in Google Translate and she mimed smoking a cigarette and pointed down the road so we figured we had to go and find a tabacchi. Sure enough, the tabacchi down the road sold tickets and with our limited Italian and the guys limited English we secured two tickets on a bus which later transferred to a train at Sibari, the next town down the line. I think that might have been what the blaring loudspeaker message was telling us.

Once again, the beach failed the appeal test. The only shade available within any reach of the water are the very expensive sea of rental umbrellas and lounges that so predominate on European beaches. At least the beach had some sand, dull grey/brown rather than white, but better than the usual expanse of rocks and pebbles. We walked down to the water twice, trying to build up enthusiasm for a dip, but the place simply failed to attract. There is nothing like a trip abroad to bring home just how good Australian, a WA beaches in particular, are. Places like Cottesloe and Scarborough (especially after it gets cleaned up) would have to be amongst the very best in the World.

Unfortunately, we got into a bit of a fight with the owners over our bill. We had booked a larger deluxe room through Booking.com on a special for the same price as a standard room. However, they only gave us a standard room. With difficulty, due to language problems, we got across the issue and agreed to keep the standard room with a 30€ refund. The owners seemed happy but when the son arrived he tried to argue the case. He simply didn’t have a case and eventually agreed, paying up but clearly unhappy. The whole thing seemed to result in a family fight with the owner couple being on our side. We had the power because we get to write a review on Booking.com but the thing left a bit of a sour taste. There is a bit of a problem with amateur hoteliers with little experience of the industry trying to set up shop using online services without really understanding the implications of offering specials and deals.

It doesn’t require much in the way of hindsight to know that Villapiana Lido was a poor choice as a stop over. The awful thing is that it appeared to be a big improvement on the other towns along this part of the Calabrian coast that we saw from the bus. Oh well, you win some and lose some.

Reggio Calabria 12-14 July

We said our farewells to the family at the B&B in Villapiana and set off with packs loaded to catch a bus to Sibari. The weather was promising a real scorcher, with temperatures over 35 degrees and high humidity. The bus was fifteen minutes late but it could have been a lot worse and there was about an hour to kill at Sibari anyway. The trip along the coast showed us that we could have been staying in far worse places than Villapiana Lido and even Sibari did not look much better.

Our 9 hour trip from Villapiana Lido to Reggio Calabria

The train was waiting for us in the station. No sleek electric train here, although the lines were overhead. The train consisted of an ancient single carriage diesel engine railcar. We checked that it was the right one (it was the only one) a climbed aboard into a furnace. A couple of Trenitalia workers came on board and they couldn’t believe the heat, advising us to move to the front half of the carriage where it was hot rather than searing. A few other passengers boarded and we set off. It has been a long time since I have heard a diesel railcar work its way through the gears rather than the sweet hum of an all electric train and I found that was in no way nostalgic.

Outside, the scenery was of dry grass and hills dotted with olive groves and vineyards. Everything baked in the heat and a pall of brown smoke from scrub fires hung over everything. There seemed to be fires burning along ridges and along road verges, mostly unchecked and certainly there was no sign of any fire fighting equipment. The train stopped at a dilapidated siding called Spezzano where it sat for a while before there were shouted words about getting off the train. A fire was burning on the tracks ahead of us and it appeared there was little to do except watch it burn itself out. A handful of orange jacketed workers were in attendance but they lacked anything to fight the fire with so they watched it burn. With the engine still running and the pretend air conditioner making it at least cooler than the outside, we headed back aboard to nap and await events. It seemed unlikely we would make our next connection at Castiligone Cosentino anyway.

I had fallen asleep when jolted awake and told we were getting on a bus. The bus was modern and comfortable, except for the lack of air conditioning and we drove some 60kms or so past many small fires and little towns in various states of decay before finally being deposited in a place called Cosenza. Here the station was filled with people, all brought together by the need to catch a train, any train. A group of Americans were in the same predicament as us except they were headed back the way we had come, trying to get to Sibari. No one seemed to actually know what was happening. One train came and went but we were told “No!” when we said we were trying to make Reggio Calabria and eventually another arrived and there was at least partial agreement that we should take it. Off we went on a fast train, the stations flashing by. I fell asleep again. When I awoke, I checked Google Maps. Damn! We were screamed north towards Napoli. After consulting the conductor, Christine learnt enough to get us off the train at Scalea where we could start riding south again. We had an hour to wait for the next train and the heat was worse. By this time, we had had access to one shared bottle of water and no access to a toilet. The station had a small café so water was replenished, along with a cold beer and a toilet located, although I had to interrupt the clothes washing routine of the local itinerant population to wash my hands.

Finally, we got on to a train headed south and sat down. Still not 100% certain we were right I asked a young couple sitting opposite if we were headed to Reggio Calabria. I had thought they were Italian but to my surprise they both answered with London accents and told us that we were but we needed one more change further down the track. They were going the same way so we could tag along with them. Our saviors! It turned out that both Frederico and Andrea were Italian but had been studying in London and hence the accents. They certainly had excellent English and were the first English speakers we had encountered for quite a few days. We were so grateful to meet such a delightful and helpful young couple, especially in our hour of need.

When we finally arrived at Reggio Calabria, we had been travelling about 9 hours to cover around 250kms, a nightmare of a day. Fortunately, our accommodation was a mere 100m down the road from the station entrance, a lovely little apartment called Central House B&B. The host met us and showed us around, we found some delicious takeaway eats around the corner, watched an episode of “House of Cards” and collapsed into bed exhausted.

We spent a day in Reggio Calabria but there is very little to see or do. The town is plain by any standards and certainly by Italian standards, with no fine piazzas or grand vistas. We walked many of the streets but found little to be impressed with, other than a large fort and a couple of churches. Its only claims can be a pretty view of Sicily across the Straits of Messina and a beach side promenade known as Lungomare Falcomata, which extends north to the beach area. We tried to access the start of the promenade at the railway end, finding a pedestrian tunnel running under the rail lines to the water. On reaching the entrance, we halted, the stench of urine and faeces being overpowering. Rubbish was piled along the sides of the tunnel and used condoms lay everywhere. It being the only way through we could see, we crossed through, feeling very uncomfortable and started walking along the broad expanse of the promenade. It was very unkempt and a pack of stray dogs lay in the shade ahead of us. Further on, a couple seemed to be having a heavy domestic argument. We went back the way we had come. Instead, we caught a train up to Reggio Calabrio Lido, the beach area, using another ancient diesel railcar like the previous day to travel the couple of kilometres. The beach area was beautiful and actually looked inviting, although the beachside resorts themselves looked rather run-down. We walked on to check out tickets for the ferry to Sicily, finding that easy and cheap at a mere 3€ each. Because we had an hour and a half to kill to catch a train back the short distance, we hunted down a restaurant, finding a great little place called Benny’s which served really good bruschetta and paninis (with a cold beer of course).

Unfortunately, the rubbish problem in Reggio Calabria is severe and it would be the dirtiest city we have encountered so far in Europe. Litter is everywhere and we saw people just openly discarding empty cigarette packets and lunch wrappers. Plastic bottles piled up in the gutters and rubbish bins overflowed. It was such a contrast to Bari, a similar sized port city, where everything was neat and tidy. Traffic flow is also bad, with drivers showing little regard for pedestrian crossings which we have found are usually respected. We went for a walk around the neighborhood looking for a supermarket and found ourselves turning around and changing direction several times because the street ahead had that “unsafe” look about it, once again the first time we have had that kind of experience on this trip.

Reggio Calabria is not a place that warrants visiting for any real reason other than as a jumping off point to Sicily. We are looking forward to some more interesting times when we cross to Sicily. Calabria has failed to excite.

GALLERIES:

Bari

Villapiana Lido

Reggio Calabria

Verona, Italy, May 2017

May 18, 2017 / terry

12 May 2017 – Prague to Verona

We flew from Prague to Verona, in Italy, on Czech Airlines. It is a short flight of around an hour and a half on a small turbo prop aircraft, comfortable enough and cheap enough to make the much longer trip on either a bus or train out of the question. The highlight of the trip was the flight over the Alps, when the cloud cleared for a section and we got a clear view of the magnificent scenery below. With the plane flying at a relatively low 20,000ft, we were effectively only 10,00ft above the mountains and ski fields and small towns were easily seen.

From Verona Airport we caught an airport shuttle for only 6€ that dropped us off at the Porta Nuovo Train Station, which was in itself only a 300m walk to the Piccolo Hotel. We stayed here on our last visit in 2012 and it proved comfortable enough at a budget price. We were far too early for check in, however, and left our baggage before heading into the city centre.

As we followed the roads, everything was familiar because we had given the city a pretty good going over on the last visit. In hindsight, we could have just got on a train and headed north to Bolzano because we didn’t have much left to see in Verona but the chance to re-visit the beautiful Piazza Bra and the magnificent ancient Roman Arena was too tempting. Part of of our mission was to top up our Italian Vodaphone cards. We had figured that it could be easily done at either the airport or the train station but surprisingly, there was no sign of any such facility. The station had a Wind outlet but nothing else.

Finding a Vodaphone outlet proved to be a major challenge which resulted in us walking a total of 7.5kms in a day. Unlike Australia, where mobile phone outlets are everywhere, in Italy they are hidden places that must be hunted down. Of course one can always Google it, unless of course you are trying to recharge. You can always log onto a free public network but then Google says it is not secure enough and won’t respond.

Along the way, we enjoyed the visual splendour of the lovely Piazza Bra, a huge open square that is dominated by the enormous Roman amphitheatre that is still in use today. To the right of the arena is a large public building built in neo-classical style and on this occasion it was the site of a massed schools choir event. Hundreds of students in school uniform sang their little hearts to the delight of a large amassed crowd.

With prices hitting ridiculous levels around the Piazza Bra we took to the back streets to find an affordable lunch. After rejecting many menus as too expensive or too fancy, we finally found a cute little lunch bar with a good range of paninis on sale and some cold beer on offer. The proprietor was a very jolly chap who welcomed us in and described the ingredients of each available pannini in great detail. It was fairly obvious that his English did not extend much further than the ingredient names but he was keen to try and when he found out we were Australian we became very much flavour of the month. He managed to convey in a mix of English and Italian (which we can sort of follow) that he had a sister in Australia and some friends who had given him a memento. From his wallet he produced his most prized possession, a gold kangaroo pin. We had a great time with the added bonus of tasty food and cold beer.

After much walking we finally located the Vodaphone outlet and stood in a queue for another half hour before we managed to get some more data and call credits. It should not be that hard.

We settled in for a relaxing afternoon at the Hotel Piccolo and to watch the rain settle in. We had already made the commitment to stay in for dinner, with the hotel offering a decent pizza restaurant. A pre-dinner beer at the bar seemed a good idea but we waited around in vain for someone to appear. A number of vending machines containing snacks graced the lobby and it seems the hotel has moved to a “serve yourself” mode of operation. There was a fridge containing beer so we helped ourselves and Christine went behind the bar to source a couple of glasses. More people arrived and we indicated the best way to go. By this time we had discovered that the hotel did not open its restaurant but the menu on offer referred to one at an affiliated hotel and a shuttle bus would run. This was hardly an ideal thing but we took the option anyway and got bussed off to a pleasant place with good food at reasonable prices. However, it was staff by one cook and two wait staff who literally ran through the area in order to keep up service. What is wrong with paying staff for goodness sake?

13 May Verona to Bolzano

The next morning we slept in late, had breakfast, which mercifully was not out of a vending machine, and hoisted our packs on our backs to march back to the rail station. The train to Balzano follows a beautiful mountain pass featuring picturesque small villages and numerous castles on the rocky cliffs. The only significant city along the journey was Trento, where the train seemed to fill with young University age students. We must be getting a certain amount of travel burnout because the scenery would normally have been a highlight of the trip but by now the sight of towering mountains, crumbling forts and castles and the occasional Roman ruin is just par for the course. What a sad state of affairs.

The train arrived on time in Bolzano or Bozen as it is also called. This part of Italy is the South Tyrol region and is mainly German speaking, having been ceded to Italy from Austria after World War I and everything and everywhere has two names. Rob and Yvette were there again to greet us and we threw the luggage into the Peugeot with French number plates and off we all went, headed for life in the mountains in Nova Levante (or Welschoffen as the majority German speaking population prefer).

Milan, Munich and Passau, Germany 2017

May 8, 2017 / terry

Milan 23 – 25 April 2017

We left Trisobbio today, with more than a few regrets. Life here has been wonderful and we will miss our gorgeous little village on the hill with its castle and church but it is time to move on and give the Piscicellis back their apartment. Rob and Yvette drove us to Ovada to catch the train to Genoa and we took a local train on the 1 hour 50 minute trip to Milan. Along the way, I watched the seeding operations in the wheat fields. Compared to back home in Dowerin, the process was simple, with small tractors pulling tiny seeding units across fields not much bigger than a football field. However, the land looked very productive and there were lots of them so there must be a decent yield.

The train delivered us to Milano Centrale, one of Europe’s biggest rail stations with more than 20 platforms. It took quite a bit of walking to get out of the place but we found the taxi rank with little difficulty. This was the first taxi we have used on this trip in Italy. We normally get away without them but our hotel location made it difficult to use public transport with heavy backpacks.

The taxi driver bundled us in, took the address then started driving out of the rail station into the traffic. I noticed that he was playing “Candy Crush” on his smartphone while driving so I growled something about “playing games” and he threw the phone onto the passenger seat alongside him. However, it was soon back in his hand but hidden from my view, forcing him to change gears with the wrong hand and no hands on the wheel. Christine typed out a clear instruction to cease on Google Translate and showed it to him. “No,” he said, “I need GPS.” Then he showed us the phone on Google Maps. After that, he did use two hands to drive but drove a lot faster just to show us he was still the boss of the taxi. We gave him the exact change.

Milan is one of Italy’s great cities and has numerous buildings that make you stop and stare in amazement. Overall, it lacks the grand scale open piazzas and sweeping vistas that so impressed us in Turin but the buildings are grander and more impressive. It houses many great art treasures, including da Vinci’s “Last Supper”. Getting a viewing is a long process so we skipped that, along with Michelangelo’s last unfinished sculpture but we go the idea and settled with copies.

The Duomo Cathedral is at the heart of Milan, on the site of the ancient Roman Forum. Roads radiate from here and ring roads circle it, following the lines of the various old town walls, expanded outwards as the city grew. The Duomo was the site of a church as long ago as 355AD and parts of that still remain beneath the current cathedral. Its modern form was commenced in 1386 and built in stages over the years until its final completion was commenced under Napoleon’s rule in 1805 so that Napoleon could be crowned King of Italy within the walls of the church. Work goes on well into modern times and incomplete bits are always in evidence. The effect of the many rising spires and countless sculptures clinging to the walls and battlements is simply stunning. The white stone of the facade gleams in the sunlight. No wonder the square in front is always packed with people.

Milan. The Duomo is at the bottom and Sforza Castle at top left.

The piazza of the Duomo is also home to a pigeon population to rival Venice. People purchase small packs of grain so they can be photographed covered in pigeons. However, covered in pigeons means covered in crap so it was not for me. Neither was sitting eating my lunch, as hundreds of people were doing while pigeons flew around overhead. We counted ourselves lucky to get away unscathed.

The dominant building in Milan is the Sforza Castle, the main structure of which dates from the 15^th Century. It was severely modified under Napoleon’s rule, who seemed to delight in tearing down the work of previous rulers, but restored towards the end of the 19^th Century and again after damage from bombing in WWII. Today it’s huge courtyards are open to the public and forms the focus of long walkways from the Duomo through to rambling open parklands. Many of the important museums and galleries are housed within the walls of the castle. Unlike most of the other castles we have visited so far, the Sforza Castle is built on flat land, a blessing seeing as our legs are feeling rather sore from all the walking. Indeed, all of Milan is built on flat land and used to have a huge system of canals, partly designed by Leonardo da Vinci, but only a couple remain today.

We were puzzled by the sight of very long lines of people queuing to gain entry to a small bakery in an alley near the Duomo. People also covered most of the nearby steps and walls as they sat and ate what looked like slices of a rather doughy pizza-like substance. The long lines put us off testing the food but it had to be something good, although how one store can sell pizza so much better than anyone else’s in the land of pizzas is hard to understand. A bit of research showed that this was the famous Luini Bakery, established in 1949 when Giuseppina Luini came from Puglia and began baking a type of panzerotta popular in Puglia. It is a pocket stuffed pastry filled with mozzarella cheese and tomato. No wonder it was so popular. We had sampled one at a small stall near Sforza Castle earlier without knowing what it was. Not a pizza at all but very yummy.

Milan has a lot of public transport, with an extensive Metro Underground, trams and trolley busses. Our hotel was around 5km from central Milan so we used the Metro to cross the city and trams to move within the central area. An all day pass costs 4.50€ so it was excellent value. Our hotel was on the Yellow M3 line, the latest Metro line that featured driverless trains. Sitting at the very front afforded a great view of the tunnel and approaching passing trains. Even weirder was a seat at the very rear to watch the tracks melt away into the darkness. However, in a country with youth unemployment running at in excess of 25% I think that driverless trains is something they can do without.

Our trip into the city centre on 25^th April was really relaxed and easy because it is a public holiday, not for ANZAC Day of course, but for Independence Day, representing the day that the Milan and Piedmont rebels overthrew Mussolini and the Nazis. The streets were quiet, despite the fact that most shops were open and at least half the restaurants were also closed.

Nearby our hotel was a large modern shopping mall, similar in layout to most the world over. It was really handy because it had a large supermarket that supplied all our needs. The top floor had a food hall of sorts with a range of different offerings, including a Spanish themed place that offered such a great range of tapas that we were wishing we had time to work our way through the entire menu.

The weather in Milan has been excellent, with maximums in the high teens, great for walking. From here we head over the Alps through Switzerland to Munich, where we can expect snow and temperatures only a little above zero. The bus will be warm but we have to get out at stops so it is drag out the beanie and scarf time.

Is Milan recommended? Absolutely!

Bus Trip Milan to Munich – 26 April 2017

We caught a Flixbus to Munich. The original plan was to use the Metro to cross town to Lampugnano Bus Station but fate intervened with a terrible back pain, not Christine this time, but me. I have no idea what did it but it was the same old issue, with the legs barely working and the muscles threatening to go into spasm. We know now that pain control is the only real solution and that it is a 48 hour issue if treated properly. So we caught another taxi.

The taxi driver was named Franco and was a riot, quite unlike the guy we had on arrival. He told us he knew all the ways to get around the traffic jams that the rain had created and gave a running commentary as he used back streets, changed direction and shot down bus lanes. The whole trip was very entertaining. Incredibly, it was like he jumped ahead of us to meet us in Munich, because the next guy was just the same, except for the German accent. He described in detail the upcoming important soccer match between Munich and someone that was bringing the city to a halt and ruining his night’s takings. This guy knew all about Australia because he had seen Crocodile Dundee. Both were friendly, spoke good English and were very entertaining.

The bus trip proved to be a highlight of the trip so far. We had been across the same route heading south from Frankfurt but it was at night. This time we crossed the Alps in daylight. What a drive. The early part of the drive took us through Como with its beautiful lakeside scenery. Once into Switzerland and climbing, the snow commenced and it was covering the pine trees, creating a forest of perfect Christmas trees. The snow fall was heavy enough to make everything white and fresh but didn’t create dangerous conditions on the roads. Below the snow line was a glorious carpet of green fields, quaint villages and fast flowing rivers. Scores of long waterfalls plummeted down from the towering cliffs. Higher up there were huge mountains, fairy tale snow covered hamlets and deep valleys traversed by high bridges. It was amazing and even the two Austrian women in front of us were busy with their cameras.

Crossing the Alps with Flixbus

I confess to being a little nervous about an alpine crossing in snowy conditions but the driver was very careful and at no time did I feel insecure. We reached Munich in the early evening, just in time for the peak hour rush and crawled our way into the bus station.

Munich 26-27 April 2017

Our accommodation in Munich proved a real winner. Rather than a hotel or AirBnB, we opted for a “Pension” or boarding house. This one (Mona Lisa Pension) had seven rooms in total, each with en-suite, and was attached to an Indian Restaurant called the Sitar. It was perfect, with our own secure entrance to the building, a lift facility rather than endless flights of stairs, great central heating and a wonderful location in the heart of the old part of Munich. The only thing lacking was any form of self catering, but we found a fantastic bakery with take-away coffee and piles of delicious offerings just around the corner. We also sampled the Indian fare and found it well priced and tasty.

My back improved steadily and we were able to explore the inner parts of Munich without doing our usual long haul of around 10kms a day. The Metro system helped us move a bit further afield to check out some of the history of this famous Bavarian city. One beautiful area was around the Isartor, one of the surviving medieval gates to the old walled city. Behind the restored walls is a market area that would have been an absolute feast of food if the weather had been better. The cold and steady rain put a lot of people off and the streets were quiet and more than half the stalls closed. There was little incentive to sample the beers stalls either because the thought of drinking beer outside in 5 degrees was too much. Later, at the central station, a wurztel stall did tempt us with a delicious plate of Curry Wurztel, which we would normally wash down with an ale but even the warmth inside the station didn’t tempt us. Wurztel stalls sell various types of sausage, along with a variety of sauces and a healthy serve of good German beer, usually from a small kiosk in a town square. A few standing height tables provide a space to consume the goodies and watch the passing parade while indulging in the ultimate gluttony.

Munich on a fine spring day would be wonderful. It is a shame that we have been here in such cold weather but then we have been lucky so far with an unseasonably warm spell. Furthermore, the local farmers were starting to fret, as they were in northern Italy, because even in Europe they can experience water shortages later in the summer.

Around Munich. Note the snow on the cars and the scene from the train.

We woke on our second and last morning in Munich to light snow. The cars lining the street where covered and the nearby trees had a charming white dusting. It took ages to get fully dressed to head out and around the corner to buy a coffee and a couple of rolls for breakfast but the scene along the street was delightful. As the morning wore on, the snow turned to sleet then rain. Fortunately, we did not have far to walk to enter a Metro station and get to the Central Railway Station for our train to Passau. My back had improved to the point where the backpack was not too bad and we got to the train without issue.

The train trip was only a couple of hours. The scenery just outside Munich was gorgeous with a heavier fall of snow covering the whole countryside. I am not sure how the farmers cope with snow so late in the season because there was a lot of wheat already growing and most of the canola was flowering. Hopefully, the effect of a light snow cover is not the same as a frost back in Australia. As the trip wore on, my back decided it had had enough sitting for one day and started to really hurt so I was very glad to get out at Passau, even though it meant loading the pack again and trudging through steady rain in very cold conditions.

Passau 28-29 April 2017

The rain destroyed our plans to walk to our accommodation, a trip of only about 1km, and we took a taxi. The driver dropped us at the entrance to Passau University and indicated that our address was somewhere within. After a bit of searching and help from students, we located our lodgings, a room in an apartment through AirBnB. This part of the University was once a monastery and we were lodging with the director of the student accommodation. We had a small room on the fourth floor (no lift) and the use of bathroom and kitchen. It was not ideal but it was cheap and central, two things that all other accommodation wasn’t. The worst thing was the smell. We couldn’t really identify it but it was definitely a stale food type smell, maybe the result of cooking in a closed environment over the cold season. It wasn’t the smell from “Jerry” the cat that seemed to revel in scratching all guests’ baggage and legs but I could have happily turned Jerry into stale food given the choice. He seemed to be the true owner of the property and was one of those repulsive cats.

Despite the rain, we spent a couple of hours wandering the charming streets of Passau. The city is located on the junction of the Danube, Ilz and Inn Rivers. It has a population of around 50,000, of which students comprise a significant proportion at 12,000. Passau has a rich history dating back into medieval times and was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian Empire. The streets are lined with beautiful buildings and shops full of charm and character. A couple of modern shopping malls take up the centre of the city but don’t detract. In the cold and wet weather, they provided us with a safe haven to dry off and seek some food for lunch.

Our second day in Passau was beautiful. For a start, the other occupiers of our accommodation were away in Prague for the day. Almost as good was the weather, with a cessation to the endless rain and a rise in temperature from a very chilly 5 to a bearable 12 degrees. We still set forth in long-uns and full length thermal underwear but at least the coats came off at times during the day. The worst part was entering a shopping centre, where they insisted on maintaining a steady 25 degrees. We were doing the full strip tease when only metres inside the doors.

Our final day in Passau was largely one of waiting for the cruise boat. In the morning, we found it at Dock 13 as expected and probably the most convenient location for our lodgings. Walking across town with our backpacks would not be difficult. However, we were not able to leave our luggage until 2pm and were unable to board until 4pm. Fortunately, Andreas our accommodation host allowed us to leave our luggage with him while we did other things.

Around Passau

The city was hosting a huge festival which was organised around a massive street parade featuring groups from the surrounding areas in traditional dress. We bagged ourselves a great vantage point and watched for an hour as group after group of marching bands, village groups and other organisations filed past, interspersed with magnificent horse team pulling carts loaded with people. Most of the men seemed to be drinking copious amounts of beer. There was much clapping and cheering and the whole spectacle was both entertaining and quite moving.

Any way you look at it, Passau is a very beautiful city, small enough to walk around the central old part and soak up the ambience and yet big enough to have a lot of features. Once the rain cleared and we were able to have a decent look at the city, its true beauty became apparent. Rows of quaint 18^th Century houses interspersed with 16^th and even 15^th Century remnants of fortifications and larger buildings create a wonderfully “toy town” atmosphere. It really is a delightful place to walk around. It is easy to get lost for a short while, given the random pattern of the streets and alleyways, but then it doesn’t take long to get ones bearings because a few minutes walking will bring you into contact with either the Danube or the Inn Rivers and a chance to re-establish a location.

With the weather taking a very optimistic turn for the better, we look forward to our time on the forthcoming Danube River cruise. Ours is the first cycling cruise of the year and so we knew we were taking a risk with the weather but it looks as though we may have made a good decision. Time will tell.

Piedmont and Liguria, Italy 1-24 April 2017

April 24, 2017 / terry

During our time staying at Trisobbio, we took a few trips away to explore nearby centres in Piedmont and neighbouring Liguria. We were very lucky to have Rob and Yvette to drive us around and to share the wonderful experiences.

Genoa (11^th April 2017)

We took the train from Ovada down to Genoa for the day. The trip only takes around 45 minutes on a comfortable local train, all of which seem to leave exactly on time, quite unlike our previous experiences with Italian trains. Genoa has a population of around a million people across the wider metropolitan area. It is one of the main economic centres in Italy and a very busy port. Its maritime origins go back to medieval times when it was a major trading nation and held considerable naval power over large areas of the Mediterranean.

We explored the maritime history of Genoa with a visit to the Museum de Mare down at the old port. We toured five floors of exhibits, the best of which was a full sized reproduction of a Genovese Galley from the 16^th Century that we could walk around in. The size was impressive but the conditions for the mainly slave crew of rowers must have been horrific. Another excellent exhibit was one featuring Genoa’s role as a point of embarkation for departing immigrants during the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries. The exhibit was presented as the insides of a steamer, with all the walls being made of steel (complete with lots of rivets), sounds of the ship at work and the steady hum of the steam driven engines producing a very life-like feel. We wandered around in the cramped dormitories, stood on the bridge and watched as the crowds lined up at the immigration authorities in their new lands. Well worth the visit.

Around Genoa

The best part of Genoa is just walking the streets. This is so often the case in European cities, where there is ample opportunity to simply soak up the atmosphere. We wandered the length of the beautiful Via XX Settembre, stopping mid-way at the fresh produce markets to soak up the incredible display of fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese and pasta. Meat was also on sale but displays of meat in Italy have failed to impress, with very few good cuts on display. We had an excellent lunch at a sidewalk cafe on the Via Garibaldi, choosing from an appetising selection of sandwiches with a choice of three Italian breads and sides washed down with a lovely beer. The owner proved to be French rather than Italian and very chatty and jovial. The port area also had many attractions and we enjoyed simply wandering the docks and admiring the boats, as we always do. There were cruising yachts from all parts of the World making me yearn to have the courage to cross oceans and explore the seas. Christine just said an emphatic “No!”

Turin (14-17 April 2017)

The four of us spent the Easter weekend in Turin, Italy’s 6^th largest city and situated around 150kms to the north-west of Trisobbio. Italy’s excellent system of high speed autostradas made the trip quick but did feature some delightful piazzas and walking streets, But then, it seems everywhere in Italy is full of great townscapes. Turin, however, exceeds all others that we have seen so far and rivals many of the great cities of Europe. A direct comparison with Paris is obviously impossible but Turin is a true showcase of Italian and French architecture. The city was captured by Napoleon in 1800 and held for the next 14 years, during which time he redesigned the layout, knocking down the old city walls and replacing them with a series of wide avenues lined with elegant colonnaded buildings and graceful bridges, flanked by majestic statues.

Turin Sights

We had a magnificent apartment through AirBnB right in the heart of the city, overlooking a small piazza. Unfortunately, there was no parking attached and it took a bit of work to find a place, eventually leaving the car some 2.5kms away where street parking was free. Since we did not have need of the car during our stay and it came to no harm, the move proved a success. The car was definitely not needed, with the city well serviced by trams, busses and a metro system.

During the day, we tended to go our own ways and explore the wonders of the city. Christine and I had a fabulous trip up a local mountain on a special tram, driven by a rack and pinion system, that rose 450m in a 3.5km journey from Sassi to Superga, where an excellent view of the city below was to be had. We had hoped for great views of the snow covered Alps in the distance but the visibility was poor and a cloud bank covered the mountains. However, the following day, we climbed (on foot) another local hill to a large church and were rewarded with incredible views of the mountains and snow beyond.

At night we came together to find somewhere to eat. One meal was at a local Pizzareia, where we had the most amazing standard of food and service at amazingly low prices. Christine and I shared a pizza, Rob had a pizza while Yvette ordered a seafood spaghetti. We all eyed off Yvette’s dish, as she scoffed down lashings of prawns, squid and the like.

We expected the city to be mostly in shut-down mode due to the Easter weekend but, surprisingly, Good Friday is not a holiday in Italy, at least not in Northern Italy. Things certainly got quiet on Easter Sunday and the piazzas and walking streets of Turin filled with family groups, making the most of the fine and warm weather.

Unfortunately, there was a pall cast on the trip to Turin. One night, Rob and Yvette went out to meet the owner of the house they will rent in Nova Levante. During a meal together, Yvette had her bag stolen, despite taking precautions to safe guard it. Pick-pocketing and bag snatching is a big problem in Italy, particularly in Rome and Naples but we didn’t quite expect it in Turin. She lost a few Euros, her prescription sunglasses and her mobile phone. The good news was that she didn’t have her passport or credit cards with her. However, Rob and Yvette had to make a couple of trips to the police station to make a report and get the necessary police report to make an insurance claim.

Cinque Terre and La Spezia (19-20 April 2017)

The Cinque Terre is a collection of five villages, Monterosso, Vernazza, Cornigilia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, set along the Italian Riveria, south of Genoa. Each one clings precariously to the cliffs surrounding a tiny bay or landing point, except for Cornigula, which is set higher on the hills away from the sea. The stretch of coastline is a declared UNESCO World Heritage site and attracts huge crowds of tourists every year.

The drive from Trisobbio was along the Autostrada, a rather unpleasant trip in heavy traffic. From Genoa south, most of the road was down to two lanes, with trucks occupying the slow lane. The fast lane was a nominal 130km/hr but most cars were sitting on around 110. However, a few were doing 150 or so and this meant a constant swapping of lanes to get behind trucks then pass them and so on. Once near Monterosso, we left the Autostrada to sit on a narrow twisting winding road to the tiny port. We were very happy to get out of the car. Poor Rob bore the brunt of it, having suffered about two hours of total concentration.

To be honest, Monterosso was a bit of a disappointment initially. I felt it was just a bit of a seaside village and didn’t quite fit my visions of quaint little stone houses. Later, however, our impressions rose somewhat after we had explored the charming alleys and backstreets, and it was easy to see why it had such a seductive charm.

From Monterosso, we got on a ferry to hop from one village to another. This is the best way to view the villages because the sight of each one from the sea is quite stunning and certainly justifies all the postcard pictures. Venazzo from the sea was simply perfect. A restaurant carved out of a towering cliff sported a balcony hanging out over the water with a handful of tables set with white linen. The ferry nosed in to the rocky pier, rising and falling gently in the low swells and exchanged passengers before setting off to the next village. We got off at the last village, Riomaggiore, to start our exploration by land. Rob and Yvette went their own way, having made several previous trips to the Cinque Terre and having a couple of places and walks (more like climbs) they wanted to check out.

Cinque Terre

Walking around the villages is more a case of climbing around. Steps are everywhere and forming even regular sized steps has never been a priority. Christine’s short legs were a distinct disadvantage. Beautiful alleyways, corners, cafes and balconies create perfect scenes. The crowds were bigger than any we have so far encountered and I shuddered to think what it would be like here in June or July.

To get back to Monterosso, we bought an all day rail pass. The train line from Genoa to La Spezia hugs the coastline, spending around 70% of the time going through tunnels, so it provides a service to the four coastal villages. Before the rail line was built, the villages relied totally on small boat access. Unfortunately, the day we were there the train service proved unreliable and the advertised every 30 minutes proved to be an hour long wait for the first train to access Manarola.

Cinque Terre

Our clear favourite was Venazzo, mainly because it clung so beautifully to the cliffs. The walk down from the train station to the water’s edge was a picture. We chatted to another Australian couple who were staying in Venazzo for four days and loving it, although they did comment how expensive things were. We stopped for a wine and tapas and paid 12€ when it would have cost 7€ elsewhere. Monterosso was a lot cheaper. At one place we ordered a pot of tea for two but the woman came out with two pots of tea. We drank several cups each and when I went to pay, she asked for 2€ total.

Eventually, the day ran out and we caught up with Rob and Yvette back at Monterosso. From there, we drove to La Spezia, a large town south of the Cinque Terre, where we had organised an AirBnB apartment for the night. Rob phoned ahead to say we were on our way but was horrified to find that we were actually booked for the next night, all our mistake. We had come to the Cinque Terre on the wrong day. Fortunately, the host was very helpful and the apartment was available. We could have been liable for a financial penalty but all was sorted without loss.

La Spezia is a naval town with a large naval base still in use. A surprising number of warships were in evidence, as well as extensive marina complexes, container freight facilities and passenger liner port. While not as pretty as many other places, the city was pleasant enough and certainly provided an interesting stroll along the waterfront. Rob was keen to take us out of town and up the hills to a favourite restaurant called Il Paradiso del Golfo. Unfortunately, on arrival we found it closed, due to their irregular hours over the Easter break. However, the view was worth the drive. The restaurant was set high on a hill overlooking the whole bay with a glorious backdrop of snow covered mountains. The snow was on the melt, but there was still plenty on the far peaks and in the steeper valleys.

We found a pizzareia close to the apartment and had excellent pizzas at very cheap prices. The place had a healthy crowd of local diners, attracted by the prospect of watching the soccer on their big screen. It was fun.

Around La Spezia

On our way out of town, we stopped at a tiny seaside hamlet called Le Grazie before climbing back into the hills to Il Paradiso del Golfo again. This time, it was open. We were not disappointed. For 10€ a head, we enjoyed a six course seafood extravaganza, with a wonderful fish fillet in oil, an amazing octopus salad, some kind of prawn dish with a fantastic sauce served up in a scallop shell, battered fish , smoked salmon crepes and a dish featuring spelt in squid ink. There wasn’t one thing that wasn’t perfection. This would be the best value meal ever, especially considering the amazing view one could have while dining.

The drive back north to Trisobbio was better with the traffic generally lighter but it was still nice to drive around the bend and see our little village of Trisobbio on the hill with its castle nestled on top. It really has come to feel like home. Our return from the Cinque Terre marked the end of our stay with the Piscicellis, baring a couple of days to catch up on washing etc. From here we head off to Milan and then to Germany for a while. Unfortunately, the wonderful spring weather that we have been enjoying is destined to come to an end, with heavy snow forecast for Munich and Passau. It will be an adventure, but not too much of a drama I hope.

Trisobbio, Piedmont, Italy 1-24 April 2017

April 24, 2017 / terry

Rob and Yvette met us at Ovada train station in their leased Peugeot. After all the planning and travelling it was a bit of a “pinch yourself moment” to actually catch up with the Piscicellis in Italy. Rob drove us along the twisting road to the tiny village of Trisobbio, our home for the next three weeks. Trisobbio is in the Province of Alessandria in the region of Piedmont, very close to the border with Liguria, and is one of a number of similar hilltop villages in the area. Each one seems to have a church and a castle at the summit, with a collection of houses clinging to the sides of the hill.. The hills were covered with fruit trees, most in glorious springtime flowering mode, and grape vines. Houses were numerous though well spaced. In places the road reached a switchback, presenting a wonderful vista across the farmlands to the distant mountains.

The first sight of the cluster of buildings on the hill with the battlements of the small castle poking out on top was a scene from a fairy tale movie. As Rob manoeuvred the car through the narrow roads and alleys of the village to our apartment I was glad that he was the one driving, especially with the left hand drive. I find that the fine judgement is not there when I get in a left hand drive car but Rob seems to have the gift.

We unloaded our gear and familiarised ourselves with the apartment. Ours is on the second storey, the bottom floor being used by the owners and the top one being another apartment for rent. Our apartment is wonderful, with comfortable facilities, two bedrooms and a good kitchen. Best of all are the views. I found myself spending quite a bit of time just standing at a window and looking out at the complex roof lines and jumble of courtyards of the neighbouring houses or beyond to the rolling hills and patches of forest. The owners, a very welcoming and friendly family, retain the downstairs apartment for times when family members return to Trissobio for a visit (they live in Genoa now).

An aerial view of Trisobbio showing our apartment

Rob and Yvette had had a few weeks to get to know their surrounds so were able to point out the various features around and take us on drives to the nearby villages. It is easy to become blasé about the magnificent scenery, the opulence of the church interiors and the magic of the many medieval castles that adorn the landscape. The area is very hilly, with the northern end of the Apennines rising in the distance. Some years, we would be graced with the sight of snow in the distance but the snow did not come this year, which is a shame but at the same time we have been blessed with some much warmer than normal spring weather. Most days are a pleasant 20 degrees with the occasional cooler rainy day. It is only ever a couple of kilometres between villages and each one seems to have its own unique features and charm.

A hiking trail of sorts connects the five closest castles, although it looks like it could do with a bit of maintenance to counter the rapid spring growth. On one occasion, Christine and I set out to walk the 3.5 kilometres to nearby Cremolino. It proved to be a hard slog because we had to climb a hill that proved to be higher than all the others around. The views were staggering but the thighs were sore for a few days.

Around Trisobbio

The main industries around the area are all agricultural in nature, with grape growing being the most obvious, along with apples, pears, strawberries and other fruit and vegetables. The region has long been renown for the quality of its produce and it show through in the vegetables, all of which seem to have much more flavour than back home. Livestock still remains absent from the scene, with the exception of horses, which is quite strange because there are a few meat processing places around. Meat and fish is generally expensive, while fruit and vegetables are cheap by Australian standards. The real work these days is in the cities, with Ovada having a scattering of light industry and small businesses. Both Genoa and Turin are large manufacturing centres and the drift to these cities for work has led to the rural population decline over the years.

Rob and Yvette drove us to many nearby villages and town, all of which were a delight to explore. We also love to visit the Tre Castelli Winery at Montaldo Bormida, only a couple of kilometres down the road. Here you could taste a variety of local wines and purchase them for ridiculous prices, between 3.10€ and 5.50€ a bottle. We loved the Rose, the Chardonnay and a dry red made from Dolcetto grapes. Actually, we liked everything and became good customers, doing our best to consume enough to keep us going back.

Shopping in Trisobbio itself is limited, with a “Bar” that sells coffee and a few drinks, a small bakery and general store that is really only good for a few emergencies, a pharmacy (every village seems to have one), an excellent restaurant and pizzeria, a post office and a hairdresser. All our real supplies come from Ovada, where a number of different supermarkets provide most things we want. We made occasional trips to the local bar for delicious coffees, where a great cappuccino costs a whole $A2.

Views of Trisobbio

Trisobbio has one amazing restaurant called Antio Torchio Trisobbio that serves a variety of Italian dishes and a great selection of wood fired pizzas. It is set in a 8^th Century Palace that just drips with ambience. Cipriani is a very amiable host and the food is excellent. Even better is the price, with us paying 66€ for four people, which included a bottle of red and a bottle of wine.

Another real bonus is the ready availability of excellent wine at crazy prices. Nearby is the Tre Castelli Cantina that sells an amazingly good selection of wines ranging between 2.5€ and 5€. We did not taste a bad one and we sampled many. The owner is very accommodating and spent a lot of time with us even though we were very small customers in the scheme of things. The Piedmont Region is famous for its wines and locally Dolcetta and Barbarossa grapes are mostly grown for reds with the. Chardonnays also feature, although they are often bottled as “Frizzante” with a light carbonation. It makes for a very pleasant drink. At another winery in Revolta Bormida, we saw a local come in with his 10 litre plastic jerry can and fill it up from a fuel type bowser. It cost him 1.60€ a litre, only slightly dearer than the fuel he used to drive to the winery.

A couple of days after we arrived, Christine began to experience some very painful and debilitating spasms in her lower back. She had been feeling some soreness since all the physical work in Vietnam but this was much worse. I am the one who usually causes a problem with back pain so we were carrying four tablets with enough power to get me by in case of an attack so we started using these for Christine to get her through a night. Rob drove us in to Ovada where she was seen by the emergency department, X-rayed and pronounced free of any skeletal damage. We sort of knew that anyway and just wanted a script for decent pain killers. The best we managed was some Tramadol, which did little to help. On the plus side, we did not have to pay due to a reciprocal health agreement between Italy and Australia. The spasms persisted so we tried the local visiting doctor, who comes to the village once a week. He pronounced the Tramadol useless, gave a script for what we wanted, took our 50€ and waved us on our way. Given a couple of pain free days, Christine’s back soon came good (or at least better). It needed to come good because there was no way I was going to carry both backpacks.

Football days were a source of some frustration. With no telecast we were reliant on the Internet. Rob has a subscription for live feeds but the Internet in Trissobio is very intermittent and so the picture kept freezing or failing altogether, usually just at the crucial moment. We tried running from the wireless router, using the phones and a combination of the above. Somehow, we managed to scrape by but it was always an effort.

Around Piedmont

We explored the nearby towns and villages with Rob and Yvette. A car is essential in this part of the World and without it one would be reliant on the infrequent local bus. A motorbike would be useful in the warmer weather, giving good access to the narrow streets of the villages and making finding parking in the towns easier. Although we saw quite a few cyclists, the very hilly nature of the region rules a bicycle out for me.

The villages perched on a hilltop were the most interesting, because all the houses were forced to crush together in an interesting jumble of stone walls, archways and cobbled laneways. Most had a castle of sorts to add to the interest and all had had a prominent church spire. From Trisobbio, it was possible to look out and see the neighbouring castles of Carpeneto and Morsasco. One can picture the local Lord standing on a balcony in times past glaring across the divide and hurling insults at the Lord across the way.

Churches, churches and more churches. Every village has one and some have two.

The population of these villages has fallen steadily, peaking in 1901 at 1200 people in the case of our village but it does appear that the decline has slow or begun to reverse. Morsasco has a number of modern apartment blocks attached to it, built at a discreet distance so as to not disrupt the charm of the castled centre. In my biased opinion, Trisobbio was the prettiest of the surrounding villages, resembling a fairytale Camelot when viewed from some angles.

Ovada

Ovada was our “go to” location for shopping and train connections. Also, it was a convenient entrance location to the Autostrada so we seemd to head for Ovada at least every second day. As the driver, Rob got to know his way around Ovada very well whereas I just sat in the back and watch the shops go by. In itself, it was an interesting enough town with its bevy of beautiful churches, two rivers, some gorgeous cobbled streets and vibrant markets. It is easy to become blasé and we did, tending to ignore just how pretty Ovada was.

Gavi

Gavi, a fortress town a little further away, was quite a bit bigger and was overlooked by a huge fort dating back to the 14^th Century. A narrow winding road took us up to near the summit where a small door gave access to the castle itself. Unfortunately, the tour times did not suit so we decided to come back on another occasion. Besides, we had seen a restaurant in the town offering a two course meal with wine and coffee for 10€ so a second trip was definitely indicated. On this occasion we contented ourselves with a beautiful gelato in the town square.

On our return, we paid our 5€ for the tour of the fortress and joined a small group. Unfortunately, the guide only spoke Italian but there was sufficient signage in French and English to keep us foreigners happy and informed. The fort had origins dating back to 900AD but the main structures were built in the 1600s and strengthened throughout the 1700s. I have no real understanding of how anyone could attack such an impenetrable bastion an hope to succeed but history shows that it changed hands many times between French, Austrian, Genovese and Sardinian control. In each case, surrender on the order of a nearby load seemed to be the case rather than actual invasion. The fort was used as an internment camp for prisoners of war during both World Wars. In WWII, it housed allied prisoners who had tried unsuccessfully to escape from other camps. One guy, Jack Pringle, managed a famous escape only to be caught again within sight of the border with Switzerland. You can’t help bad luck.

Fort Gavi

The restaurant with the 10€ (A$14) meal proved a real gem. We had a good choice of dishes and enjoyed some very good local Gavi white wine. Given that we were supplied with lashings of excellent bread and good salads as side dishes it went down a real treat and we left with very full stomachs. Where in Australia could you manage that?

Acqui Terme

Acqui Terme is a larger town about 15 kilometres from Trisobbio. Its main claim to fame (and the a marbled edifice. During the Winter, the spring produces clouds of steam that drift throughout the town. The locals come with plastic bottles to take the water, believing it to be good for their health. We visited Acqui Terme on a Tuesday, when street markets occupied several of the main thoroughfares. These markets sported an amazing array of clothing and shoe stalls, all selling quality Italian made goods at crazy prices. Whole racks of coats, shirts and pants were just priced at 5€ each. A beautiful pair of all leather hiking boots caught my attention at 60€ (A$84) a real bargain for Italian made boots. I could have spent some serious money here but the big problem is space. We simply do not have the room to carry any more stuff with us and shipping goods back to Perth is both time consuming and expensive.

We went into one of the many churches in Acqui Terme, a rather plain affair on the outside, but amazingly rich and opulent on the inside. The many supporting columns were made from a gorgeous apricot coloured marble and gold leaf adorned the ornamentation on the pulpit. The sheer magnificence of all the churches we have been into is beyond belief. Centuries of work and collected artistry are on display, the value of which probably can’t be assessed in pure dollar terms.

Alessandria

Alessandria is the capital city of Piedmont and is around 40km north of our village. With a population of just under 100,000, it is not a big city by most standards. A high speed “Autostrada” makes the trip from Ovada north a quick one. We visited on a Monday to take advantage of the markets in the Piazza de Garibaldi, a town square surrounded by colonnaded buildings dating back about a Century or so. The market sold mostly clothes and many cheap buys were on offer. We browsed for a while before wandering through the older parts of the town. Perhaps we are becoming immune to the sight of narrow streets lines with old buildings because we found the city interesting but unspectacular. We stopped off for a 10€ meal at a restaurant, again rather unspectacular by our demanding standards, and headed out of town. Along the way, we saw and followed a series of signs to a citadel, which proved to be worth a visit. It was a large 18^th Century fort with an expansive internal courtyard and it was easy to picture the cavalry troops parading and drilling within its walls. During the turbulent times of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, it was of supreme importance and changed hands frequently, being attacked by the French, Spanish, Austrians, Russians and almost everyone else.

Sezzadio

Another place we explored was Sezzadio, about 20km north of Trisobbio, to check out a large church Rob and Yvette had seen on a previous drive. The church itself proved to be a bit of a disappointment, very imposing from the outside but quite plain by Italian standards inside. A smaller chapel at the rear was packed with families attending a Palm Sunday service. Everyone carried an olive branch and I wondered if this was because there is a distinct lack of palms in the area. I “confess” to being rather ignorant of church ceremonials.

On the outskirts of Sezzadio, Yvette spied a turn-in to an abbey so we investigated. It turned out to be an old abbey turned into a reception centre. One part of it was an ancient vestibule and crypt dating back to the 8^th Century. The mosaic floor in the crypt was beautiful considering its age and the frescoes covering the walls were fantastic. At some point, all the frescoes were plastered over and the removal of this is only partly completed.

The rest of the abbey is in various states of repair, from crumbling to fully restored. The property was purchased by a family back in about 1980 and the main building was restored to a beautiful condition. We were lucky enough to be allowed to look through the interior and the owner seemed to welcome us as either long lost friends or prospective clients because he speared no effort at explaining things, rather surprising really given that he was awaiting the arrival of 100 guests for a conference. Outside, the grounds were a picture, with beautiful lawns, numerous marquees, shady trees, a pond, swimming pool (rather empty at this time of year) and lashings of ambience.

Conclusion

Trisobbio is off the beaten path for most foreign tourists, although the immediate region enjoys the patronage of Italians in the know. It is a superb food and wine region with wonderful views. We have dearly loved our time here and despite our almost complete lack of language skills have enjoyed the welcoming attitude of the locals. A highlight for us was going down to the local shop and communicating with the lovely woman who runs it via a series of hand signals and gestures, with a smattering of Italian and English words thrown in. Life in the more remote small villages obviously has its down sides for the locals but we found the experience here to be everything we had hoped for.

Italy 2012

July 19, 2012 / terry

11^th July Madrid to Verona

A YouTube Video of our time in Italy can be seen here

We flew with Ryan Air to Verona, a trip of under two hours yet it seemed to take up much of the day. This is why we like train travel, because so much time with air travel is taken up going through security checks and sitting in waiting rooms. It was with great trepidation that we booked on Ryan Air. They have a terrible reputation amongst travellers because their rules are applied so rigidly that it often seems totally unfair. We spend an hilarious half hour reading the complaints page at http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/ryan.htm. Although we laughed a lot, we also were terrified by the time boarding time came in case we were excluded from the flight or were charged an extra 60 Euros for no apparent reason. In the end, we had a fine experience, perhaps because we had paid extra to book the exit row seats. An ordinary ticket doesn’t get you a booked seat and there is a bit of a mad scramble at boarding time to secure a seat with your partner.

At Verona, we caught a cab to our hotel, nice little place called the Piccolo, which is handy to the centre and all the main sights. I think most hotels would fit the bill because the city is very compact, mostly still contained within the original Roman and medieval walls. Walking is an easy option here, although the heat in July means choosing a shady path where possible. Bikes are commonly available, including a ride and drop system, but the pedestrian density around the popular tourist zones can even make cycling difficult.

Verona is an extremely beautiful city. It is very much geared towards the tourist, but let’s face it, if you’ve got such attractions as Romeo and Juliette’s houses, a 2000 year old amphitheatre that is still in use today and a system of medieval fortifications that are still very much intact, people are going to come in droves to stay. They have the usual open buses and little tourist trains wandering around the cobbled streets but we chose to just use a map and the iPhone to research the various places we visited.

If one had the chance to visit only one place in the World for 30 minutes, the Piazza Bra would have to be on the list to consider. This wonderful huge plaza is surrounded by lovely buildings and numerous eateries, making it a great place to simply “hang out”. The plaza is dominated by the Arena di Verona, a huge Roman amphitheatre that was built in 30AD. It is still in use today and can seat up to 22,000 people, hosting opera, rock concerts and all manner of entertainments. A small section of the original outer wall remains, another tier higher yet again than the top seating tiers but the rest of the outer ring collapsed in an earthquake in 1117AD.

The Arena Verona in the Piazza Bra

We wandered through the Piazza Bra and on down through the main shopping areas, stopping for a wonderful pizza lunch. The search was on for a new SIM card. My Spanish one had run out but strangely, Christine’s was still working, even with data (they said it couldn’t happen). After much searching, we found a TIM 12 card which cost 20€ but gives unlimited Internet in the first month and will work in other European countries.

Exhausted, we wandered home, stopping at a fruit stall because of the wonderful cherries on offer and then into a small supermarket for some olives and cheese. We are trying to adopt the strategy of one decent meal a day and tapas type snacks for the other.

12^th July Verona

Our first stop today was the train station, to check out the lie of the land and to purchase a ticket for the trip to Venice. We opted for the regular train that stops a lot because it was so much cheaper than the express and managed to negotiate the ticket machine in only three attempts.

Then it was off into the city centre to buy some tickets to the opera, a must do when in Verona. Along the way, we passed a hawker selling sunglass and watches. We gave the usual “no thanks” before sighting a pair of binoculars, a perfect size for the opera. After much good hearted bargaining and joking, we agreed on 20€ (we were robbed) and then found our smallest change was a 50 Euro. He didn’t want to lose a sale, so he left me in charge of his stall and took off with Christine to find change. They were gone for ages and I sold four watches and three pairs of Raybans for him. Eventually he returned with much laughter and I left him to it.

The opera tickets were only 25€ each, cheap seats but then how much should you pay when you are right up the top and sitting on old marble steps. We are going to watch Don Giovanni by Mozart, which is at least has the odd decent tune to it (you can see I love opera), but the atmosphere should should be fantastic. This is part of the current opera festival, with six operas running over the summer months. Last night was Aida, and a large section of the Piazza Bra is covered with huge Egyptian sphinxes and Pyramids that make up the massive set.

Another target was Juliette’s house, well preserved 13^th Century house and quite fascinating. The entrance way was absolutely covered in graffiti, as thousands of lovers have left their marks on these famous walls. They even proved five or six telephones on the entrance, each bearing two hand pieces so visiting lovers can speak directly to each other and utter words of eternal devotion. All this is very crass but wonderful none the less. Remarkably, the only real feature on the front of the house is a stone balcony. In the courtyard below, there is a bronze statue of Juliette and popular rumour has it that good luck can be obtained by rubbing her right breast. I tried this with the woman next to me and she slapped me back for good luck.

Julliette’s famous balcony.

Some “good Luck” with julliette

After much searching, we finally tracked down Romeo’s house, only a few streets away but difficult to locate. While there were huge crowds at Julliette’s house, Romeo’s was deserted, with only a small sign on the street signifying its importance. Typical! The woman gets all the attention.

We tracked down a travel agent, although they seem to be rather scarce here. This one, the GiraMondo in Via Roma, was very big, and a very efficient and pleasant young man managed to get us some tickets on a ferry crossing the Adriatic from Ancona to Split next week. This is something we had not been able to do on the Internet because we just got too confused and unsure of what we were doing. He made it all work for us. Sometimes, it is best to go to a professional.

We strolled to the River Adige, a strange fast flowing river that would defy attempts to navigate of swim. I assume it is coming from the nearby mountains. Then it was a lunch of melon and ham, followed by the most wonderful tortellini with ricotta and spinach. Christine is getting inspired and keeps talking about getting back to her kitchen to emulate all the wonderful dishes we have encountered.

The Castlevechio

On our way home, we toured the amazing Castelvecchio, a medieval castle built around 1350. Once again, many sections are largely intact and just wandering around the grounds and across the bridge is a great experience. We managed a few hours of rest to get ready for the opera and to continue the never ending job of researching somewhere to stay on our arrival in Croatia next week.

Overlooking the Adige River from Castlevechio

A hotel shuttle bus took us into the city for the opera, with arrangements to pick us up afterwards. It serviced three hotels and there were quite a lot of people going, the long opera season drawing many people from all over Europe. Once in the Arena, we found some seats, not difficult because we were still an hour and a bit before the start. We had bought the cheap seats, up high and just had to find a spot on the marble steps. Bearing in mind that these steps are not all that new, some were a bit worn, in fact, all were worn down 5mm or so over the ages except where they joined, perhaps because people didn’t like sitting on the join. This meant a ridge, that was definitely to be avoided. Four hours later and every square centimetre of an ancient marble block was to be avoided by the buttocks. We were given the chance to rent a cushion for 3 Euros but proved how tough we were by refusing, a decision we very much regretted. In fact, we were to remember our night at the opera every time we sat down for several days.

The crowd swelling in the arena on opera night

The steps are quite broad and the idea is that one sits on the edge and uses the first half of the one below for foot room. This system fails if some uncouth person takes up the whole space and leans back against the next step or if people bring their own giant cushions to lay out and claim territory. It seems there are inconsiderate people everywhere; it reminded us of a day at the cricket.

Below us were the rich people, on their booked seats, at least they were rich before they paid for the tickets. Our seats were 25€ while the good ones were 185€. We soaked in the scenery as the crowd grew and I found myself wondering at the many millions of people who had sat in this arena over the years and the type of performances they had witnessed. The one remaining part of the original outer wall towered above us and glowed in the setting sun. It was quite incredible.

Three steps below us was a row that had to be left vacant right around the arena to allow traffic flow to the exits. As the crowd grew and places became hard to find, lots of groups thought they had suddenly found an excellent spot and set up camp on the broad vacant stretch, and we watched with great amusement as they all got moved on. One guy acted like a puppy that didn’t want to walk and just sat for a while, ignoring everything until reason prevailed and he slunk off dragging his lower lip.

The wonderful set of Don Giovanni

My first thought when the opera started was “Damn! We are too far away to hear properly.” but this was not really the case. I guess we are so attuned to amplified performances, we forget that natural sound music needs to be really listened to. However, this was an audience that had come to listen and in a very short space of time, I realised that I had adjusted and the volume was fine, especially when the women were singing. All over the audience we could see the glow of tiny torches and iPads as a huge number of people followed the score from books or electronic devices. Unfortunately, there was also the occasional flash, despite the warnings that filming of any kind leads to expulsion. The audience was actually so well behaved that when someone farted (a really good one) behind us, there was nothing more than a muffled giggle, although looking around, most people were working hard not to lose it. Another highlight came when a cat emerged from one of the entrance tunnels, panicked in front of 20,000 people, and dashed out into the posh seating area. Of course, we could watch its progress as it ducked and darted from one row to another, but the people down on the flat area would not have been able to see it until it appeared at their feet. It was getting really agitated and not to be trifled with. Eventually it found itself back near an entrance tunnel and mercifully escaped.

Another break came as a few spots of rain began to fall, not heavy but definitely a worry. The orchestra took no risks with their instruments and half way through an important scene, packed up and scurried for cover. The singers stayed longer but had little choice and the audience waited twenty minutes for the show to resume. The last drop actually fell as the orchestra left but then later, as we left the arena, we found that significant rain had fallen just outside in the Piazza Bra.

The performance was excellent and the set was unbelievably grand. At one stage, I counted more than 100 people on stage, all brilliantly costumed. From out vantage point, we could observe some back stage activity and the organisation was staggering. What killed us was the length. The show started at 9:15pm and finished at 1am, which meant that we didn’t get home until 1:30am. Given that we didn’t understand a word (we at least knew the story), the show could have been 2 hours shorter and we would have loved it. If Mozart was still around, I’d email him with a few suggestions for which bits to chop out. I think we can tick “opera” off the bucket list.

13th July Verona to Venice

We had a train ticket booked, departing Verona at 10:15. Because we’d only gotten to bed at 2am, we decided to delay and catch a later train at 1pm, possible because the tickets are fully flexible. That gave us time to have a later breakfast and pop back to bed afterwards for a bit more shut-eye.

While waiting for the train, we sat on our designated platform in a lovely cool breeze and watched trains come and go from many parts of Europe. Announcements blared at a steady rate as they often do in such places and once, and only once, there was an announcement in English about some train or other. At one point, Christine thought she had heard something about Santa Lucia, our destination in Venice, so she scuttled off to check the boards. This was a good thing because our train proved to be on a different platform altogether.

Once aboard, a couple of young Ukrainian girls asked us to confirm their ticket and destination, choosing us because they could speak some English. We pointed out that they had not validated their ticket using the little yellow machine on the platform and there is an immediate 200€ fine for this offence. Even ignorance by a foreigner is no excuse. One girl took their combined ticket and sprinted down the platform to a machine. Our doors then closed and another girl started screaming for her friend. This was just like us in Paris. The first girl validated the ticket, jumped on another carriage and came down through the train to reassure her friend that she was still alive and the train set off.

We travelled through unremarkable country, mostly rural with a few scattered industries. The odd low mountain range appeared in the distance and even a tiny castle perched on a hill. Having chosen the cheap train, it stopped at every station, sometimes waiting for other trains to pass. Still, it was comfortable and only took a couple of hours. As we got out of the train at Santa Lucia and walked straight out of the station onto a canal, we realised that “We were in Venice!” It took a moment to soak in the romance and excitement of it all.

But then the reality hit home. All around us was chaos. Thick crowds of people occupied most paved areas. Long lines of people were queued up at the numerous ticketing booths for tours, water taxis and canal ferries and that was the organised part. The Grand Canal was bedlam, with taxis manoeuvring waiting for custom, ferries (Vaporetto) pouring in and out of docks at a great rate and small commercial craft delivering things were seemingly meandering at random. I’m sure everyone knew what they were doing but it was worse than Hillarys boat ramp in the crayfishing season. Christine joined the queue to buy some tickets for the Vaporetto while I guarded the bags. I had a bit of a hissy-fit when the ticket office said they couldn’t change a 50€ note (who where they kidding) and insisted on a card to buy two tickets to go 2kms down the canal.

: San Stephano Square with our room in the background

Travelling on the Vaporetto is about as romantic as mowing the lawn. Half the passengers have luggage with them but no one thinks to be considerate of others’ needs and given that you have mere seconds to disembark at each stop it can be quite a hassle. However, we got off at the St Angelo stop on San Marco and used the cryptic directions supplied by our host to negotiate numerous narrow laneways, cross a tiny canal and locate the Church of St Stephano, opposite our rooms. We’d been supplied with an access code and room keys were waiting on a table in the hall so we were soon up two flights of stairs and into a room. What! No bathroom? Not happy! Our “private” bathroom proved to be across the hall, very inconvenient for those midnight calls. The aircon was barely coping, perhaps because its tiny gains were offset by the heat pouring off the back of the silly little bar fridge. This looked like being our worst accommodation, even though it is by far the most expensive at around $A200 a night (cheap for Venice at this time of year).

: The Grand Canal

We dumped our stuff and ducked out to the piazza, anxious for some air and cool drink. Once again, the prices of everything seemed to sky-rocket. As Christine said, “At least we can say we’ve seen Venice then get out.” On the plus side, everything around us is wonderfully Venetian. All the scenes and sights that we have seen plastered over plates, curtains and bedspreads all our lives are there for the viewing at every turn. Walk down any street or along any canal and it is a true visual feast. Even the crowds are civilized once you move away from the Grand Canal by a block or so.

In our area, the ground floors are mostly shops, ranging from small delis to the most wonderful array of specialist shops, all of which put in a huge effort with magnificent window displays. We paused at a art supply shop with a fantastic array of pigments in the window, strolled past shops specialising in tiny packets of herbs and spices and another selling beautifully crafted brassware. This all makes a change from the endless rows of clothing boutiques in other cities.

We had a pasta meal for dinner at a nearby eatery then strolled around the local streets and piazzas as the day cooled. While trying to find an ATM, we came across a couple from Hillarys, showing what a small World it really is. Mind you, an Aussie accent carries a long way across the piazza.

14th July Venice

Breakfast was an ordinary affair, satisfactory without being spectacular. After breakfast, our first task was to explore the possibility of walking back to the train station from the hotel with our baggage on trolleys to avoid the 14€ cost and the difficulties of the Vaporetto with luggage.

Looking at a map, we had two choices; we could cross the Grand canal then cut straight across San Polo then re-cross the Grand Canal; or we could follow our side of the Grand Canal around its long bend. We opted to try the first method, exploring sights along the way. We crossed the famous Rialto Bridge, fighting the crowds of people taking photos and posing like lovers. You have to put on a really mean look so no-one stops you and asks you to take a photo of them.

The next point of interest was the fresh markets, a fascinating place full of wonderfully clean fresh goods and an incredible fish market. If people in Perth make claims that we have access to excellent seafood that the rest of the World envies, don’t believe them. This place had variety, quality and very low prices. We continued on, trying hard to follow a paper map and the iPhone. The problem here is that only about a third of the lanes have names. Moving across San Polo reminded me of a game of chess where both players are down to a king and two knights. It was forward a bit, turn left, forward a bit, turn right and so on, until we gradually neared our destination. Every so often, we had to cross a bridge over a tiny canal. All of the bridges had steps rather than a ramp over so we soon decided that walking with the baggage on trolleys was not on.

Eventually, we emerged from the maze dead on target at Santa Lucia and rested up in a little Pizzaria for an orange juice and to read about some of the things we had encountered. This put us right in the old Jewish ghetto and we read about some of the past mis-treatment going back to the 1500s. So harsh were the conditions, that Napoleon had the walls and gates of the ghetto torn down when he invaded Venice in 1793. As in other European cities we’ve visited, monuments to the holocaust and the forced displacements are also very much in evidence.

: The Rialto Bridge

We walked back to the Realto Bridge via the other bank, and this time we found the going easy, although crowded. Much to our amusement, we saw that the route was clearly sign posted to the station. Some of the bridges had a ramp supplied for those towing luggage and this was the final determining factor in us deciding to walk back the following day.

Lunch consisted of a wonderful rolled up pizza type thing and a beer. The places along the main walking route between St Mark’s Square and Santa Lucia station are so crowded that they are forced to drop prices a little to compete and so, while still expensive, are at least affordable.

From the Realto, we pushed on to St Mark’s Square (San Marco). This is possibly the most photographed square in Europe and an absolute must see. Having said that, we stayed a bare five minutes, deciding to get up and have a pre-breakfast walk in the morning. It wasn’t really possible to appreciate the square or the buildings with the throngs of people milling around. There had to be in excess of 10,000 people and things were really silly. We’ll see it with the morning light.

It takes a long time to walk anywhere in Venice, mostly because we keep stopping, attracted by the shop window displays or simply to pause and absorb the atmosphere of a piazza. Hanging out on a bridge over a canal is also terrific fun, especially in the evening when the gondolas are out with lovers afloat.

After a bit of an afternoon rest we headed out again as the evening cooled to watch the passing parade. We spent a good hour on a bridge over the Gand Canal watching the water traffic. Venice was celebrating a major festival, with family groups all heading for St Mark’s Square in boats bearing decorations. Every now and then, a corporate effort would come by, with three or four rowers propelling a long craft bearing eight to ten people all in matching T shirts and loaded with lots of eskys. Some boats had tables laden with food and everyone was in a very jolly and festive mood, which was good because there were numerous near misses. I failed to work out any actual system for where boats could travel. It just seems as though you go where there is a space and avoid the ferries if possible. The occasional gondola bobbed by, carrying a couple of terrified looking tourists as they rocked and rolled in the wash of the other boats. It was excellent entertainment.

: The chaotic traffic on the Grand Canal

At one point, Christine heard an Aussie accent next to her at the railing on the bridge so she enquired, “Aussie are you?”

“I’m not Aussie, I’m Australian,” came the frosty reply and a look like she had something stuck up her behind.

“Yep, I’m an Aussie too,” responded Christine, maintaining her composure. I nearly threw up.

Eventually, we left the bridge and took a table in San Stefano Square to have a pizza and drink. We ordered off the menu of Spritzas. These mixes of wine, soda and another ingredient looked inviting but we couldn’t really get a handle on what was what because the waiter had almost no English. In the end, we settled for a red one. What ever it was in it was about as bitter as battery acid. I managed two sips but Christine gave up after one. What a bad taste. The waiter seemed very put out when we abandoned them and called for a beer but then this particular waiter seemed easily put out. We failed to last the distance to stay up and watch the fireworks.

15th July Venice

As planned, we got up early and negotiated the tiny alleyways and lanes through to San Marco Square to see it in all its glory without the crushing crowds. Along every street the cleaners were at work, scraping up the remains of the night’s festivities, of which there was a mountain. Around St Mark’s a few sorry looking souls still sat around tables holding their heads as people do all over the World after a festival. The aroma of stale beer and urine added nothing to the scene but at least we were able to wander the square at our leisure and take photographs that didn’t include the heads of people we didn’t know.

: St Mark’s Square

Some parts of the square are screened off and under restoration, an ambitious project to stop the now common problem of inundation as both the sea level rises and Venice sinks. A low wall is being built across the front of the square and the many underground drains modified to stop the tide coming in through the network of pipes and tunnels. In some places, the square is being shored up from underneath and pushed upwards. Just knocking it all down and starting again doesn’t seem to be an option.

After breakfast, we packed up, located an ATM to get some cash to pay for the room, an set off to tow our trolleys to Santa Lucia Station. The route we had planned the previous day proved to be a good one, although the many bridges with just sets of steps and no ramps made it a strenuous effort. I am amazed that the authorities don’t put ramps on part of each bridge because there are so many people with tow-along luggage and a lot with pushers. After ten minutes of negotiating crowds with luggage in tow, all sense of being nice flew out the window and I adopted the following personal rules;

stick to the right no matter what and hold the line;
if a ramp is provided on a bridge and there are ordinary pedestrians using it instead of the steps, go through them;
don’t try and go around people posing for photos, I have a camera full of other people’s heads so they can have mine;
try to break wind as you finally get around slow moving stragglers and if you can’t, pretend to anyway.

Once at the station, we found the right train, a fast train to Rome that we would take until Bologna, then on to Ancona, a small port city in middle Italy. The trip to Bologna was only an hour and a half and passed easily, the train being comfortable. Surprisingly, the train was full, so we were pleased that we had booked tickets a week in advance.

The Bologna to Ancona train was older, slower and absolutely stifling. Sitting for 15 minutes waiting to go was getting quite uncomfortable, not helped by the fact that it too was nearly full. It barely improved as it began to move, suggesting that the air-con was not working. One guy behind us had the cheek to question this with the conductor, who responded by having a huge fit. He yelled, probably swore a lot, went red and pushed his face right up to the poor passenger, who did his best to respond politely. The whole carriage was mortified. It was a real John Cleese effort and I’m sure it didn’t come from the TrenItalia manual of customer service.

Later, another conductor came through and opened some windows, followed by a third, who offered passengers the chance to move carriages. By this time, the open windows had done wonders and we elected to stay put, meaning that we could stretch out and have two seats each. The first conductor seemed to get banished to another part of the train, probably to do a compulsory unit on customer relations. Our next visitor was the food and drinks man, whose only English was “Ah, English, Si!” and then continued to pretend that we could speak Italian. He became our best friend and spoke at length to us about something or other. If he was secretly making fun of us he at least did it with lots of cheer and good will. We had almost no idea what was going on but managed a ham and cheese sandwich and a beer each.

As we headed South, the line followed the coast, and we passed kilometre after kilometre of low cost seaside resorts, many just extended caravan parks full of tents, caravans and Winnebagos. The beaches were packed. This was definitely the Italian Riviera el Cheapo and looked very inviting to us. Each station saw a passing parade of passengers, some bothered by the air-con and others staying with the warm conditions.

We alighted at Ancona, emerged from the station, and there, right opposite, was our Fortuna Hotel. It was beautifully airconditioned and generally well-appointed. The rates, after Verona and Venice, were ridiculously cheap, but then anything is compare to them. We settled in then headed back out to explore.

While Ancona might have been one of the major ports on the Adriatic during Greek and Roman times and a bustling port during the middle ages and Renaissance, it is well and truly dead on a Sunday afternoon in 2012. Nothing was open. There were a few flea-market stalls selling collectables but otherwise even the kebab stalls were closed. We walked a little way into the port itself and saw enough of the town to realise that it was probably a city worth visiting for its history. A wonderful triumphal arch (yes, another one) was built in honour of Emperor Trajan in 111AD and the old city that climbs its way up the hill looks very well preserved. We walked around in an old fortified military establishment to the central courtyard which was being prepared for a performance, part of an extensive cultural season featuring classical concerts and outdoor plays. Something would have to bring the inhabitants out because there was very little traffic and the streets were close to deserted. Unfortunately, we lacked the energy and the leg strength to push on and explore the ancient Roman amphitheatre, the numerous churches and piazzas. I did pick up a brochure so that will have to suffice.

Fortunately, we found one small pizzeria near our hotel that was open and doing a good trade due to its monopoly on the market. We ordered several great slabs of delicious pizza at 1.50€ each and some cold beer. It went down really well. While I don’t object to eating pizza, we are looking forward to finding something different that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. In the same block as the pizzeria were Indian, Chinese and French restaurants, with a Sri Lankan one further on but all closed on Sundays. Perhaps Perth is not so backward after all.

Tag: Italy

Rome and The Vatican, Italy 2017

Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento – Italy 2017

Sicily, Italy, 2017

Southern Italy 2017

Verona, Italy, May 2017

Milan, Munich and Passau, Germany 2017

Piedmont and Liguria, Italy 1-24 April 2017

Trisobbio, Piedmont, Italy 1-24 April 2017

Italy 2012

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