Leaving italy

I'm on a plane now, an Airbus 319 bound for Stansted, London. Flying Easyjet, which so far seems ok, they have one of those speedy boarding systems where you can pay extra to board sooner. Fuck that. The plane still takes off at the same time. It seems to have more leg room than your standard Australian budget carrier and the plane is very clean. I just got served a blisteringly hot panini, it looks terrible. And they are trying to sell us lottery tickets. Yes, lottery tickets.

I like Italy. I do. It reminds me of my grandparents and great grandparents, which it should I suppose, they are Italian. Wandering through a citrus grove with lemon trees in bloom and mandarines littering the floors was a greatly nostalgic experience. That said, I'm happy to be heading off to England. I want to walk into a shop and buy something without have to think too hard. Oh, and a find an English bookshop. A good second hand bookshop with a big sci-fi section.

Italian traffic is kind of a force unto itself. The only way to cross the street is just to walk out and hope for the best. They park where-ever they feel like, on corners, on the footpath, in intersections. Cars will stop traffic in both directions so that the two drivers can have a chat (I was on a bus that did this for a couple of minutes as cars honked...). I'm glad I wasn't driving. And buses run early. Early. I don't get how a bus can leave before the scheduled time. But they do.

So we travelled around Italy for more than two weeks, saw a bit of the north and a bit of the south. I talked about the north already, so since then we headed back to Rome for a few nights and did the Roman tourist bit. We wandered around for an afternoon, seeing ancient ruins and modern ruins alike. We saw the Trevi fountain, tossing in our coin in the obligatory tourist bit. Saw the Spanish Steps, climbed the Spanish Steps, got harassed by rose sellers on the Spanish Steps and then Left the Spanish Steps. My favourite part of that afternoon was sitting in the Pantheon for a while. It was free, which at this stage of the trip is becoming important. But it was also spectacularly beautiful. I could sit in there for ages just admiring the massive dome ceiling. Its also got the tomb of Raphael in it, so its got that going for it too.

We did the Colosseum, we didn't really intend to go in, but we wanted to see the Roman forum which was all part of the same ticket (despite two different guide books insisting it was free...). The Colosseum was alright, I wouldn't have lost sleep if I didn't go inside though. The Palatine Hill was more interesting, lots of ruins and the like, and in the end we didn't see a lot of the Roman Forum, having had our fill with the Palatine and being dead tired by that point.

Went to the Vatican. Whilst we were ready for a long wait to get in, there was no real queue and we waltzed straight in. I was expecting to see shitloads of religious paintings, but it was actually a lot of Egyptian artifacts and other sculpture. After an hour or so though, its became rather repetitive, so we pushed on, and on, and on. It was ridiculously large, considering we sped through a lot of it and missed completely other sections. But the Raphael rooms were great. Awesome big frescoes wrapping around the rooms. Then the Sistine chapel. It was smaller than I thought, I was expecting something the size of St peters, and the panels of the fresco were quite small from the ground, but they are just awesome to look at. The Last Judgement and Creation of Man are worth the trip (though I probably spent longer looking at a large poster of Creation of Man in the gift shop than the actual painting...).

Then you get to St Peters square and the Cathedral. That's one big church. Another place you could spend ages just wandering around admiring how much money the church has. There is absolutely nothing spared in there, its all marble and statues and gold trim and... Wow the church has some money. Oddly enough (to me anyway) was the sound reinforcement system is big arrays of Bose 151 outdoor speakers. Black ones, spray painted the colour of Carrara marble. Odd. There was another Michelangelo sculpture inside, one of his Peita, which was also excellent, and very well lit from behind, so it made my photo look good.

Then we left Rome, onto Sorrento.

Circumvesuviana may just be the most awesome railway line in the world. It has a number of things going for it. Firstly, Pompeii. It has Pompeii as one of its stops. Then the is this stretch between Pozzano and Vico Equense. Its a tunnel the entire way through. Except for this tiny bit at Scrajo, a stop inside the tunnel where you an see a bit of daylight poking through, like a bit has been knocked out of the mountain. And then there is Seiano, a stop that's on a bridge, over a ravine. Cool.

I've been looking forward to Pompeii for a while and I really enjoyed it. Its remarkably preserved. I thought it was a tiny remote village, but it was quite an affluent town. The houses that you can wander through would have been wealthy estates and are very impressive. We saw some impressive frescoes, statues and columns. We saw some of the plaster cast of people killed (you can still see their skeletons sticking through the plaster) in the eruption. We saw the amphitheatre where Pink Floyd recorded a show. Most of the really cool artifacts have been rounded up and sent of to the Naples Archaeological Museum, which should be called the 'Naples Museum of cool shit we pinched from Pompeii'. We didn't go to the museum, so that'll be something to do next time I'm in Italy.

We took a day out to the Amalfi coast. Its a day that revealed to me several things, mainly my crippling dependence on coffee. I didn't have a cup in the morning and by mid day my decision making process was a bit fuzzy, choosing to walk into town instead of take a bus. By the time we reached Positano, I was basically on autopilot, we wandered aimlessly for 45 minutes before finding the way into town. Then I got irritable. Not that there was any reason not to. Positano isn't a very nice place. Its apparently 90% boutiques and 10% overpriced restaurants. Not my sort of place at all.

So we got another bus to Amalfi, where finally at 16 o'clock I had my first espresso of the day. Liz said you could see the colour return to my face as I drank that coffee. I instantly felt better and we had a good time in Amalfi. Its a nice enough little town, again heavy on the tourist trade, but it was more relaxed and there was evidence of life beyond tourism. So we wandered around for a while and caught a bus as that cup of coffee started wearing off. The trip is spectacular by the way, it twists and turns and winds around through the mountains along the cliffs that plunge into the sea. In my weakened state, I became quite car sick. I had to shut my eyes on that crowded bus and think about nice things for an hour and half. So I'm sure the Amalfi coast is quite nice, the moral of the story is that I need more coffee.

And we spent a day or two around Sorrento. We probably overstayed in Sorrento. We had originally planned to go to Capri as well, but after the Amalfi coast we'd seen enough tourist restaurants and ice-cream shops. Sorrento was actually nice, pretty touristy, but nice. Tourist traps are tourist traps because they are nice places to visit. But once they become totally geared towards that tourism, they really stop being nice places to visit. The views were nice, but I would rather have been somewhere else. Oh, and we saw fireworks. Over a few nights. Lots of them. Don't know what they were for.

So this has ended up being a marathon post, but I'm trapped on a plane, I'm bored and I have nothing to read. Oh wait, I do! I've got a copy of 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'! Oh well, I'm going to read that now. I was going to make two posts out of this, but I can just see things banking up, so why bother.

Italia

As I waited for my computer to boot up I had a good hard look at my reflection in the screen. I've been travelling a month, and have grown a bit of a beard. My face looks tired for sure, and my eyes are a bit puffy due to hay-fever and less sleep than I would like. I looked hard to see if I'd gained any weight, but I couldn't really say.

I haven't had a haircut since we left, despite best intentions. I intend now to keep the beard until we get home, but I definitely need to loose the hair. I also tried to grow my fingernails, they got quite long at one stage, but I found it a bit of hassle, they kept breaking on things. I've abandoned a few items of clothing along the way, trying to reduce the amount of luggage I'm carrying. I've got too many books, I need to post some home when I get to London.

So, a month over, and I'm having a good time. I am keeping track of the days though, maybe that's not a good sign. We're not even half way through our trip, although it feels like we're nearing the end for some reason. We're on a train to Florence now, just leaving Lucca.

Lucca is one of those places that everyone gushes about and its pretty easy to see why. Its quaint. Not in a bad way, its just quaint. There's a massive wall that surround the city, massive in width, not height. There is a park on top of it that stretches all the way around and you can walk or ride a bike. We didn't do much in Lucca, we weren't even there 24 hours. But It was nice just to stroll through the back streets that remind me something of being lost in a Melbourne alleyway. We had a couple of drinks at this bar last night. It wasn't sheap for a glass of wine (4 euro) but there was this buffet antipasti on the bar that after an hour we realised was free. And its was full of tasty tidbits. We also had some cecina, a chickpea based snack, kind of like a pizza with no topping. It was cheap and awesome.

Before Lucca was the Cinque Terre, five villages set in the cliffs with this walking track that wins between them. The walking track takes you through all these vineyards and lemon groves, with tiny gardens everywhere and sheer cliffs below you in some spots. The villages themselves are nice, lots of little restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. We spent a day walking the tracks and the next day took the train between villages. Incredibly picturesque, but I'm happy not to be climbing those tracks right now.

We stayed in La Spezia, which is a proper town about 10 minutes away by train. We had takeaway pizza by a water fountain and wandered up the hill through the middle of all these houses. Saw a lot of cats, which made me happy. Before La Spezia, we did the tourist dash through Pisa. Leaning tower, check. Bad photos, check. People say there's nothing more to Pisa than the Field of Miracles (where the tower and a few churches are) . I'm inclined to believe them.

So thats been the last few days, tommorow morning we are going to line up all day to try to get in to see David. We didn't reserve tickets (20 euro to reserve, vs 6.50 if you wait in line...), so I don't know if we will get in. I haven't hadd an internet connection for a few days, despite snatching a few minutes today to check on accomodation, so I need to catch up on news. I saw theres been a cabinet reshuffle and Andrew Symonds has been fired. I miss the internet...

Munich

Obligatory photo of person with beer larger than head.

Nutters surfing on in a river. A river.

The happiest vending machine mascot ever.

So we've made it to Rome. not that is was an epic trek, mainly we just had to sit on buses, but we've reached the end of the first part of our trip. That's the structured part over and done with, so now we have to plan out the next step. We're staying in the beehive (thanks Alex and Jane!), it's a nice apartment in central Rome. I'm drinking a Peroni as I type this, listening to the buses out our window. There is this little old Italian lady across the street who stares out her window smoking. Nice.

Munich was, as per usual, excellent. I keep saying that about each city we visit, but each city has its own set of charms and we probably aren't staying long enough to see the negatives. Anyway, Munich is pretty much as the postcards suggest. Giant beers and lots of them. Its a city geared towards beer drinking, so much so that they consider beer season to be the fifth season on the calendar. I drank my required 1.5 litres a day, and felt very Bavarian. Beer and sausage galore. plates of roasted meats. I felt quite at home despite not understanding anything said to me.

We did a day trip out to Neuschwanstein Castle, the castle Disney stole as the look for sleeping beauty's castle and the castle that Ludwig II built as an homage to Richard Wagner. It really is awesome countryside, you can point your camera anywhere and end up with a postcard.

We did the Venice thing and did it in style. In and out in two hours.We ran to St Marks Square, took a few photos on the canal and got a pizza. The pizza was great actually, we sat on this park bench and watched all these kids drinking beer in the square as we ate. Good people watching. Then we got the hell out of there. I'm sure there's lots to see in Venice, but really, I'm over canals and cobblestones.

We've bee in Rome two nights now, the weather has been pretty bad, but it seems nice out now. We're not doing any sight seeing as we're planning out the rest of our trip through Italy. We've booked some train tickets tomorrow to head through Pisa on our way to La Spezia, so we can go see the Cinque Terre. Then we're off to Florence, via Lucca. I don't know why, but I really want to see David for some reason.

Then we're going to head down south, then back to sight see in Rome before heading off to the UK next week. Looking forward to the rest of Italy, Rome so far hasn't done anything to impress me. That said, we've got a kitchen where we are, and if nothing else, I've really liked cooking again. Makes me yearn for my own kitchen. Then that reminds me I have no home anymore and I get depressed.

Later.