Home of the VIP

Refreshed we woke to a warm sunny morning quietly enthusiastic about Capri. Alysia was especially excited to find fresh bread and, wait for it… a toaster. She broke out our tube of tourist torture paste (Vegemite) and indulged in the taste of home sweet home.
To get to the ferry we walked down 100 stairs to the floor of a small valley in the cliff face. The water couldn’t even be termed choppy in the bay of Naples and was even calmer in the bay of Capri. We certainly didn’t baulk at getting out of the twin hull and straight onto a timber, five-metre vessel for our tour around the isle of Capri. We were shown the white grotto (cave), green grotto, then dropped off at a beach for a 40-minute swim - very precise in the Contiki fast-paced way. The water was beautiful even if the rocky beach made us wish we were home. Very salty, it was therapeutic for Alysia and her big toe, which had just been bloodied by a clumsy tour-goer. Alysia and I took turns watching our gear on the beach, even if no one else seemed worried. Further around the island we passed through a natural archway over the water that was probably better than I first gave credit.
A few minutes later we arrived at the entrance to the famous blue grotto, the swimming hole of the Roman emperor Tiberius - one of the first playboys. It was he popularised the island though there seems to be some conjecture as to if he found the place. It quickly became a holiday spot for the Roman senators anyway. Today, the grotto wasn’t getting the pants off the ladies but it was fleecing the tourists at precisely 11.50 euro to jump in a tiny rowboat that fit five people to disappear through a small hole in the cliff side. Bobbing around outside the entrance to this sea cave were maybe a dozen tourist boats like ours and perhaps as many wooden dingys. At all of maybe three metres long the pilot would stand with oars in hand and work them back and forward rising and falling over the boat wash. The Italians chatted back and forward over the two-way radio and used a lot of hand gestures, some familiar, some not. It’s another language. The prognosis as shared by Katia was not good - it would be a 90-minute wait. Many on our other boat weren’t keen so they went on to another beach for a swim. We had come around the world and were determined to do as many of these once-in-a-life things as possible. We bobbed away without a care and made some small talk. Half an hour later it was our turn.
Swinging over the side we lowered ourselves one at a time with a little more finesse than some of the other people we had watched. Our boatman levered away at the oars like he was born doing it, over to a bigger boat where we paid the money to enter. Going blind, I was seated on the floor of the bow, entering the tunnel. We lowered our heads as one to pass through, such little leeway there was, as our boatman ditched his oars and pulled us in along a chain suspended from the cave roof. In a few seconds we were inside and released a combined gasp of amazement. The only light entering the cave was that from beneath us, through the water, reflected off the white sand beneath. It was truly azzure - the most brilliant shade of blue one might ever see in the natural realm. I happily shot some video while our boatman worked hard for a tip, singing to demonstrate the acoustics. How we wished we could swim in there but it was “forbidden”. It was lucky I took video because Alysia’s camera simply wouldn’t focus and I doubt my Canon would have either - it would have to have been a manual job. And our time was up, we were in there for all of two minutes, yet this did not detract from the experience.
Back at port we ate some lunch, more pasta for Alysia and a generous bruscetta for me - so fresh, so good. And filling, so there was little reason for a few of us not to walk the 750 metres up to the town proper. There were a few stairs but it was mainly just walking up hill through the narrow laneways. Shade was quickly sort where available given the oppressive heat and humidity - we were all soaked by the top. But what to do once there? It was all Prada, Dolce and Gabbana - basically just fashion brands for the rich. Get me back to the beach.
The water was so good even if the pebbles were packed with people on the shore - luckily there was a little more room once wet. And kids being kids there was no staying dry as they splashed their siblings and parents, we were just caught in the cross fire. As 4pm drew closer and our time to regroup, some of the guys and girls were gathering for beers. I was desperately tempted but just as happy to dry off ready for the trip back. Only trouble was, waiting for the ferry in the sun, I was just as wet again in a few moments.
Off the ferry in Sorrento there was only one thing standing between us and a shower, all those bloody steps we had bounced down that morning. It was a steady slog but the last 12 steps were near torture. The fact there was no water pressure back at the room was literally torture, I’m sure some were thinking. While they cursed one another from their shower stalls I went to get supplies. The supermarket was open and inside I found some cheaper sunscreen and some stain remover ready for our next stoush with the laundry - white clothes and travelling don’t mix. I even found some water (the tap stuff was horrible) and paid. I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a one euro (1.50 AUD) litre bottle of wine even though it was probably fine. The cold largies of Peroni lager were more tempting, still I resisted. I really had to get back and blog.
An hour in Alysia fell to the temptation of those cheap beers and went to grab a couple. I’m dreading going back home because I will surely have to share my coldies with her now. They went down well too, evaporating the hour until we went for dinner. And a late dinner it was. As a group we walked to the restaurant at 8 but didn’t eat until closer to 10. Not even the woman with the bloody nose, we encountered on the way there, could fill the gap with speculation over what happened. The food was welcome and we devoured almost every last morsel. More pasta and more thinly sliced, dry meat, drowned in gravy in case you wondered. Besides we were all keen to check out the cocktail place Katia had told us about. So, getting close to 11 we made our way out the doors and down the busy street. It was a real tourist town, complete with street artists extracting tips. Our rush was all but for nothing though as we stood and perspired at the cocktail bar but it is high summer in the south of Italy; it’s what we signed up for. And the cocktails were worth the six euros, even if the venue was uninspiring. Thankfully we were among a handful to grab the balcony - above the carved valley we walked earlier that day - to enjoy my mojito. Alysia enjoyed the fruit tingle too but the club to dance and have fun, just a distant promise on the horizon. Better to call it a night she thought. And I wished I possibly had too, despite enjoying another couple of mojitos and hitting that club. It was well worth it to see Dicko, a guy on our tour originally from Tamworth, dirty dancing with the dirty woman we dubbed Mumma Cougar. Very sweet and outrageously funny. But how would I feel in the morning?
I got back to the room and was surprised to find Alysia awake. That’s just the beauty of wifi and Skype I guess, having just chatted away with the parents. But now was time for sleep.
Sam (August 21)

Sorrento!

It seemed like the whole 51 people on our tour wanted nothing but to sleep on the first morning, many having gone out till 2am - some had not even been to bed. So the first hour and a bit to Sorrento was good. Even stopping for food and drinks for the mandatory driver break was fine. But a riot almost started when Katia, our Contiki mumma, wanted to play games. Kinda like speed dating, everyone in an aisle seat had to stand up and move down two seats to meet someone new. I was sceptical at first but put in the effort. Unfortunately some were too tired or just not interested. This was followed by an Italian phrase lesson, which for the ladies included a cast away line to ward off unsolicited attention from the “Italian stallions“.
The three-hour trip to Naples didn’t take long at all and perhaps the most tedious part was winding our way up impossibly narrow streets to the hilltop resort-esque town. Fabio, our driver, seemed to take it with ease, even with the kamikaze oncoming traffic. So narrow were the streets in Sorrento proper we had to walk 10 minutes to our hotel while our luggage was transferred - still this was luxury to some of our own transfers earlier in the trip. We found the hotel to be a pleasant surprise too, all new fittings and very clean. We dumped our bags in the room and our TV remote (which you are given at reception with the key) and went for lunch as a group. The café-restaurant was perched on a cliff at least 100m above the water, like most of the town is. We were guiltily glad it tailored to tourists too, so I could order a steak and dodge some of the carbs. Alysia ordered a hamburger. We got to know a couple of Canadians from the night before. A clear, haze free sky, would have made it a near a perfect lunch.
“Shot, shot-shot-shot, shot shot,” Katia sang from some US song on the pop charts. It was time to go and sample the real limoncello. In the back of the shop a couple of old Italian guys were peeling lemons, putting the rind into a vat of pure alcohol, where it stews for a few days. I thought they would just ferment the skins but then I’m probably naive. At 30 per cent it’s certainly strong enough but maybe one needs to develop an appreciation for it, because I wasn’t fussed. The crème version was certainly more appealing.
That afternoon many people went to the “beach” but I was happy to leave Alysia to relax by the pool while I went to do some laundry. Mundane? Yes, but holidays, or adventures, can’t always be exciting. The empty coin laundry was an unexpected place of solace, a place to relax and digest the past few days.
Many of the group had opted into a pizza night but we decided to do our own thing. We walked out of the hotel lobby turned left and took a seat in the courtyard of a restaurant. The clam spaghetti I had as a first was quite good and the chicken cacciatore was even better - it was a real home cooked-style meal which was just what I needed. I theorised with Alysia it was perhaps the sort of meal an Italian might come home to at the end of the day, a hearty casserole, perhaps a little tongue in cheek. Her green gnocci pesto with salmon was equally welcomed.
Afterward we scoped out a nearby pharmacy for some sunscreen but at near 20 euros we walked on only to find the supermarket closed. So it was back to the room for some rest and a little blogging. Tomorrow we were going to Capri, the town of the VIP.
Sam (August 20)

Rome wasn't built in a day

Roma, wasn’t built in a day. And we weren’t going to see it in one either.
We arrived in Rome about 1.30pm on a bus from Siena. A short taxi ride and we found our hotel easily enough, the first floor in a multiple storey building. Each floor was dedicated to a different hotel. The top floor was called Fawlty Towers. This struck fear into us as we climbed the stairs to our hotel and things didn’t look to be going any better when the cleaning lady checked us in and had to turn on the lights in the hotel as we walked through.
It became apparent we were probably the only ones staying there. But it was cheap, clean, and much, much nicer than our ridiculously expensive hotel in Siena. We were also within spitting distance of the main train station, Termini.
We unceremoniously dumped our bags and decided to hit the city. Our Contiki tour was to start the next evening at 6pm and had an optional excursion of the forum and colosseum. However, on my last tour which also had this option, the tour did not go inside either the forum or the colosseum but walked around the perimeter. So I felt it was worth us doing these things ourselves that way we wouldn’t miss out on going inside and spending as long as we wanted on photos.
A short metro trip turned into near disaster when a pickpocket got busy in Sam’s shorts just before our stop. Luckily his wallet was in his other pocket and I saw the guy just in time to slap his hand away. Despite this, he went back in for another go and as I went to hit him again, the metro stopped and we walked out. Sam had been pretty much unaware of what had happened and when I told him he burred up, telling me that if someone else tried to do it he would break their fingers.
Yeah, OK babe. (Right of reply: I had noticed his hand brush past my pocket - I was annoyed I did not for a moment think it was happening to me - for weeks I have been wary and it only took my guard to slip for just a few moments.)
So, we popped out at Colosseo, the metro station just across the road from the Colosseum. Again I tried to get Sam to close his eyes so I could lead him to stand under this amazing structure but I was too late. He had caught a glimpse of it as we came through the turnstiles at the station - that’s how close it is - and expressed that he was quite “under whelmed” by the sight of it.
OK, it was 2pm, we were a bit hungry, having only just got off the bus after a three-hour trip and it was hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.
And the pickpocket incident was festering away under Sam’s skin, coming to the boil every few minutes with a comment about breaking someone’s fingers.
But, it’s the colosseum! How anyone could be under whelmed by it baffled me to tears.
So we got some very expensive pizza, sat in the colosseum’s shadow and watched the hawkers flog hats, tripods, scarves and all manner of souvenirs.
The line for the colosseum extended out the main entry and it was too hot to stand in the sun, plus it would take hours.
Sam said he thought it was the harsh early afternoon light making the colosseum appear so unimpressive so we decided to do the forum first and head back to the colosseum later.
During my previous two visits to Rome, entry to the forum has been free. You could walk in as you pleased from early in the morning until about sunset. As we approached the gate, it became apparent that fewer and fewer things in this world are free. Entry to the forum now cost and you had to buy your ticket from the gate on the far side to where we were, on the western side of the Via Sacra, the main path through the forum.
Disappointed in this blatant money-making scheme, I reluctantly decided to pay for it when we discovered it also included entry to the colosseum, enabling us to skip the long, long queue we had seen before.
But as I said, it was hot and the heat was getting the better of both our tempers.
Sam was frustrated he hadn’t read up on any of the history of Rome and the forum and I was disappointed in his reaction to it.
And I could appreciate his position. To anyone unfamiliar with Roman history, the forum is a valley full of old bricks - parts of columns, tumbled stone, vague pathways and brown, boring bricks.
Even though I had been there twice before, it stretched my brain to the limit to try and remember all that I could about it for Sam’s benefit. We got the huffs and the puffs and darted from shady spot to shady spot trying to get a feel for what it must have looked like 2000 years ago. It really is a stretch of the imagination.
We wandered up to the Palatine, one of the four hills the forum was founded between and where the most famous and prestigious Roman families lived in ancient times.
There was a lot of steps, hills, uneven ground and enough generally annoying things to make us more than a bit snappy at one another.
At the top of what had been Emperor Tiberius’ house, a tour guide was speaking to a group in English. It was not difficult to overhear his commentary as he described the ruins below and the buildings they had been before. It was somewhat helpful but still frustrating for Sam, I felt.
A wander over the hill and we checked out what we could of what had been the Emperor Augustus’ house and his wife Livia as well as the stadium.
By this time it was about 5pm and we decided to leave the forum and check out the colosseum in the softer light of the afternoon.
We bypassed the long line with our tickets and walked straight in. An exhibition called Gladiatores was showing on the first level of the colosseum and we spent a few minutes wandering its displays and reading up on the structure and about the men and beasts that fought there before actually stepping out into the sunlight inside.
Finally, Sam was impressed. Again, you do need to use some imagination when viewing the colosseum but this has been aided with a reconstruction of the wooden floor and some of the marble tiers that spectators would have sat on.
By this stage my feet were hurting and I was cursing that stupid paver in Siena where I had slipped and broken my thongs. My other shoes, packed more for evening wear than for the day, offered me no support and little cushioning.
We took all the usual snaps and Sam did his artistic thing.
We walked back down to the lower level and tried to imagine staring up at the 50,000-odd spectators that would have sat above. It looks a lot bigger looking down into its interior than staring up.
Exiting out the other side to where we entered, we debated whether or not to return to the hotel for the night and find dinner around there, or have dinner close to the colosseum and wait for the sun to go down and the lights in the colosseum to come on. It really is a spectacular sight.
We opted to wait, unsure whether or not we would get the chance to return once the tour had started and found a restaurant on the other side of the road to the colosseum.
Considering the remarkable view, it wasn’t ridiculously over priced and I personally could stare at the colosseum for hours.
So we ate and as the light faded, chose what we thought was the best time to get our night snaps, when there was still a touch of light in the sky enough to provide a contrast to the structure.
But our waiter was having none of that.
Try as I might to get his attention and our bill, it took at least 15 minutes, with each one passing so did the amount of his tip and the light.
Finally, when we had paid, the light was gone and it was full dark and cursing the waiter we headed back across to the colosseum to see what could be salvaged of the night.
I had also forgotten the tripod, making long exposures near impossible unless you have something to rest the camera body on.
Still we managed a few OK shots, admired the view and decided to call it a day.
Back on the metro and hands firmly on our bags and pockets, we made it back to the hotel. The next day we would have to check out and find our way to our Contiki start point.
Alysia (August 17)

Contiki!
In a few hours time we would meet our Contiki crew but for the time being Rome was ours to conquer. If we could get our act together. The brief was simple enough: get from our cheap hotel to the Contiki digs.
Trouble was I had got out on the wrong side. Maybe I should have just stayed in bed. At my irritable best we went to an internet café to confirm Contiki’s directions weren’t quite right. Already, I was anxious to be checked in. Not even hunger would slow me down and I would drag Alysia kicking and screaming if need be.
“Just put the bags down and we will eat here,” Alysia reasoned.
But I would have none of it. Here’s the taxi and here we go. If I could get my seatbelt on. It wasn’t an unpleasant ride either. There was no talk of politics, just rugby, to my surprise. I thought football was all soccer in Italy. Turns out I was wrong.
“Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by thugs,” our driver explained, “Rugby is a thug’s game played by gentlemen.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. And he wasn’t stingy with compliments regarding the Australian team. But the English?
“Johnny Wilkinson, pft,” he said, “the English are rubbish,” implying his boot had carried the whole nation.
Despite the enthusiastic driving we made it to the four-star hotel without a problem. The fare didn’t sting too badly either. In any case, we just couldn’t bear the alternative of catching the underground with our bags and changing tubes and blah blah blah. We bid our taxi farewell and walked through the hotel’s revolving door (how fancy) and asked to check in. Fortunately even though the room was not ready we could leave our bags. Unfortunately we were now snappier than a pair of starved crocodiles. “No worries,” I thought. The concierge would point me in the direction of the city centre and food. Perhaps she interpreted my request a little too literally and pointed me, us, in the general direction. And I failed to pay much attention to her brief instructions on the public transport. So off we walked and walked until we were deeper into the suburbs. Alysia was not happy and neither was I. Back we marched to the hotel giving each other a little space on the way. In vain we walked in the other direction to find food. Instead I found the underground. So we got on. And when we got off we were at the Spanish Steps. Alysia, by this stage, had had enough of me and sat at the steps like she had three years earlier. I was so hungry the McDonalds ban was declared void and I stormed off following the signs. A few minutes later I skulked back in defeat to Alysia. Somehow we soon put all the back biting behind us to go and eat. By the time the food started to digest we were putting the morning behind us and starting afresh.
First we bought a guidebook to Rome and made our way to the Trevi Fountain. Through the vast crowd we waded toward the water and absorbed its beauty. As per the custom I tossed in a coin to ensure my return to Rome. On we walked into the heat and out of a narrow little street we hit the Pantheon, Rome’s oldest temple. Half the façade was hidden behind scaffolds but the interior was exposed for all to see. What an awe-inspiring building. The domed roof is an engineering masterpiece, unsupported, built 2000 years before computers. The Oculus is of course the focal point with light flooding in: the Romans wanted nothing standing between them and the gods. And being smart enough to build such an unsupported dome you can bet they had a solution to rain water coming in. Yes, they formed the marble floor in a convex way to help that water drain away. For a while we sat and soaked in the atmosphere.
Walking away from the Pantheon was difficult in its own right but even trickier given the heat. Our feet were on fire and I thought my shoes might melt onto the footpath. I was determined, however, to find the Castel Sant’ Angelo. Every boy loves a good Roman fort. But this was not originally a castle; it was a tomb for Saint Angelo but was converted into a fortress against the invading barbarians. Inside I found a reconstruction of how one of its armouries might have looked. Deeper within were rooms added by Pope Paul III, from the renaissance, including frescos said to reflect his character and sensibilities without being a blatant monument to himself. Outside, on the roof, lay grand vistas of the city. Nearby, St Peter’s Basilica and in the distance, Monument Hill - where all the wealth plundered by Rome’s foreign legions was deposited. I soaked it all in briefly then descended the stairs to find Alysia waiting patiently outside in the shade. It was time to get the underground back to the hotel and meet our Contiki brothers and sisters.
Luckily for us we made our way to the hotel when we did because the meeting with our tour manager was in fact an hour earlier than advertised. We had just enough time to drop the bags in the room and make it just in time. We were seated only a couple of minutes when the tour manager came in and began the briefing. Her name was Katia and she was Italian, born in Venice actually. “A crazy country,” she kept reminding us. She would become our Contiki Mamma and us one big family.
At about the point where everyone was at information overload Katia wanted to check our passports and for us to fill in forms. This was done in turns which gave some of us a chance to chat. That’s how we met Peter, from Canada. There were a lot of Canadians on our tour. Peter had just come from Denmark staying with friends and was keen to learn some more about the Mediterranean, he being of Greek heritage. Alysia, Peter and I all hoped it would be a great 10 or more days. With the paperwork done we could now go and clean up for dinner and get our teeth into what promised to be a crazy week and a bit.
At dinner we caught up with Peter again and met his room mate Ryan from Kansas City. This was Ryan’s fifth Contiki and he was only 25. One of those trips was along the east coast of Australia. The other guys at our table were Australians Greg and Alwyn, taking leave from foreign duties with the Army.
“Where are you from,” Greg asked.
“Well, you probably haven’t heard of it,” Alysia started, “we live in a little place called Tamworth.”
“Yeah, I know Tamworth,” Greg said, “I grew up there.”
After dinner the Contiki family jumped on a bus and headed into the city to see … the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. Had we wasted our time today? Not really. This would be a great chance for me to see the attractions in a different light - even if Alysia had seen these attraction in day, night and whatever other scenario two occasions previously. It was an enjoyable evening which included a couple of sly beers while walking the streets. But after such a long day falling into bed was even better.
Sam (August 18)

The spectacle of Il Palio

Our first day in Siena had tested us both. The next 24-and-a-bit hours would require commitment. But first we thought it best to buy our bus tickets to Rome for the Monday morning, before it sold out. This was to be the day’s first trying moment. Instead of the advertised five euros it was in fact 21 euros each - quite a difference.
In a huff we walked up into the main fortification of Siena and looked out over the city on what was a beautiful morning. This couldn’t even boost our spirits. So we walked into the basilica where we found not only a shrine to St Catherine but the relics, proof of her existence perhaps to the pilgrims. Among the trinkets in a glass box was her head, skin intact, even if the gristle of her nose had decayed along with part of her top lip. I was glad to see this one relic from a distance, yet to the pilgrims it is a great sight.
On we walked back toward the duomo to survey it without the assembled town’s folk, that we came across the night before. But of course, it was Sunday, and there was a service on - a good chance to grab lunch we guessed.
Wandering the streets there seemed to be only two options: pizza and pizza. Maybe with a side of pasta. Normally we’d love this but these meals had become our entire diet since we landed in Italy. Eventually we got tired of rejecting places and chose one of the tourist traps. Alysia was starving and ordered ravioli while I ordered a ribbolina soup and some roast (pan seared) veal. “Half a litre of wine?” Better make it a regular bottle and enjoy ourselves. While it wasn’t cheap I quite enjoyed it. Alysia enjoyed her dish too, all five pieces of it. Despite my repeated offers to share my meal she declined but help me plough through the bottle.
Back at the duomo people were flowing in through the doors so we followed suit. We had a much better view of the frescos including a whole room with texts from the 1500s and earlier. The only problem was, Alysia was drunk, having barely eaten. This was compounded by her missing breakfast. She didn’t get the happiness either - she virtually skipped straight to hungover. Wandering around the cathedral, followed by the crypt, the baptistry and then the museum. The only consolidation; it was a little cooler indoors. The crypt was a little disappointing. There were cabinets everywhere to display stuff but nothing in them. The room itself was a little more interesting, as we walked around on a false floor with glass sections so we could see the original dirt and rock floor, constructed as it was in the foundations of the duomo above. But there were no monuments or the like. The baptistry ceiling was beautifully painted in the most curious way. My favourite scene depicted people emerging from the earth almost like plants, pulling themselves out of the soil. It wasn’t the most beautiful but the most unexpected. We then entered the museum proper that housed the marble sculptures that once adorned the duomo. Now they’re safe I guess. The little glass chests that contained the bones of religious identities were interesting too. Our entry to the museum also included a panoramic vista (as the Italians call them). So we climbed yet another tower and out along a wall. If nothing else it gave us a great view of the Piazza del Campo where Palio would be run in little more than 24 hours.
With the day filled in we decided to grab some dinner. The trick though, was navigating the streets, flooded with people and blocked off so each province’s supporters could eat outside their church. We were keen for Chinese that we had spotted the night before, but couldn’t get back there. We were close to cannibalism and divorce (possibly in that order) after two hours and settled for another tourist trap of a restaurant - at least the food was good and in bigger portions than lunch. Time for bed.

The sun was well up when we rose. It was after breakfast so pizza for brunch was all but mandatory - we didn’t want a repeat of yesterday. Ready to go? No. The video camera battery was flat. With a quick charge we were out the door on our way to the del Campo at noon. By half past we had worked out the best vantage point in the centre of the square. We sat on the ground at the highest point so we could see as much of the track - 50cm of clay laid over cobblestones - as possible. As a bonus, we would get the shade soon. And we were in the second row off the fence. There we sat for hours, watching the square fill up, eating a handful of snacks and sipping water occasionally. There are no toilets in the square and once they close the gates you are stuck there so at minimum we had to hold our bladders for three hours. The water cart wetting the track surely tested a few bladders but provided many more the option of a shower if they urged the driver strong enough.
Here we had our second celebrity sighting of the trip in the form of Sting. He was in the terrace of one of the buildings directly in front of us, watching the entertainment below among the plebs.
A little after five the square was getting rather full and the prelude began. People roared as the guards, as I call them, rode into the square prancing along on horseback- the loudest cheers being saved for when they hit full gallop, swords drawn and outstretched. The cheers were few and far between from then on during the procession, extended toward the flag bearers from each of the 17 provinces. The men in their wigs, carrying batons or on horseback were equally worthy. But inevitably people would cheer when the flags were thrown into the sky and caught successfully.
The procession went on and on. Alysia in the midst of this succumbed to the heat and lack of food, feeling the urge to throw up. Maybe it was a drop in blood pressure from standing still so long, packed in like a sardine. A middle-aged couple were eager to help and make sure all was well though. They made her sit down while they fanned her with our hats. All I could do was watch helplessly. And try to get around the English Spanish language barrier. Perhaps she needed sugar he thought, so another guy was kind enough to offer some biscuits. All the while the parade went on. Four bullocks even pulled a heavy dray around with ornate solid timber pews atop, sitting in which were some men of the church. Right at the end all the flag bearers were vying to outdo one another. This was how Palio was to claim another victim. As the flag bearers were leaving the track one guy wrapped the flag around the pole and threw it higher than anyone into the air. Skewing off course, such was the force behind it, the bearer ran toward where he thought it would land. But he couldn’t reach it. Because it speared into the crowd. The paramedics ran toward the scene, seconds later, they pulled a woman out of the crowd on a stretcher. The drama didn’t end there. As the vehicle tried to manoeuvre a three-point turn it tagged the fence, raising another cheer from the crowd. This was only topped by the applause for safely getting her out of the stadium - a sign of appreciation to the medics.
The horses with their jockeys soon entered the stadium proper, having earlier been paraded. The rope starting line was strung from post to post and the theatrics began. Over a loudspeaker a man, seemingly at random, starting calling the horses to the startline. All the while corners of the crowd booed at their horse’s poor starting position. Then, the horses appeared unable to line up behind the rope. The theatrics grew as the jockeys then started fighting. This of course enraged corners of the crowd even more, screaming at the opposing jockeys. And when they couldn’t line up, the horses would be drafted back out for the process to start over. The jockeys drew the crops on each other at one stage - it was outrageously funny especially when one could see the jockey’s faces complete with small grin. Lined up again and again it was quite without warning when the race started and the crowd roared. The horses flew down the first straight and round the first bend - the speed magnified by how close we were. The rest is a blur. I struggled to capture any video and Alysia failed to really get any pictures. A horse lost its jockey, then they were seemingly crossing the finish line accompanied by three large explosions to signal the end. The crowd roared and were on the track in moments to meet the winner, the region symbolised by the tortoise. There was nothing left to do but head back to the room with some pizza and sleep. It was only 8pm.
Sam (August 15 and 16)

The tragedy of a broken pair of thongs

I had been so looking forward to today and everything seemed to be going so well. Now I am here in Siena and it sucks.
It’s about 10pm and I already think I hate the place. Maybe even more than I dislike rude Germans.
The day started well - we were up with plenty of time after packing our bags the night before and checked out of Hotel Annabella about 9.30am. The lovely owner, who we fell in love with and made us feel so welcome who I nicknamed Guiseppe, said we could leave our luggage there until we left for Siena.
Doing so, we found an internet café down the road and sussed out the location of our hotel in relation to the bus stop we would alight at in Siena. Turns out, according to Google Maps, that it was about a 200m walk and very easy to find. Just one turn and walk down the road. Haha, yeah right.
We boarded our bus without any trouble. It had started to storm while we were online and we hoped it would be clearer in Siena.
No changes or connections this time around, although we did pass through the serial killer town again.
We arrived in Siena after about an hour and a half not really knowing what to expect but confident that it didn’t matter. We had booked a super nice hotel according to the booking agency (mainly cos that’s all that was available) and if it was raining we would enjoy the view and our room and catch up on some blogging.
Well, finding the hotel was to be the first of our challenges. It seems Google Maps had taken a rather liberal view of down one corner and walk straight. We did that - in several different directions - and only ended up at more turns and more streets.
So we walked one way, then another and if you can imagine a single point on a map we walked away from it four times at 90-degree angles and were still lost.
We walked across the road to a park and there, having sworn and snapped and generally hated and blamed each other for our predicament, Sam set off to look for the hotel while I sat with the luggage under a tree and tried to stay dry. Did I mention it was raining again?
Within five minutes Sam was back and a shrug of the shoulders told me he still had no idea.
It was my turn to set out and I also returned within a few minutes, our Googling having deceived us completely.
Finally, Sam went and asked someone in a corner café who pointed him in the complete opposite direction with two left turns - not on Google at all.
Sceptical and cranky, I stayed with the bags, now waterproofed with their little covers while I sat in the rain.
Five minutes, 10 minutes, I was convinced he was lost.
Finally, from another direction to the one he had left in, he returned and cracked a smile. He had found it, and not where Google or the guy had said. It wasn’t too far, maybe 300m but it was still raining quite heavily.
We set off, me following while Sam led us to what should have been our beautiful hotel.
Now, maybe if I hadn’t stacked it on a major road, landing on my arse and back, I would have been in a better mood when I discovered our hotel was a dump, but I did and there you go. For days Sam and I have been joking about my shoes and the chances of me slipping over in my thongs which are very slippery on wet surfaces. Just on the bus on the way here, we had joked that if I did Sam wouldn’t be helping me up but getting out the video camera to film it while I lay there like a turtle caught on its shell - so back heavy would I be with my pack on.
And, fortunately for Sam‘s manhood, he did no such thing when the time came.
All I know is we were within metres of the hotel entrance and on a slight decline, I stepped on a smooth paver and my foot went out from underneath me. In fact, my thong did. I ripped the toe plug straight out of the thong and hit the pavement with my bum. I did manage to hold on to my fake Prada handbag and luckily Sam had just taken the laptop off me.
So down I went. People across the street laughed, though I didn’t see them, I heard them. Sam told me later he gave them the bird and they stopped. A woman and her son who had just been walking past me at the time stopped to help me. I think it was more embarrassing that I couldn’t get up with the weight of my pack behind me than anything else. Sam had to literally pull me upright.
So, red-faced and wet and already in a bad mood, we checked in.
The hotel was found on Last Minute Accommodation and I would not recommend them to anyone. It is supposed to be two star and, OK, that’s not great but this place would be lucky to be classified as a youth hostel.
It’s a former monastery so I would expect it to have some character etc but this is not character. It’s damp and mouldy and cracked ceilings and windows that don’t close, stained green carpet, a broken shower door, cold showers and formica furnishings, no safe as promised in the description and the wifi doesn’t work.
It is the worst place we have stayed in. It was supposed to be one of the best.
Learning all this after my dramatic stack in front of a crowd and I was in tears.
Sam went downstairs and told the reception girl it was not what we had been expecting and were less than impressed. She has promised we can look at some other rooms tomorrow as they are all different.
I can’t even describe the layout. It’s a veritable maze of walls and doors and rooms and levels. There are floors and then levels on each floor with mirrors on the walls that just make it more confusing so that you are stepping down to step up - if that makes sense.
So I had a quick shower in the broken shower with the cracked and water damaged ceiling and lay down on the bed and sulked.
I wasn’t upset with Sam, just the hotel, the booking agency, my thongs and thus Billabong.
Meanwhile, our neighbour in the room down the stairs but on the same floor and next door, was a violinist. When we first checked in, they were playing some sweet, melancholy tunes, it was very pleasant actually. An hour later, it was scales, over and over.
Two hours later, and still the scales.
We went out - if for nothing else we needed to eat.
We wandered towards where we thought the town centre was, up hills and down hills. Siena is a very hilly place.
And quite by chance we came across the Piazza del Campo, the site of the famous Palio and were we hoped to spend six hours or more in the sun on Monday to watch a 75-second bareback horse race.
The track, such that it was, had been covered with clay to give the horses some traction on the cobble-stoned square. The terrace and balcony seating was already set up or in the process of being so. We tried to work out what would be our best vantage point on race day but decided there probably was none. At my height I would be lucky to see the horses’ hoofs. Unfortunately, terrace or balcony seating was not a option at 300 euro a pop. Standing in the middle of the square for the race was free but as they had to close entry to it early on for parades and such, it means people who choose this option have to stand in the sun (or rain) for up to five hours before the actual race gets under way with no toilet facilities etc. Sounds like fun yeah?
Deciding not to venture out onto the track today given the rain had turned the clay to mud, we continued our exploration of the town centre.
It really is a charming place, all narrow cobblestone streets, brightly decorated with the colours of the provinces competing in Monday’s race. It was all very festive.
Before long, I spotted the now familiar marks of a Tuscan duomo, green and white striped marble. We came out into the Piazza del Duomo where Siena’s cathedral dominates.
It was begun in the 12th century and is one of the great examples of Italian Romanesque architecture.
Its main façade was completed in 1380.
It was magnificent. Florence’s duomo is enormous and grand, but this was beautiful. Much more gothic influences at work here on the exterior, at least. There were hundreds of people about and we presumed this was typical sightseeing at work, much as Florence’s duomo is always crowded.
After a few snaps we decided to look inside as it seemed people were just coming and going as they pleased.
Up the marble stairs and a sign at the entrance said entry was free from August 14 to 17, the days we were here - obviously for Palio.
We went in and were suddenly overwhelmed by the swelling sound of thunderous drumming.
Some sort of Palio proceedings were taking place with drummers, flag bearers and little kids dressed in all the different colours of the provinces competing in the great race present. Hundreds of people looked on as the official blessing of the event took place. I can only guess this by the way because it was all in Italian.
Sam and I were thrilled to have stumbled across something like this and started snapping away like everyone else even though signs everywhere said no photography. Television crews were capturing the action and it was standing room only at the front, which of course means I could see diddly squat.
After about 10 minutes, the drummers and flag bearers began to parade toward the cathedral doors and out into the piazza so I raced ahead to be there on the way out - like a good journalist does.
There they were in their magnificent colours and I got some great pics I will have to post. Unfortunately the bloody tv crews kept getting in the way (typical) and some amazing shots I got of one “province” were ruined by the enormous bum of a camera man that I’m not sure can be cropped out.
It had also stopped raining. So, on that little high, having captured something so amazing and feeling all the energy in the town, we set off to find some dinner. It was about 6.30pm.
Pizza. That’s what they eat in Siena. If anyone asks, pizza. And do you know what, the last thing I felt like was pizza. I felt like I had had it everyday since we arrived in Italy and I just wanted normal food. Or real pizza, from Dominos. I know weird, but I like Dominos Pizza better. The Italians use way too much mozzarella.
So, we didn’t want pizza and we walked and walked and walked and the only restaurants we found that served something other than pizza, were empty and that was never a good sign.
Cranky now because I was over-hungry I gave up and went back to the room while Sam went to look for something other than pizza.
Within 10 minutes he was back, with kebabs. Still, it wasn’t pizza. In the meantime I had worked out the wifi didn’t work so we will have to post this when we get to an internet café.
And to toast our shoddy hotel and our kebabs, Sam, opened the bottle of Belgian beer he has been carting around for the past two and a bit weeks. He was going to post it home but after we read about how dodgy the Italian postal service is, we decided against it.
Beer and pizza and then we decided, just to really feel like home, we’d watch some tv. Nope, that’s broken too.
Alysia (August 14)

San Pyjamas

We decided to spend our final day in Florence out of Florence, on a day trip to San Gimignano or as we came to call it, San Pyjamas.
San Pyjamas is a small medieval town deep in the Tuscan countryside, set high on a hill some hour bus ride out of Florence. It’s picturesque, touristy and we were deadest on going there, even if it did start storming before we even left the bus station.
It was our first sign of bad weather since we had arrived in Italy, if you discount the storms that diverted us to Rome from Pisa and the lightning we had seen on the horizon from the hotel’s rooftop terrace the night before.
Anyway, we had bought our bus ticket for 14 euro return the day before when we booked our tickets to Siena and we were loathe to waste them.
We hoped the weather would be clearer at the famous tourist spot and were disappointed when we stopped to change buses at Poggibonsi to find it was raining even harder, the thunder crashing even louder and more lightning than we had experienced in Florence.
We had half an hour to wait for the connecting bus and for a good 10 minutes we were in two minds about whether or not to continue to San Pyjamas.
Concluding that we had nothing to lose by going, as we had our return ticket already paid for and could always get straight on the next bus back to Florence and our beautiful hotel, we boarded the bus to San Pyjamas.
It seemed fate was finally working in our favour because only a few minutes out of the town, on the steep, slow hill climb, the rain stopped. Mind you San Pyjamas is famous for its views, not for its cloud cover and it was with some disappointment we looked across the valley to see our view only extended a mere hundred metres or so before being lost in palls of white.
We were surprised by the number of tourists who had also braved the weather to visit this place and set off up the main drag towards the infamous towers of the town. There used to be several of these towers, 72 to be exact, built in the 11th century as a monument to the town’s wealth but now just 13 remain.
Shops filled with wine, dried pasta, biscotti, olive oil, leather and meat goods lined the pedestrian-friendly and narrow streets. Catering to the tourist hordes in their thousands, Americans flocked to buy the wine only produced in San Gimignano. With a price tag of two bottles for 8 euro alarm bells should have been ringing as to its quality. We steered clear of the pack and found ourselves outside the Romanesque duomo known also as the Collegiate. After buying our entry to it and the accompanying museum, we went inside to find floor to ceiling frescoes. The frescoes, painted by someone with no good knowledge of male and female form by the name of Ghirlandaio, depicted on the one side of the basilica the Old Testament and on the other side, the New. The works were simpler, cruder in form compared to the classical style we had seen in Florence’s very famous duomo. As I said, he wasn’t much good at depicting the differences between the sexes, giving Jesus the most womanly hips I have ever seen, some almost boobs and thunder thighs. It was so odd. There was also a gruesome fresco of what I presume was supposed to be hell, where a devil/demon was shitting into the mouth of a “sinner”. Lovely, just lovely.
It was wholey different to the other churches we had entered and yet I could tell we were slowly reaching that point of too many churches - and we hadn’t even made it to Rome yet!
Out the basilica door and into the museum. It held, as far as we could surmise from the scant amount of information next to each item on display, the relics, altar pieces, tomb coverings and artefacts that had belonged to a now gone convent and basilica in San Pyjamas. Some of the marble tombs dated back to the 1400s while some of the altar pieces were just last century.
On the whole it interested us very little, or maybe it was just because we were hungry.
We set off in search of food and happened to find ourselves at the same restaurant I had eaten at several years ago when I was last here with Sophie.
One lasagne and one spaghetti (did I mention that while it had stopped raining , it was actually a bit chilly) and a glass of wine for Sam ( I was still feeling the effects of last night’s bottles).
After lunch we set off to find the “panoramic spot”, just metres from the main drag with uninterrupted 180-degree views. On a clear day, it would have been stunning as it was, with some low cloud still hanging around the mountain tops, it was beautiful.
It was finally enough to convince Sam to pull out his camera, though it died within minutes. The battery life of his camera has left much to be desired.
We continued our wandering back up the hill towards the famous Torre Grossa, the tallest tower in San Pyjamas.
We paid our 5 euro each for the opportunity to climb this tower and I am so glad we did. My legs probably aren’t given the 218 steps we had to climb to get to the top.
Just a quick note here about the steps we have climbed on this trip thus far:
218 - steps to the top of Torre Grossa
416 - steps to the top of the Florence Duomo
300+ - steps the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
90 - steps to the reception of our Hotel Annabella in Florence (actually another 20 steps to our room)
60 - steps to our top floor of our Hotel Toscana in Florence
70+ - steps to our top floor room of our hotel Helvetia Pisa
60+ - steps to the top floor room of our hostel in London
We should also mention only two of these places had an elevator and they were the two Florence hotels and were only used when we first checked in with our luggage.
So, at the top of the tower and the view was AMAZING. The sun started to come out just after we stepped out on the top and it was 360 degree panoramic awesomeness. The Tuscan hillside, the terracotta rooftops, the old walls of the town and the other towers - it was all there.
We have seen some pretty amazing views while on this trip, especially in Tuscany, but this was probably my favourite so far. Probably because we weren’t rushed off. At both Pisa and the Duomo in Florence, we were on limited time and had maybe five minutes maximum at the top. Here, no-one who worked there was even at the top of the tower and we were free to look and walk around and do whatever we wanted. Mind you, there was an enormous bell enclosed in a metal cage across the entire mid section of the tower top so to cross from side to side meant bending over to at least pygmi height.
With the sun out and the clouds cleared from the sky, it was beginning to get quite warm and we headed back down. This is always the tricky part on these tower climbs I have found and this was no different. I was also wearing a skirt that has given me more than one Marilyn moment and climbing down this ladder to the first landing afforded everyone below me a stellar view of my undies.
Back down on the ground, we agreed that was well worth the trip out from Florence and having “done” the attractions went to the bus stop to head back to the city.
We had to be back before 7pm as Sam had to pick up his suit from the shop before they closed.
Back in Florence, we picked up the suit from the lady who had sold it to Sam the day before. It was only then, having already known where we were headed that day that she told us that Poggibonsi, the town we had to change buses at, had a sinister history.
In the 70s, a serial killer preyed on young couples and many were killed in dark and isolated places throughout the town.
It was a very famous crime spree and a few years ago a film director came to the town to make a movie about it.
The woman told us she didn’t want to tell us until after we had been but said the only time she had ever been there, she didn’t like the place and it was “weird”.
So, having escaped the scene of the crime, we thanked the woman and set out for a final dinner in Florence. After I bought my very fake Prada handbag at the markets.
We returned to the place we had been to only three nights before because we had enjoyed it so thoroughly - partly because it was comparatively cheap.
It looked no different to all the other terrace restaurants and how we found it the first time I’m still not sure.
Still, we sat and took our time ordering, splashing out on a first and second course each and a bottle of Chianti.
Ravioli in butter and sage for me and gnocchi santorrini for Sam. Sooo good. Oh and of course our oil and bread. We are loving this oil and bread thing - and it’s all standard everywhere you go regardless of what you order.
Then for mains, mixed grill for me, which I never ever order but had tasted Sam’s the time before and it was yummy, and Sam got the chicken breast.
For dessert, tiramisu for me and chocolate fondant for Sam, topped off with a glass of limonchello for Sam.
And that was all for the night. Went back to the hotel and packed our bags for a relative early morning to head to Siena.
Alysia (August 13)

The statue of David and a celebrity sighting

Slow to rise we headed for the Museo dell’Accademia where David lives and joined the queue that was many times bigger than it had been on our first day. How I wished we had persevered. There was nothing to do but to admire the graffiti left by thousands of tourists and the airy notes of a woman in the building above practicing scales. Alysia wondered what the young boy in front of us must have been writing in his Florentine leather-bound journal: “I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored, my stupid parents making me queue for hours”. She was wrong. We later heard him relaying to his parents his plans for a spaceship bigger and better than the gee-wizzmo 2260 (or something like that). Equally entertaining were the Sudanese running past quickly followed by a plain-clothed policeman for their illegal products. Unfortunately while we could hear one of them being tackled we couldn’t see it. The only thing more tempting than going to see was how long the line must now have grown behind us. But more than an hour in we weren’t going to risk losing our spot even if the Korean couple behind us weren’t so worried.
When we thought we were close to the head of the line, maybe six metres, we stopped moving, for a long time. I was surely going mad singing to myself “some people just have no heart - it’s happening every-day - pure massacre - pure massacre - there’s gonna be a pure masi-care, ah ha.” And then, “despite of my rage I am still just a rat in a maze…” Those annoying preferiti with their prebooked tickets waltzing into the museum ahead of us. Half an hour later we were two metres from the entrance and waited another half an hour maybe - by this stage it was hard to keep track.
It was just before we were finally allowed in that we actually had something worth looking at. Our first celebrity sighting in the form of Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter), her two kids and what must have been the nanny - and she was crap at her job. Helena started to walk away leading the boy by the hand who obviously needed to wee, when the girl child started screaming for her mum. Time to step up Nanny McPhee, but oh no, the best she could muster was “she’ll be back soon”. A minute later Helena returned, obviously altered to the screams by her daughter for a competent babysitter. I don’t know what happened after that because we were finally allowed in.
All up, by the time we got inside, we had spent close to three hours in line. Sensing I was going to be disappointed Alysia insisted I close my eyes and lead me blind through the crowd to David. If there is one thing that will build suspense and excitement it’s closing your eyes. Just try to keep the smile off your face in the same circumstances knowing everyone is looking at you knowing that, yes, you are disturbed.
It is an amazing sculpture. How anyone could do such a thing from a single block of marble without modern technology, and the detail! Even when the experts some years ago tried to insist Michelangelo had stuffed up the proportions, the torso and head being too big they said, someone else disproved them. It’s sculpted taking into account the perspective of the viewer and the fact the thing is near five metres tall. The thing would look stupid if it were in mathematic proportion. What makes you appreciate it even more are some of his unfinished works in the foyer. If only I had a fraction of the talent.
After a bite of pizza we headed for the doumo where I left Alysia in the line to draw some more cash in hope of something smaller than 50s. Alas I retuned without any cash and a broken card - not only was my card ‘not overseas activated’ (which was untrue) it spat it out with a fractured spine. Luckily I have more than one. Anyway, this delay meant we were among the last in, and the 50 wasn’t a problem after all. The steps might be another issue. All up we climbed 416, spiralling up the stone staircase all the way, blackened by the millions of hands that had done it before seeking stability as the grew dizzy. And walls and walls of graffiti. Despite signs everywhere saying ‘do not write on the walls’, it’s obviously likes putting a red flag in front of a bull, cos thousands and thousands of such and such was here and a year date covered the walls of that staircase, up and up and up. The two landings on the way up were well received. Then, after a ladder, we popped into the soft light of a setting sun - on a city littered by haze. It was inspiring, even if the crowds were annoying. Why people stop right at the exit making it difficult for people to get out… I don’t know. I find people are nice and crowds, just stupid. We got some good photos towering above the city - quite peaceful. But all too quickly we were chased off by staff wanting to go home. Back down we had a chance to stop briefly and admire the ceiling of the doumo, painted with angels and the like - quite impressive - even if the experience was interrupted by ignorant people who can’t shut their mouths for five minutes and then of course the even louder SHOOSH! from the staff. We enjoyed it immensely but I was pleased to be away from the tight staircase and frustrating mob.
We ate back in the same area as the night before at a different restaurant. It was a bit disappointing after the night before - we certainly didn’t see the value and were displeased with the staff. Time to call it a night.
Sam (August 11)

A change of hotels

Once again we engaged in the loathsome activity of bag packing. Our time at Hotel Toscana was up and we were off to Hotel Annabella near the train station just after 10am. Finding it was easy even if the packs were sapping our energy by the second. We were greeted warmly by what must have been the hotel owner, a man in his 50s who used English in an adorable way, insisting we leave our bags in the dining room until our room was ready and be “welcome, welcome”.
Having “studied up” last night I was keen to check out the old Roman fortification just south of us past the highly-secured government sector. First we surveyed a nice park with plenty of shade on this hot morning. But we couldn’t actually go inside the fortifications for whatever reason. It was signposted a no tourist zone. So I led the way down what the map said would be a lovely tree-lined avenue. But it wasn’t. So then we found the river and walked along it past the American embassy with all its security and on past the Florence beach - rows of deck chairs positioned at the foot of the river’s weir. You make do I guess. Over the bridge we walked through more streets with shops screaming for tourist trade. We stopped in the shade of the Palazzo Pitti, built for the Pitti family but bought by the Medici family in 1549 as their family residence, now a group of museums but baulked at the entrance fee. We couldn’t find a way around into its extensive gardens either. So we walked further, both sore and tired from the midday sun, on through the city door we found the day before and up past the stables again, where we could just sit and relax for a bit in the relative cool.
There was nothing left to do but walk back to the hotel. It had been an ordinary morning - dashed by the no entry at the fortification.
That night after some rest and relaxation in the hotel we set out for dinner. We found a piazza with a live band in the middle surrounded by restaurants and sat as far away as possible for no real reason. Except the menu appealed and the prices weren’t outrageous. We were seated next to a middle aged couple who as it turned out were Dutch. Alysia ordered a pasta while I opted for a mixed grill. The bottle of Chianti proved a good companion as we started talking to the stranded couple; their car having broken down they were in Florence for a few days till it was fixed. I still don’t know what had gone wrong but if we thought our load dramas were formidable, evidently they could not fit in any more bottles of Italiano wine and oil - they’d had a good trip. We talked geography over our meals and he shared some travel philosophy. “Just see the important things,” he said, “don’t waste time doing things you’re not interested in either.” He even insisted I try some of his Florentine steak, so massive it was. It wasn’t bad even if he’d seasoned it with perhaps all the salt in the Adriatic Sea. Alysia ordered a tiramisu, which we shared, quite nice. And very Italian of course, washed down on my behalf with another espresso. We bade our companions well calling it a night. If that super strong coffee would ever let me sleep.
Sam (August 10)

A bike ride in Florence

A bull was loose in the hotel. At least one could have been, such noise did reverberate through our room, waking us. It’s not like we could sleep in anyway, with a bike tour to get to, but it was annoying all the same. “BANG! CRASH!! Oops, he just found the kitchen and there goes the crockery.”
Dressed and ready we went downstairs for a quick bite, where we just so happened to find the source of the noise. There was no bull. But it could easily have been the stage for World War III: the cook was doing his best to get out of cleaning the dishes by dropping them like bombs, hoping to level the mountain rather than climb it. The sounds of chairs dragging across the terracotta tiles; ballistic missiles roaring off.
Our bike tour started with a walk. A walk so long it could have been a tour in itself. The tour guide, Andrea, was an Aussie ex-pat and strengthening our numbers was her friend from Sydney. Her name, China. Her heritage, part British. What a global culture we are. But not the Italians. If we were going to cycle in their country it was going to be astride an Italian bicycle. The mighty Bianchi in striking orange. Built with passion, suspension forks and… what? Gears?! Alysia was instantly gripped with fear. And those levers on the handlebars?! Brakes? Holy shit! And no back-pedal brakes.
On a couple of occasions Alysia has recounted her one and only experience on a mountain bike. The story doesn’t end well. Pedal, pedal, pedal, hill, wee… back-pedal, what? No breaks? Panic. Jump off back of bike. Hit ground. Bike hit fence.
Alysia was one of the first to be sized up and sent out of the garage with the instruction to “go get aquainted”. It was probably a good thing that my bike was one of the last off the rack. By the time I emerged with some excitement Alysia had already had one big stack. Riding alongside with my words of encouragement seemed to help little. Here comes another corner. Oh yes, here’s the panic again, and BANG. Into a parked scooter. Thankfully the most shabby one in the line and it stayed upright. And it was only a small stack apparently, the one two minutes ago ended square on her arse. Did I hear right? This would be a 15km bike ride… right? We could be back here in five minutes.
Off into the inner streets of Florence we pedalled without any dramas. The streets, we were assured, were relatively empty with many locals on holiday. A little longer and we reached the Roman-period “city door”. We got off. And walked through a tree lined park up past the old Medici family stables (themselves massive, three-storey jobs) to what is now the institute of art. Mind you, if we were not told of its former life we would never had known. There’s a statue in the courtyard probably five metres high. It’s a shame the place is looking so shabby. Being “outside the city walls” it’s a little overlooked by the government as it is by visitors, I guess. Back down through the park we turned to face our first hill. No worries. With a low gear selected we set off. On and on a bit further, people pass us. A bit further, the proper English girl all dainty passes us too and then we reach the top. I wasn’t game to pant even a little. Yet I was a little smug that I did it in comparative ease to Alysia, who, at the gym, kicks my arse in the bicycle class. Finally, my pleas that the two are completely different, were heeded. We passed the high school, which used to be the summer palace of the Medici family (all of three kilometres from the Duomo) and around the corner… we’re in the country side. Stone walls line the roads and keep the greenery at bay. A substantial climb later and we arrived at Le Villa Piazzole, which has been in the same family since it was built during the renaissance, some 500 years ago. We checked to see the roses were healthy (and yes so were the vines) and entered the three-storey residence chewing on some tart Pinot grapes (yes, wine snobs we were in the making). Through the opulent foyer with its high ceiling we popped onto the rear landing to survey the rows of hedges and statues - recreated by the latest family member from some sketches that documented the garden - his aunt had let the place go quite a bit apparently. The statues were amusing, all characters from Comedia Dell’Arte, while the building façade was typical of the renaissance style, having larger windows than in medieval times affording the family more light. Quite a departure from medieval times when living hard, with low light, helped assure your afterlife. You can just hear the concierge now: “welcome to the renaisance, leave your flagellation tools at the door, come and enjoy yourself, with some wine, no need to sleep on the floor.” Symmetry was also big in the renaissance we’re told. Hence, if windows couldn’t be installed, they were painted on for posterity. Further to the trend, our guide had even been working on the owner to cut down one tree, to reveal the full extent to which symmetry was chased. Apparently the villa had been built in symmetry with another building on an adjacent hill. The truth hidden by that one tree. Alas, we walked back through the garden. And past an innocuous mill wheel (now a flower pot stand) and into the basement. Centre stage was a large dark dining table where the mill wheel used to live, we were informed. Donkeys used to pull it around to make the olive oil. The olives are still grown at the villa, even if they are pressed a few hundred metres up the road. Anyhow, it went pretty well on the bread, which was unsalted in the Florentine way. But more on that later. “Always pour the oil over the bread, never dip it,” we learnt. Dipping is an insult to the Florentines, especially since the 1985 frost which killed virtually every olive tree in the area. A broken bottle of oil is greater than any Greek tragedy too. It’s bad luck and people will delay their travel plans in such an event to stay in the relative safety of their home. The corks were pulled on the wines and our Aussie compatriat, like us, was getting twitchy to try it. But Andrea was determined to educate us well before it doth part our lips. We felt it smelt of pear, and a bit like green apple, applying our appreciation techniques. I liked the pinot-chardy blend. It was a pretty straightforward drop but good. The red found more friends, a san gevauais variety, with hints of blackberry and tobacco. And quite nice. “bring your glasses and we’ll look at the cellar,” Andrea beckoned. And what a treat it was. The “cellar” was the original foundation of a thousand-year-old Roman tower, in the bowels of which were a few of the villa’s own wines along with a few gifts from other wine makers. Alysia spotted one bottle dating back to 1964 ... Very impressive. The villa, then, was extra impressive, I guess at the 260 euro-a-night room fee. And one family had just held their wedding there. Love to know how much that was.
Beside our bikes back in the “car park” were some invaders in the form of four Fiat 500s. These vintage bug-like cars were even fitted with a picnic basket on the back - so small are their interiors I guess. At least they had interiors I guess, unlike our orange bicycles. Which one was mine? That’s right, 327, right where I had left it. Back aboard and up the next hill more of the lovely country side revealed itself, with lines of olive trees, in front of terracotta roofed houses. Further up the hill Andrea pointed out the convent in which Galileo’s daughters lived, and just a few hundred metres later, where Galileo himself lived, under house arrest. The Medici family, members of which he named the moons of Jupiter after, had extradited him there when the church wanted him killed - so explosive was his theory. How dare he contradict the church by telling people the earth was round?! Even while under house arrest Galileo continued to smuggle his theories out via his daughters. Cycling up the very last hill - Andrea promised - we grabbed some figs out of a huge old tree with a great view. I had only tried figs once before and must say, however, I was doing it wrong before. Because these were beautiful, just the seeds we ate, a great interlude to lunch. Down the hill and back past Galileo’s we found the restaurant and were quickly seated. The unsalted bread and ultra-local extra-virgin olive oil were waiting for us and, of course, the Chianti, which was lovely. The stuff has a dicey reputation back home, because it was all we could get for so long I guess, but this was great. It went down even better with the chicken liver and artichoke pates, and the salamis, and the proscuitto. Though these were appetisers, the waiter insisted everything was finished. Then came the ribbolina soup, a specialty of the Tuscan region. Besides tomatoes the core ingredient is bread - because the bread is unsalted it’s only fresh for a day and they have to use it somehow. I couldn’t complain. But for me the chickpea soup was better. Thankfully, because the waiter insisted we finish it all too. He was having a great old time talking to the Canadian couple (Italian descendants) recommending this and that. Still, whatever they were talking about, I’m sure it didn’t come close to China’s revelation her dad was branching out into paintings for mourning families - using the ashes of their beloved one. It’s so strange I could see it becoming the next big trend, of which China’s dad is sure too, no doubt. Yet, this wasn’t as troubling as the talk about wedding sizes. The engaged Canadian couple had recently been to an Italian wedding with 800 guests… and theirs was going to be 500 or some equally ridiculous number. The proper English girl and her Canadian partner, were also engaged and shooting for a similarly big number. If I needed proof I was in the company of the insane it was confirmed by the size of the rock on the finger of the girl from Connecticut. It’s a wonder she didn’t have a box trailer hitched to the mountain bike parked out the front just for it. She and him wondered how we could get three months off…hmm. Time to go. But we wouldn’t get out of there before a typically, syrupy-strong espresso. It tastes good enough but it’s as thick as a shot of tar. The rest of the Chianti helped wash it down of course - to not drink up would offend the house.
The group was well greased walking out of the restaurant then and how there were no accidents on the steep descents I do not know. Maybe it was ‘one last hill’ that sobered everyone enough to avoid drama - Andrea lied! In any case we found the lookout Alysia and I had spotted from town the day before. We had “10 minutes” to check out the church and its crypt. Alysia had warned me from the start I would be sick of churches by Italy but this was special in its own right. While smaller than the Duomo in the centre of Florence the detail was much greater - it just had more atmosphere. The crypt itself with its art-decorated ceiling was inspiring. Twenty minutes later, as we were dragged from the church toward the bikes, we were still taking photos and especially of the view. Just a shame it was so hazy. The run down the switch-backs to town was fun even if Alysia was a little scared. By the time we reached the city outskirts I was well in love with cycling again. I didn’t want to get off. Alysia was more grateful though to be back at the garage. By about 3pm we were both head down on the pillows at the hotel snoring.
About 6pm we stirred to get something light and cheap for dinner. Only it wasn’t so light and not so cheap. Good, cost effective food is hard to come by here. Like our Lonely Planet travel bible tells us; Florence is a devisive beast. It can enthral one with its beauty but quickly annoy, being overly geared toward tourists. For that night at least I was rapt with it.
Sam (August 9)

Ahhh Firenze!

Aaah, Florence, my home away from home. At least that’s how it felt after we arrived.
We had left Pisa in good time, checking out of our hostel about 10am and getting a taxi to the train station. There were trains departing for Florence every half hour and it took only a few minutes to work out how to get our ticket from a machine and validate it.
We waited maybe half an hour for the train, skipping the earlier one so as not to rush ourselves between platforms.
There were plenty of seats and we had no trouble getting comfortable with our packs. Soon Sam had the computer out and plugged in, yes they have power points on the trains, and was doing some desperate blogging, so behind are we.
The trip took about an hour and it wasn’t hard to find our stop as it was the last one - Firenze Santa Maria Novella.
Off the platform it was a little trickier working out where to go. We knew our hotel was only a five minute walk and in which direction but had no idea what side of the station we were on when we came out.
Finally we found a tourist information centre who gave us a map, for free (Amsterdam charged for everything), and worked out the hotel was only a few minutes away.
So we found it easily enough and checked in at noon rather than at two - technically we already had the room - since our booking had started the night before. Of course we were able to go straight up.
It was something of a let down after our beautiful one star in Pisa. This was supposed to be two star and the room description had promised a hairdryer and a safe. I didn’t care much for the safe but the hairdryer I could really have used. I have been without dryer or GHD for almost three weeks now and my hair is a Greek tragedy.
Anyway, it didn’t have those things nor was it a proper double bed as requested but two singles pushed together - the ultimate in stinginess.
Still, out the door and only a few hundred metres up the road and we were in the city centre, the duomo and all the sights were within walking distance. We couldn’t really complain.
We dumped our bags and head straight out.
It had not been my intention to hit every major sight in one afternoon but that’s kinda what happened. Like I said, Florence has become very familiar to me and it’s amazing what comes back to you after years.
We found the duomo easily enough, like I said a few hundred metres and we were there. Sam was blown away by the sight of it and it is impressive. Green and white marble façade and HUGE. It is enormous and of course the tower and baptistery and only a few metres away.
We decided to jump straight on the queue to get into the cathedral as it was free and moving very quickly.
Inside is nothing like the exterior but it is huge and imposing.
Outside and we pressed on toward the river, only because that seemed to me the best place to head. It wasn’t long before I stumbled onto the Piazza della Signoria and right away I knew where I was. We admired the replica of David in the square and I showed Sam the face carved into the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio that was said to be Da Vinci’s face.
Before we checked out anymore, it was time for lunch. A Panini for Sam and a pizza for me and we walked towards the Uffizi gallery and onto the river. From here I showed Sam the Ponte Vecchio, or the love bridge as I call it. This very famous bridge is the one with all the (jewellery) buildings on it and it is said that if you kiss the person you love on it, you will be together forever. It was also the only bridge in Florence that wasn’t destroyed by bombing in WWII. Prior to the renascence all the shops on the Ponte Vecchio were butcheries until the Medici family ordered them off and the jewellers in.
Along the river walk towards it, from the Uffizi, are chains of padlocks. Hundreds and hundreds of padlocks, most marked with the initials of lovers and graffiti in the same vein adorns every surface. It is the love bridge after all. We wandered down and onto the bridge and kissed - because that’s what you do - before heading back towards the Piazza della Signoria.
“I thought you wanted to go the markets,” Sam said.
“Oh my god, I forgot the markets. Veering in another direction and using only my memories, we found the San Lorenzo markets, so called because they start at the intersection of the Basilica di San Lorenzo. I well remembered these markets from both my previous trips but whether it’s cos I was with a guy this tine, Sam and I walked them in about 15 minutes flat. I was stunned. But it was also somewhat different to how I recalled. All the knock off brand items were gone, as signs indicated, it was illegal it buy fake goods. But it was what I remembered about it most.
Having seen the duomo, the Uffizi, the bridge, the fake David, The Palazzo and the markets, I was all out of ideas so I suggested we head to the museum housing the real David.
Last time Soph and I had been here we had walked straight in with no line and were amazed. That was also late autumn and not high summer.
There was a queue and Sam ad I were in no mood to stand in line, plus my feet hurt.
We head back to the Piazza della Signoria to people watch and rest our weary legs. It had been a massive afternoon and we toyed with the idea of going into the Palazzo Vecchio, originally a fortress and later a royal court for the Medici family which installed itself there. It was only 6 euro each but we decided we’d do it tomorrow when we were fresh.
Pizza for dinner and it was more wandering after until I felt less full. I needed to fit in gelato.
We head back to the fake David, which was put there by the way in about 1890 when the original was removed and put in a museum.
Sam took some silhouette shots as the sun sunk lower into the sky before we head back to the love bridge for some sunset shots. Unfortunately the prettiest aspect of the bridge is on the east so it was in shadow but we still managed to take probably 50 shots between us as the sun lowered over it. The water in the river is also murky brown and I am almost positive the last time I was here it was more clear because I have a great reflection shot. Anyway, we spent probably half an hour photographing the bridge from various perspectives.
Having exhausted my creativity for the day, we set off to find the perfect place to get some gelato.
Mars and choc mint - it was soooo good.
Then the saddest thing, with my beautiful gelato half eaten, I tried to get a better grip on my enormous cone and dropped the whole thing. It was a tragedy.
A good day ruined, we head back to the hotel only to discover their wifi was not working. Not surprising for this place really but did put us in something of a predicament since we had nothing booked for the days after Florence. We would have to find an internet café tomorrow.
- Alysia (August 7)

A beautiful day in Pisa

Pisa. Home to the Leaning Tower … and that’s about it. But really that was more than enough for Sam and I after the trouble we had had getting there. We had a beautiful room in a nice hostel, and soon enough we were to learn that indeed the website hadn’t lied.
Up early to explore, we walked out of the hostel, turned the corner and down a lane. We had not walked more than 50 metres in total when as we popped out of the lane, there it was. The leaning tower. Our hostel was no more than a 500 metre walk from its base. You couldn’t get a better location.
Finally, with things going our way, it boded well for a good day. First though, breakfast.
We found a cute café just a minute down the road in the opposite direction to the tower and had coffee and pastries for breakfast. It didn’t take long before we were finished and ready to explore the sights we had heard so much about.
By this time it was only about 9.30, so things were reasonably quite in the piazza where the tower, cathedral and baptistery stand. Only a few hundred tourists compared to the thousands that were to descend on the site throughout the course of the day.
We decided to get in early and book our tickets to climb the tower as were had read to expect long queues and long waiting times. As only 30 people can ascend the tower at any given time, you book a time slot in which to enter and if you missed it, bad luck.
Into the ticket office and we were all but the only ones there. Fortune favours the early bird and we decided to climb the tower and pay for entry to the cathedral and baptistery - all up 21 euro each. The tower itself is 15.
Our tower time was 10.20 and it was only 9.45 so we decided to check out the baptistery first.
The baptistery, otherwise known as the cupcake, is a round, hexagonal shaped building where, as the name suggests, people were baptised. It is made entirely of marble so while not as aesthetically pleasing as the cathedral inside, it was much more expensive to build.
I have been to Pisa before but I had never entered any of the buildings, so this was all new to me. Inside the baptistery was sparsely furnished and decorated, with an altar closed to close inspection. Talking was not allowed though photos were and Sam and I snapped away happily at the huge dome above that gave the baptistery its interesting external shape.
A stairway set between the external and internal walls led to the gallery above, the highest point you could climb to below the vast dome.
From here, through the one window that wasn’t closed, it offered spectacular views o the cathedral outside and the tower beyond it. In fact the perspective was one of the best to see the five-degree angle lean the tower was on, compared to the upright cathedral in the foreground.
But the best was yet to come. As we entered a sign had read something to the effect that every half hour staff would demonstrate the dome’s “acoustics” for lack of a better word.
So as we stood high in the gallery above, a staff member hushed those around her, walked to the very centre of the altar below and began to sing, not words, but single notes, one after the other, each a different pitch and key. The acoustics of that dome were amazing. As she finished each note it resonated around the dome for many seconds after, a background to the next note to come. It wasn’t really an echo as such but it was beautiful.
Everywhere we had been so far there were people employed, it seemed, to just sit in corners of museums and such palaces to ensure tourists didn’t touch anything etc. It seemed this lady actually had a higher purpose being that if she wasn’t a trained singer, she certainly sounded like one in there.
Unfortunately Sam wasn’t quick enough to get the video camera out so we don’t have it on tape, but I’m sure the memory of it will last a long time for both of us.
On that high note (pardon the pun) we left the baptistery to check in our bags before climbing the tower. Cameras were allowed but no bags of any kind. This was a quick process and soon we were waiting in line with the rest of the people in our time slot to climb the famous tower.
Again, I had never done this so I didn’t know what to expect. When we bought our tickets the sign said people with heart conditions shouldn’t climb the tower being that there are some 300 steps.
Also people who suffer from vertigo strangely enough.
Keen as mustard, we entered the tower and began the long ascent. The steps were all made of marble and were slippery as buggery. They wound round and round the tower. Hundreds of thousands of pairs of feet had worn deep dips into each step over the years, mostly in the middle but on the leaning side, the dips were biased toward the outer wall. It was certainly a very strange sensation to walk on a lean, the steps seeming shallower than they were and then becoming steeper as you neared the opposite side.
The other problem, apart from the slipperiness, was there were people still coming down the tower while we were climbing up and it’s not the widest of passageways.
And occasionally we struck someone who had succumbed to exhaustion seeking refuge in tiny alcoves at intervals in the passageway.
Finally, after probably 220 steps, we stepped out onto our first viewing platform. I have to say this was very disappointing as the entire view was obscured by a mesh making photos impossible.
But silly me, there was plenty more to see. Up another flight of steps, these set separately to the passageway between the internal and external walls (as the first was) spiralled round and round until eventually we came out to the platform of bells. The leaning tower is actually a bell tower and the bells looked pretty ancient, though the wooden blocks holding one up was marked 1860-something.
Finally we could see the fabulous views and wander among the bells, though we weren’t to touch. If I thought that was it, again I was wrong, which I should have known just from watching the other people on the tower earlier in the morning. There was yet another set of stairs, totally hidden unless you knew where to look. To reach them you actually had to walk around the outside of the tower, near the handrail to a spiral staircase, again of marble and very steep and very slippery. Round and round and we popped out on the very top of the tower. And it was breathtaking.
Did I mention this was the clearest of clear beautiful days ever? I guess the storms the day before that had diverted our plane had washed away any pollution from the surrounds because it was amazing. We could see the alps with their snowy tips and terracotta-tiled rooftops as far as the eye could see.
I did get video of this, which you will all have to watch, a 360-degree view from the top of the tower across all of Pisa and beyond.
We had about 10 minutes up there before it was time for us to descend and the next group to pass us.
Two steps into the first spiral staircase, my shoes came off. My thongs were slippery enough on wet cobblestones, there was no way they were going to withstand marble polished by hundreds of thousands of pairs of feet at an angle.
I have to say while the climb down was much less demanding than the climb up you still had to focus on what you were doing and where you were putting your feet, particularly on the leaning side. It was almost a relief when we finally got to the bottom and had our feet firmly on the even ground.
We both agreed it was well worth the money and after retrieving our bags, set towards the cathedral.
From the outside the cathedral is amazing. All white and green marble striped façade and exquisite detail on every cornice, archway and door.
Inside was no different.
It was spectacularly high, with frescoed walls and ceilings, and an imposing high altar that was roped off to tourists.
Oh and I had to wear a green “apron”. I had forgotten to buy a cheap shawl/scarf to cover my shoulders - a rule strictly enforced in Italian churches. So looking very fine indeed, we explored the inside of this impressive structure, snapping pics everywhere we went of course.
We took a time out and sat in here for 10 minutes of so, absorbing what we had seen so far and what surrounded us.
I told Sam countless times before we left Australia that by the time we leave Italy he will be sick of seeing churches, but it seems for now, they can still manage to impress us.
By now it was close to lunchtime and back out in the bright sunlight, we found a tiny eatery just outside the piazza, and actually the city wall, to eat. Pizza of course.
Fed and watered, it was time to explore what else Pisa may have to impress us, having done the major attractions. We wandered up a street here and street there until we came to another piazza with buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries. It was very hot in the sun and we didn’t last long on our wander before we found a medieval church and the oldest in Pisa. It was nothing compared to the ornate styling and grandeur of the cathedral we had seen earlier than morning but it felt old.
It was all exposed wooden beams, without paint and gilt that adorns so many of the other churches we had seen. It was stone walls and simple in construction. And it was empty. We had the entire place to ourselves for at least five minutes which is rare in a place like Pisa in high tourist season.
Sam and I have more than once agreed that while every church is at heart the same, the decoration, the flamboyance or the history of each make them all so different from one another.
Just to prove our point, we set off for another church, of Gothic construction this time.
This church was exquisite to view from the exterior, the detail of the roof and the small statues that adorn it was something to see. The interior was extremely plain in comparison and a quick read of its history explained why. It had been pillaged basically, but by the state and the statues that adorned the exterior were all replicas. The real art was housed in a museum somewhere else and inside it had been a similar story. Most of the furnishings and art had been removed to museums. The fact the interior was tiny in comparison to some of the churches we had seen didn’t help. This one wouldn’t have been bigger than the newsroom in floor space.
What was also interesting about this church though was that it was constructed on the banks of the river. Not across the road from the river, as everything else seemed to be, but on it. It’s foundations were lapped by water and it was to a certain extent part of the reason for its plunder. In fact, in the 16th century, the entire building was dismantled and reconstructed about seven metres higher, away from the river to prevent the entire things falling into the water.
It probably wasn’t worth the two euro to go inside, but I was glad to read its history.
With sore feet we returned to our hostel for a quick freshen up and rest before dinner.
We scouted a few places on the walk back but when the time came to go somewhere we ended up no further than about 100 metres from our hostel, and within view of the tower.
There we ordered bruschetta, a pasta course, a meat course and a bottle of Chianti, the famous wine of the region. We probably spent way too much, but it was our first proper dinner just the two of us the entire trip and it was nice.
It was probably also the first full day Sam and I hadn’t snapped each other’s heads off at least once.
We felt relaxed and refreshed after weeks of being “guests” in other people’s homes.
After dinner we wandered back toward the tower, past the dozens of Sudanese selling knock off handbags on the roadway.
The crowds were much dispersed and only a few die hards were still about trying to snap some final tourist pics before the sun went down. Of course, this is exactly what we did too. Earlier in the day Sam had been loathe to do “the photo” holding up the tower but the wine must have lowered his artistic instincts.
We took several stupid shots and then found a good spot to sit in front of the tower to watch the sun set. We had hoped they might turn on the tower lights, lighting it up like it was in so many postcards we had seen that day but alas, by 10.30 it was still relatively dim so we headed back to the hostel.
A quick Skype to mum and dad and it was time for bed. We were headed to Florence in the morning by train and who knew what adventures were in store for us there.
- Alysia (August 6)