Pleione

Hey guys, this is just a response to an email, and I realized I was writing down some handy tips. I might come back and add to it, but here's what I told Archit about travelling in Italy: Ciao Archit! I hope you're enjoying Italy as much as I did! The websites I used the most for planning travel were, of course, www.trenitalia.it, and then www.hostelbookers.com for hostels. I have heard of other people having lots of problems with www.hostelworld.com- I like hostelbookers b/c there is no booking fee. As far as places to go...My absolute favorites were Cinque Terre, Florence, Venice, and Rome (and of course Napoli but you already live there:). Each of those places has a lot of fun things you can do in a weekend. If you want to buy tickets ahead ... read more

Cinnabon. Taco Bell. Mandatory eavesdropping. Relatively humdrum traffic. Box stores. 7-second limit on staring. Lack of 15th-century farmhouses (well, 15th-century ANYTHING). WAAAAY different food. American keyboards. The annoying urge to compare everything to Italy. These are among the millions of aspects of my home country that are swamping me right now. I knew it would be a shock, but could never have imagined how foreign my birth country could seem to me. Or how much I could appreciate the little things. Like friendly shopkeepers, or walking by a crew of construction workers and realizing that the knee-jerk inward cringe I have developed in Italy has become relatively unnecessary. On the other hand, it was a testament to another habit I've cultivated (espresso) when I took a swallow of drip coffee and realized it was completely indistinguishable ... read more

First a note to Roberto...( I gotta get on the forums, sorry) We went through Florence by Bike (www.florencebybike.com), which was AWESOME. The people were incredibly friendly and laid back, and the bikes were in good shape for being rentals. Plus they had really good advice for where to go (itineraries are also on the website), and free water bottles :) A note tho: If you are in reasonably good shape, you can cut the travel time on their itineraries in half. I am not a biker, never have been, haven't been in shape since my ten-year x-country skiing kick ending when I left AK, but I'm young and healthy, and above all stubborn, so our trip that was supposed to take a full day one way took us seven hours round trip, including a few ... read more

Ack! Writing the date makes me realize how little time we have left. Oh well, today will be perfect. The first thing I heard when I woke up was the ocean and the birds, and now I'm sitting on our balcony watching the waves below. I can't get over how lucky we are to find this place. My hat is tipped to Nick of the sharp eye. It's kind of misty now, but hopefully it will burn off after we go on our hike and explore Corfu town. In this light I can see some reefs close to shore - I just wish I had some snorkel equipment. There's something bobbing about in the water, moving like a log, but it's white. Andreas is checking it out from the windows of the restaurant with binoculars. Nick ... read more

Have been wandering around Pompeii for the past hour. It's amazing archaelogically of course, but also from the perspective of humanity. Everything is so well preserved that it's quite easy to play my little game-all I have to do is duck off the beaten path into a house and I'm in someone's yard, someone's kitchen. I've been wandering in the rich part of town, where the houses large and airy, full of beautiful mosaics and fountains and deep wells against the dry season. A lot of the really amazing things have been taken to the museum, so everything's a bit more bare, but you can still imagine the lords of the city commissioning these artisans to spend hours beautifying their houses. It's also a bit sobering to compare the tiny cells of the poor to these ... read more

I didn't die! Seriously though, we were probably climbing steadily for 20 minutes. I wasn't a wuss and biked the whole way, with a few stops for pictures. When we finally reached Fiesole, we found a museum and archaelogical site of Roman ruins on top of Etruscan ruins. We wandered through the museum and then had lunch overlooking the ruins, surrounded by flowers and cherry blossoms and the cypresses. Minus the barbarian hordes against which the place was built, the countryside was awe-inspiring. We could see the Duomo we had climbed earlier. It kind of minimalized the 400-odd steps. The way back down we passed a few houses - ok castles - that I decided I had to own or at least stay in. These weren't hotels, or agriturismo's, they were just houses that people lived ... read more