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Published: January 15th 2008
The Albenga coast!
Our first stop in Italy. Oh NO, more sea and sun!Buongiorna(hello)
The previous blog sent before this one was to wish you all a Merry and a Jolly. This blog carries on where we left off last year and again attempts to get us up to date (should have been one of the New Year resolutions).
Well anyway welcome to the land of Italy. We ended up spending over 6 weeks here in total, the longest in any country so far. We entered into Italy from Nice, France, and slowly ventured southwards into the boot, and onto Sicily. Then it was back north into Venice and lastly Lake Garda.
As you probably know the Italians are a little mad, love their food and are very passionate people. They only do thinks at 2 paces - Extremely fast or extremely slow. This made for interesting driving especially early on as it took some getting used to. They feel they have the right of way entering an on ramp in front of you even if you are doing 100km/h, and narrow streets are no exception. One incident in particular, in Sicily, we were in a double lane driving around a corner and were overtaken by a young guy on a
Greedy Bugger...
Rob getting stuck into the famous Italian ice cream, or two! scooter. Now that was not the problem, no! He had a big bulldog sitting at his feet, smoking a cigarette and was looking behind him talking to his girlfriend on the back. Well all we can say is Happy Birthday as we actually made it out of here in one piece, only with a few more grey hairs though.
Our first main stop was in a little village, Levanto, which forms part of the Cinque Terra. It was recommended by fellow travellers we met way back in Portugal, thanks Mark and Amy - hey guys we kept up the tradition of at least one ice cream a day, although some days Rob did have two!
The Cinque Terra is the cluster of 5 tiny fishing villages along some breath taking coastline. These villages are linked by a 12km path, which makes for some challenging walking and is also linked with a train line so you can hop on and off at each village. Of course we decided to start from Levanto which is the hardest and longest part and not usually done by the masses. The other part we did not realise that it was a public/bank holiday in
Little path to nowhere..
The famous Cinque Terra trail. Italy so once we got further into the trail it was packed with Italian families and allot of them wore smart clothes and some even had high heals on. It made for an entertaining day nevertheless it was a spectacular walk.
From here we were heading for Florence via Pisa. The famous leaning tower was mmm made famous for leaning!!! It was great to see her in person however we had an even better time watching all the tourists trying to get that perfect pic of them holding her up. Damn tourist. Not us no! See we are professional travellers so don’t count.
Florence itself is a beautiful city with almost unparalleled artistic history and just about around every corner is a hidden gem. Home of Dante, Michiavelli, Michelangelo, the Medici and Carlo Colldi (the man who created Pinocchio). It was a cultural overload again and we had a great time. The highlights were all the famous art works and the real infamous David statue. We did get into trouble when Rob tried to take his picture only to be caught by the security guard that popped outta nowhere and almost escorted him out the building. Yes, should
Cinque Terra
One of the fishing villages on our hike have known better!
We attempted to stop next at Siena however had a problem finding parking and the town centre so decided to venture forth instead. We ended up at an awesome little campsite in Casciano di Murlo, Tuscany. It overlooked some really beautiful countryside and we spent the next few days cycling through the vineyards, chilling out and sampling the Italian cuisine.
Assisi, the birthplace and spiritual home of St Francis, was our next port of call. The basilica, which dominates Assisi, is one of the great Christian shrines and receives vast numbers of pilgrims throughout the year. So having visited the magnificent churches and the medieval town we had to have the mandatory ice cream and pizza. When we left Assisi we took a wrong turn and stumbled upon a Fiat dealer. As you may recall we smashed our mirror in France and had not managed to replace it yet as nobody ever had stock of the long arm campervan wing mirrors. We decided to try it anyway and lo and behold they had stock. When the guy behind the counter realised he had stock he proclaimed, “We never carry these in stock, It’s a St
Cinque Terra again
Rob lurking in one of the fishing villages... Francis miracle”. So there you go.
Next was the ancient city of Rome. Well having heard so much about this place in all our history books it was great to spend a few days discovering its treasures. We did this over the next few days with another English couple we met at the campsite, Steve and Kate. We had a splendid time checking out the sites with them during the day. Well we also had a great time in the evenings getting through plenty of the local wine, beer and schnapps. The highlights for us were The Vatican City including the Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s Cathedral, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, The Colosseum and The Piazza del Campidoglio.
We decided to give Naples a miss as they were having problems with their refuse collection and apparently it now looks like a dump. So instead we bypassed it on the way to Pompeii. The whole village was buried under rock and ash from an eruption in AD79. It was only rediscovered in the 18th century and is amazing as whole streets and buildings survived complete with sculptures and paintings.
Eventually we made it Sicily - home of
Pisa
Wonder if this would pass building inspection today? the dreaded mafia. We did not actually identify any of them but did do our best not to upset anyone too much. We ended up staying in Sicily for over two weeks, probably a combination of lots to see on the big island and us slowing down a bit.
Again our first stop in Sicily was a little gem of a campsite in Finale di Pollina. It overlooked the ocean and we met up with another couple that had a GB sticker on their van however they were from Australia. It’s amazing how the English speaking people seem to find each other in a foreign country, especially the campervaners. Our first night of having drinks with Peter and Narelle we discovered that on route they had bumped into the other English couple, Steve and Kate, that we met in Rome. Small world really!
The other main features in Sicily were the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. It is the largest, best preserved and most impressive Greek architecture outside of Greece and dates back to the 6th century BC and also the Casale Roman Villa, Piazza Armerina. This is a Roman villa that was covered by 10m of
and a Pisa cake!
Well everyone else holds it up with their hands..... mud from a landslide in the 12th century and this helped preserved the beautiful mosaic floors.
Our last stop in Sicily was in a charming little fishing village, Giardini Naxos. It is near the famous Mount Etna, said to be one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of eruption. So of course we had to check her out. We got a cable car from the base of the mountain to near the top and then hiked from there to see one of its smoking craters. Although the weather was cold it was great to see part of her up close and personal. We also had a great time with the other English, Irish and NZ campervaners staying at the camperstop . They were all settling in to spend Christmas there. We had many nights of entertaining each other and a few late afternoon fishing trips for the lads. Although on the first trip Rob almost fell into the sea, and he was sober. Hey Dave caught any more fish after we left?
After Sicily we headed back up north towards Venice and one of our stops on route was at a
ala Florence!
Santa Maria del Fiore Duomo quaint little town called Montefescona. As it was also Wendy’s birthday we had a great meal at one of the local restaurants, complete with 4 courses and some fine Italian red. You can’t beat the Italian cuisine, mmm. The camperstop was also next to a coop wine estate so we stocked up on cheap fine Italian grape before we headed off.
Robs mom was jetting in again to join us for five days so that we could do some Christmas markets, any excuse nowadays. We met her in Venice and of course although we have been before we had a fabulous time. During the day we checked out the canals lined with palaces and the spectacular sights and in the evenings we shopped at the markets, which included the mandatory mulled wine to keep us warm.
Our final stop in Italy was free camping at the majestic Lake Garda before we made our way into Austria for that elusive white Christmas.
Well that’s it for now, from a gorgeous country teeming with ancient history, artistic splendour, divine food and wine and a romantic olive-grove landscape.
Grazie
Roberto and Wendilina
Mugs in Florence too!
View from Cupola of Duomo
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