Tempo a scrivo

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Ciao Ragazzi, Come Va? Io sono molto bene…..

So it has been a couple of weeks since my last entry. For some reason I always choose Fridays (yet again today) to scrivo (write) my blog entries. After countless emails from people arriving to work on Monday morning receiving my email alerts I am so sorry that you have to hear about my adventures on a Monday morning, but for some reason it is entirely coincidence and hey why change my behaviour now!

The adventure left off just as I was about to visit (visito) Sorrento, Vesuvio and Herculaneum all in one weekend.

Ill start with Sorrento, Maria and I took this trip on Saturday morning and we decided as it was such a lovely day that we would take the trip by boat via Amalfi & Positano and the Southern tip of Capri. It was a lovely boat ride of about three hours and it was a great decision as any boat ride is a great boat ride for me particularly when the southern Italian sun was shining on my skin!

We arrived (arriviato) and walked up into the main town where we thought we were arriving to an English port as nearly every person we heard was English (obviously Sorrento is a popular tourist spot for the Brits!). We had a good walk around the small streets and in and out of many of the local stores and looking and sampling the local products. (Of course we had the obligatory gelato and sampled the beautiful limoncello digestive a local speciality of the Amalfi Coast). We also visited many parks and took in some awesome views before hopping back on the train via Pompeii to Salerno. I filled in the hour or so ride by reading an English paper (impossible to get in Salerno). Sore legs, so when I got home I took a long shower and jumped in bed well tired from a long day on foot (in piedi).

On Sunday morning we met bright and early at 9am (which is really early in Italia particularly for a Sunday the streets are deserted) at the train station in Salerno to take our next day trip to Vesuvio and the Herculaneum. We knew that this day would be huge as we were covering a lot of ground and were not quite sure exactly how we were going to get everywhere but anyways we were in a group of four and between us we could get through most things in Italiano if we had to!

Our first arrival point was Ercalano, which was the main train station nearest to Vesuvio we could get to from Salerno, from their we had to sweet talk a bus driver (and most of them in Italia are not that nice!) to take us to the other train station which there hopefully would await a public bus at 10.30am to take us to Vesuvio.

It was our plan to do a 6km walk up Vesuvio…were we crazy…apparently yes!
I had been telling Sofia, Johannes, and Maria that my trusty Italian walking guidebook was going to get us in to Vesuvio without paying but we would have to walk through scrub etc to get there. However when we arrived to the bus station we realised that after a lot of effort and broken conversation that the routes were all closed “due to danger”. Ok, this was Vesuvio and we were not taking any risks so we eventually jumped in a private taxi. The driver incidentally was the President of the Cooperative in Ercalano so we were well looked after, waved on whilst other cars had to wait where we went right to the entrance gate at Vesuvio. Anyone thinking of walking up there don’t bother as we saw some tourists try and walk up to the entrance area and by gosh we were up the mountain for nearly two hours and on our way back down they were still walking!

Vesuvio was an awesome sight, I was in heaven up there (think I took about 100 photos), and we were lucky as it was still smoking inside which we thought was really cool. It was kind of weird to think after visiting Pompeii four years earlier that this thing really did blow up and completely wipe out civilisation there back in 79AD. The greatest thing was being able to look down and still see the dried up lava flow from when it actually blew! The colours of the crater were really beautiful with wonderful burnt oranges, lilacs, browns featuring strongly and beautiful wildflowers making it a really special place and worth the long walk up.

The only disappointment for me is that it was impossible to capture a photo from Vesuvio down overlooking Pompeii. I sat around for about 20 minutes with my big zoom lens looking around to find it but for some reason I couldn’t. Oh well.

So back down the mountain taking in the great views of the Gulf of Napoli. We had a quick Napolese (traditional mozzarella, pomodoro & basillico) pizza and then it was time to take on the Herculaneum. Luck was on our side as we were a bit spewing after we had to pay about 16 euros each to get to Vesuvio and the entrance fees that we were a bit un-keen to spend another 11euros in one day to see Herculaneum also. The reason luck was on our side is that Sunday the 24th of September was Museum “free day” in Europe so we saw the Herc. for free (mental note for everyone remember this day when you want to take on some serious expensive museums in Europe!).

I absolutely love the Herc. (words…from my brochure….). “The cittia (city) was built on a volcanic plateau on a sheer cliff over the sea at the foot of Vesuvio. Trials of deep excavations in several points indicate the city layout was not planned until the first half of the 4th century BC. The first major natural disaster to hit the Herc was in 62AD when an earthquake made many buildings hazardous”, obviously after then the Herc was buried in mud when Vesuvio blew up on the 24th of August in 79AD.

We spent a few hours wandering through the villa’s and gardens in the beautiful city which is about the size 20ha but only about 5ha have been uncovered at this stage, there is still another 15ha that is buried underneath the modern cittia that has been built right on top (what an archaeologists nightmare!) and at the current rate of exploration the next generation may be able to see another 10% of it!

In such a small place there was so much to see the beautiful architecture sill well intact, unbelievable frescoes, mosaics, gardens, wall paintings etc that still were in amazing condition for their age. Definitely worth a visit if you are into that kind of thing!

The following week was also pretty hectic as it was my last in Salerno so my mates and I tried to pack in lots of stuff before I left.

Tuesday night we set aside for our weekly date for pizza and soft drinks in the old town (again we get away with a huge pizza each etc for 6.5 euros per head!), the long walk home after the pizza (about 3.5km’s) helped keep those calories at bay. (Vero I am remembering Calories in calories out! lol)….sometimes more in than out!

Wednesday the weather was good so my “Svedese” mates all hit the beach so I was left without any wing men or women for my trip to Ravello which is a small village perched high above Amalfi town along the Amalfi coast about 1hr from Salerno by bus. I was starting to get used to the crazy bus ride that I had to take to get there and always made sure I was not doing it with an empty stomach or with to many drinks under my belt! Nina one of my other student friends in Salerno raved about Ravello so it encouraged me to go there. I took in all of the gardens, villa’s etc and sat and watched the panoramic views up and down the Amalfi coast whilst trying to take many pictures in average light!

That night back to Salerno, a quick cortoletta & caprese (yes with Buffallo motz. The best!) With Alex before heading to bed thinking about all of the great times and great new friends I had met in Salerno in such a short amount of time.

Thursday I went to class as usual and I found it a little hard to concentrate as it was my last day. I was thinking about how much I loved learning Italian more and more each day. We all were starting to talk more Italian (the grammar not that great though!) and our conversations in class extended to all sorts of adult topics cultural nuances between us all (we had a German, Swedes, Israeli, American’s, a Greek girl and me). It is amazing how great it is to hear about other cultures when you are speaking/listening in a new language.

This theme carried out through the day as for my last night I had invited my new friends over for another infamous “cena festa” (dinner party). There are many things I love about our dinner parties, and the teamwork that goes into preparing them. It is a bit of a process and we all chip in, going to do the groceries together, talking about what we want to buy in class that day, preparing bits and pieces of the food together and then sitting down with some vino and great company enjoying the food we prepared. We had some major laughs when we discovered that we did not have a can opener so both Yohannes with the cork screw and Alex (who is a surgeon!) trying to hack saw open the can with a serrated knife!(I asked whether he had a good insurance policy). I was also on a mission to teach Yohannes how to make my Nona’s famous risotto so we did two batches one each and I was really pleased to say that Yohannes’ was far better than mine!

As we sat down I counted that we had six nationalities at the table (Swedes, German, Italian, Spanish, Austrian, & me), we all shared stories of our lives, talked politics and economics (influence of Julian who gives lectures on development economics to the OECD - amazing guy!) and just generally laughed a lot. The Swedes took the long walk home this time… so Julian, Alex and I sat up, finished the shitty red wine, beers and whatever else was in the fridge and then we went to bed around 2am a great way to end my time in bella Salerno!

I am getting used to these late nights and early starts, thank god for Alex as I had so much stuff that he had to help me get to the train station. The “gem” took my heavy Hobie bag all the way onto the train, up the stairs etc that I was ever grateful. I paid him in all my unused, train and bus tickets from Campania that were worth money as they were unvalidated! Actually he got out of doing the dishes for bringing me whilst Julian had to do the dishes from our party the night before! Gotta love tradeoff’s!

I decided that I wanted my train ride to Napoli to catch my flight as painless as possible so I paid about 3x the regional train fair and took the Eurostar (it was my first really nice relaxed experience on Italian trains!). I got to Napoli airport in plenty of time (did not want any bag mishaps, or to be to late as last time check in and control took over two hours).

I was flying back to Nice, and changing in Milano. My departure time from Napoli was scheduled for 12.05pm but guess what, we had a delayed aircraft (back to leaving at 1.55pm) and then of course when we boarded at about 2.15pm(Southern Italian tempo)… there was uno problemo technico! Of course “bloody Alitalia”. I think we ended up departing at about 3pm, which was just enough time when we landed in Milano to “corro” ( “I run”… like hell) to the next plane in order to make it for my flight to Nice. (No time to buy that nice Lancôme lip gloss I had been eyeing off and was going to buy myself as a reward for being good with my money!)

I did however on the way to Nice catch up on the news, reading the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal both great publications I am loving reading to keep in touch with all things business and economy! One thing I have been noticing is that Australia even in the Asia - Pac news section never really rates a mention - I thought all the stuff with CML etc would rate something, but the only thing I have seen is that interest rates remained the same and that demand for commodities is weakening thus the drop in the stock price for BHP et al! However Irwin’s death became world news even in Italia, love the irony!

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As a result I left Nice airport lightly loaded and then went to Andy’s place where we picked up his stuff, furniture etc to take up to settle in his new apartment in Aix en Provence where he will continue his studies. We arrived late and our first stop after unloading the car was to pick up pizza (Aix’s best according to Andy) and some beer. We put the tunes on, ate, drank and put together his furniture. Saturday we lazed around a bit and then went to a concert in Marseille - well we tried to go to it and it was all sold out…we were kinda ok about it as it was some weird ass music that we were not that keen on anyways it also gave us the opportunity to hit the pubs in the port area of Marseille (Simmy, Pi, Gav, Nomes, Suze, Dazzy) I was thinking of you as we had drinks right on the road where we did that bit official march past for the ISAF games all those years ago.

I was a little nostalgic returning to Marseille as my life since then has turned completely upside down, as I was walking down that same street with Andy I never would have imagined I would be doing it under the current circumstance - I had a little smile and joke with Andy as we reminisced about the ISAF games that we both were at four years ago in that same spot.

I could not really plan a lot for my week off as I did not know when my bags were going to turn up so I ended up staying in Aix with Andy until Thursday this week, doing nice things together in between his classes and for me shopping whilst he was in class. We took many walks in the car free city, went shopping (for his b’day presents) visited parks, went to the cinema (in English yippee…watched Hard Candy {crap don’t see} & also a movie I liked called Thankyou for Smoking). Other highlights were my first Asian dinner since I left Australia (the things you miss), coriander, mint, beautiful fragrant herbs gosh was just in heaven.

We had to go back to another Asian the night after as I still had not had my fix (this time It was chicken vermicelli & roast canard (duck) - absolute cuisine heaven. I still had not had enough so one of the nights we ate in I convinced Andy that Hokkien noodle chicken salad was the thing we absolutely had to have for dinner! (three nights in a row and still wanting more!).

Who would have thought I was in France but don’t get me wrong I love the French food particularly yummy filled baguettes (fresh hot ones), beautiful little cakes and other little treats and of course my favourite French food…rose! Yes they make Rose in Aix too…yippee I was in heaven…

So today is Friday, I write this story sitting on a deck chair on the terrace soaking up the early October rays in my new home (about five stories in the air - 125 stairs no lift!!!!) with my new flatmate Vittoria (a shiatsu masseuse - will come in handy) on the deck chair next to me! Vittoria is an Italiano Signorina about my age and it is her place(no other students or flatmates) so we gabble on in Italian together which is really nice, she is also really social so I think that I will have a lot of fun with her and really get myself into the Italian culture. Another bonus is she has family in Australia and was raised in Genova so she knows this cittia well!

I am really lucky my new home is right smack bang in the middle of the old town in Genova and only about 800m from school, but the apartment is high enough not to be noisy - actually there is no cars in the central area of Genova, which is something I love about the cittia. The cittia itself is quite grand and you can tell there is a lot more wealth here than in the South which is much more poor. Being a bit port town there is lots of nautical activity which I will try and immerse myself in starting tomorrow where the city is hosting the huge Genova boat show. I have already seen some of the amazing super yachts on my walk last night. The port area is really new (built in 1992 for the Expo) and well lit so it is really safe. It is not at all the cittia the lonely planet paints it to be.

Anyways not to sure what the next two weeks will bring, a few side trips I think perhaps to Milano to visit Lara, Silvia and Ciara and perhaps also a weekend with one of my old friends I met on tour in Botswana, Acardi who has a house in Lac Riamaggore who has suggested I come to visit.

Italiano amici… Io sono qui in Genova, tu puoi visitare ok!

Also any Aussies or other mates around the place you are now welcome to visit. I will be here until at least mid-end of December culminating with a white Christmas hopefully with my relatives in Treviso.

Anyways until next time

Tutti Bacci
Bella

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Comments

[Robyn and Sergio Pavan]

Wow!
Envious of your adventures but relate to many of your comments. Loved Ravello also and agree about the inaccuracy of the Lonely Planet comment on Genoa....we loved it especially the different cuisine. Enjoy!!!