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Published: June 30th 2009
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I met up with Judy again to head off to Italy.
We had three weeks together, travelling from the south to the north.
Our first stop was Pompeii.
We picked up a car in Naples and drove to Pompeii, eventually to find our hotel in the heart of the city.
The ruins were as hot as vesuvius must have been way back then.
We muddled our way around, eventually finding most of what was on our list.
They'd removed most of the figures and put them in storage, leaving just the town.
Most of the emotion of seeing the people in situ was removed along with the figures.
But Vesuvius still towered over the town, albeit a good bit shorter than he used to be.
The remaining frescoes were exciting to find. Incredible that they've lasted so long.
They'd restored some of the gardens, too, which was lovely.
From Pompeii we headed south to Amalfi for some famous coastline action.
The roads were insane, as were the Italian drivers.
Nutcases, all of them.
But we lived to tell the tale, and Amalfi was very pretty.
We went up the mountain to Ravello, perched above Amalfi, then walked all the way
down again.
Very impressive feat from my gran, I treated her to her first ever Limone Granite at the bottom.
She liked it, it suited her sweet tooth well.
From Amalfi we headed even further south (quite mad of us, considering we are both cold weather people) to Maratea on the coast.
There we stayed for six days in a timeshare apartment.
It was too hot to do much during the day.
We read loads of books and ate very nice fruit.
We did a little sightseeing and went up the hill to see Jesus.
I swam in the Mediterranean - it was crystal clear and wonderful in the heat.
I tried not to think about how polluted it probably is...
After Maratea we headed North, all the way to Florence to meet up with Hugh and Fiona.
On the way we had a night in Naples. We were going to make it two but decided quickly and unanimously that Naples was not for us.
Loud, dirty, dusty and soooo hot.
So northward we went, smartly.
We took the slow train, an adventure for Jude. They told us reservations weren't necessary since we had a eurail pass...
It
turned out they were necessary. We had to shift a few times, we managed to keep Judy in a proper seat the whole way - Italians are very respectful of their elders and wouldn't think of turfing 'nonna' out of a seat but I ended up in the the corridor in the end.
When we got to Florence I realised that I had failed to book us a place to stay since we were a day early...
Fate favoured us, though, and we were greeted straight off the train by a man promoting his bed and breakfast, just around the corner from the station, at a price that was a fraction of the hotels in our guide book.
It was clean and comfortable and we popped downstairs for a very nice meal, so different from the food in the south.
We met up with Hugh and Fiona the next day. We had six days in an apartment in the heart of Florence. You could look at the Duomo from the loo and if we ate out on the terrace we were right below the dome.
While in Florence Fiona shopped, Judy and I trawled the galleries with Hugh and
Fiona in tow, mostly, and Hugh put up with us all with very good humour.
Seeing Michelangelo's David was a real treat. There is something very magical about him. And he was unexpectedly spunky, too. A very intense young man he is. And very beautiful. We went to the Uffizi, too. A smorgasbord of masterpieces, unfortunately not very well hung or lit. We all climbed to the top of the Duomo to look out over the city. Judy has faced her fear of heights over and over again on this journey. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio and shopped at the markets of San Lorenzo. I must have eaten two dozen fresh figs that week.
We made a day trip to Siena on the Wednesday. I found it more beautiful than Florence, the medival archetecture more attractive that the fanciness of Florence. The Duomo was the only over the top building we saw there, and that was WAY over the top.
I've never seen such an ornate building. It was almost overwhelming.
From Florence we headed to Venice, the highlight of Italy, by far. I fell in love with the city. Nowhere could be more beautiful and
Victim
these casts were caused by waves of hot gas rushing from the mountain followed by fine dust and grit blowing in and coating the broiled people who were killed almost instantly, then the dusty gritty layer hardened. Later, the body inside the cast rotted away, leaving these emotive natural sculptures in their death poses. more romantic. I missed Alan strongly there, but made up for it by phoning home every morning and every evening to talk to him. Venice was more beautiful than Paris, even.. the buildings crumbling into the canals, the gondola's drifting under the bridges...
We had the fortune to be in the city during the Venice Biennale, just by accident. I came across some of the overflowing pavillions out in the city during a solo exploration one afternoon and we found some more when I was walking around with Judy and Fiona, to find the Jewish ghetto, the first of it's kind in the world. On our last afternoon Judy and I visited the official site of the Biennale and looked at all the pavilions there. By far my favourite one, though, was one we'd come across by accident; the Lithuanian installation. But there was plenty to love and plenty more to hate, as is the way with modern art, and I felt priviledged to be there for it. We delivered Judy to the start of her cruise; the Hotel Danieli, a ridiculously opulent hotel on the lagoon front, right next to Piazza San Marco. The next day we all
went our separate ways - Judy to her week of luxury cruising the Adriatic, Hugh and Fiona to Portugal and myself to Slovenia to hang out with some trees.
(look down further for more photos...)
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Elise
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Ciao bella! sounds and look amazing, wish you even more fun -if possible!! x, Elise