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Published: September 25th 2010
We arrived in Rome after 12 hours of travel from Winnipeg. It was 2 am our time but 9 am in Rome, so we decided we just had to give'r - "when in Rome" and all that jazz. We found our hostel easily, were presented with a map and instructions on how to get to the Vatican, and we were on our way. We found the Vatican with very little trouble - it is its own city, I suppose...and wandered through St Peter's Basilica, the tombs, and one of the Vatican museums where we saw the Sistine Chapel. It was amazing, especially for a cynical non-Catholic like me, to see people being so moved by a religious icon. The size and grandeur of the Vatican are really unbelievable. Worth the €16, but jet lag was definitely kicking in after a while so we really saw very little of what's there. We were feeling quite capable and worldly until the walk back to the hostel...this was when we discovered that Susan should always be the one carrying the map. Two small-town prairie girls roaming through Rome severly jet-lagged is not necessarily a recipe for success. Rome is made of so many labyrinthine little streets that change names and run into one another, all crowded with tourists and people trying to sell things to tourists, that I managed to get us rather hopelessly lost. Luckily Susan took over and we made it back to the hostel. After a solid 14 hour sleep that night, we were ready to hit Rome properly on our second day there. We saw the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Trevi Fountain. We decided that sometimes things are famous for a reason, and all of these sights were definitely worthwhile. However, I can't even imagine high season in Rome - we were there nearing the low season and the streets were stuffed with tourists - it was like Regina Beach on Canada Day, times a million.
The next day we were on our way to Naples. Everyone we talked to, including the two Italian ladies sitting across from us on the train whom we could speak to only via hand gestures, warned us to watch ourselves in Naples. It's reputedly a rough town, full of hustlers and pickpockets. We were pretty nervous rolling in, emerging from the filthy metro to a huge blindingly sunny piazza filled with cars and tough Italian people. However, our wonderful, grandfatherly hostel host, Giovanni instantly put our minds at rest. He gave us a 45-minute presentation on what to see in Naples, and showed us statistics that proved that other Italian cities have a much worse crime rate than Naples does. He seemed genuinely concerned to convince us that Naples was as safe and wonderful a city as any other, and that there was so much to enjoy there. He was right, and caused us to extend our stay there from 3 nights to 4, and to avoid the more touristy destinations like the Amalfi Coast - "why would you want to go see rocks and water?" His rooftop terrace was a great evening meeting place for the hostellers, to eat €3 pizza (the best in Naples, only a couple blocks from our hostel), and drink €3 wine (likely not the best in Naples but come on, it was €3!) and swap stories about our travels and backgrounds. We met tons of great people there.
The city itself was one of our favourites so far. Naples has balls, that's for sure. The women are always dressed to the nines, strutting down cobblestone streets in 3-inch heels and head to toe jewel-tone outfits, voluptuous curves and coiffed hair blazing. The guys are as tough and macho as they come, albeit also crazy fashionable (we felt fairly scrubby in our travel gear and sensible shoes), and totally soft-hearted once you talk to them. Kids play soccer and bike in the streets and you can just see the word "badass" written across their foreheads, but in such an endearing way. The streets are clogged with people at all hours, and there are apparently very few traffic rules since the thousands of motorbikes come up on the sidewalks to pass people and lights are a mere suggestion. This seemed like a pretty bewildering system to us at first, coming from a place where people still stop and wait for red lights at 4 in the morning when absolutely nobody is on the road, but we didn't see a single accident while we were there and people certainly seemed to get places much faster than we do. We saw a couple castles and an old acqueduct, and took a day trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum. However, most of our time in Naples was devoted to eating and hanging out...we found the BEST gelato, the BEST coffee, and the BEST pizza in Naples, which were all appallingly good. While eating the gelato we actually had to sit down in a piazza because we just couldn't move, it was too good. Our last afternoon there was delightfully spent with a walk down to the port where we witnessed an Italian wedding which I think must have been circus-themed but Susan is convinced is just the way of the fashion future - we wanted to take pictures but felt glaringly touristy enough without strolling up and asking "could we take your picture, we just don't have outfits like this in Canada, oh my goodness don't you just look different" but trust me it was crazy. One of the bridesmaids was wearing a belly-baring ball gown and the bride's dress was cut up to the knees so that you could see her frilled thigh-high gold boots. We decided we'd have to work on our abs before our weddings just in case this trend does reach Canada anytime in the next 10 years or so. We followed up our sociological exploration with a glass of wine at a cafe looking out over the port and Mt Vesuvius, and prepared ourselves to move on to Florence.
We arrived in Florence to a totally different vibe. The streets seemed deserted and incredibly well-mannered after Naples. There were tourists galore, and those of a much more refined ilk. Whereas Naples doesn't care if you're comfortable or have a good time, Florence steps aside politely and asks won't you please enjoy this lovely city. Rome just lays it all on the table and says look around and do what you please. Florence is hilariously quiet and polite especially after the raucous abandon of Naples. I found it rather prim actually. It's full of either 18 year olds who are there to party and take advantage of the fact that you can drink in the streets, or pensioners who are there to take photos and look at art and architecture (for vastly excessive prices - it's €10 to do pretty much anything in Florence, even walking through a park as we discovered!) and drink Chianti. As we're somewhere in between, it was a nice city to spend 2 days but we were happy we didn't stay any longer. The highlight of the trip was seeing David at one of the museums. We woke up at 6:45 to have coffee and a pastry at the BEST coffeeshop in Florence (do you sense a theme here?) then lined up to see David by 7:20. We were 6th in line. By 7:45, the line was down the block. By the time we exited at 9:30, the line was over 4 blocks long and jam-packed. We couldn't believe it. David was worth it...he definitely lives up to his reputation as the "perfect specimen" of a man...but I don't know if I would have waited like 4 hours in line to see him. It was nice to be exposed to so much art that glorified the male form, since in more modern art the female form is so celebrated and males are largely ignored. As we found out, there's a lot to see and appreciate in the sculpture of males as well, not to put too fine a point on it. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Florence with another hosteller, topping it off by climbing up to a high piazza for the sunset with a couple beer and listening to some sweet pop covers by a busker up there. Once again our hostel was exceptional and we had a great experience meeting really cool people.
There were such marked differences between all 3 of the cities we visited in Italy. Our best assessment of it was that Rome is a rather bookish, history buff, sorta geeky guy who lets you look around and is resigned to the tourist crowd. Lots of stone architecture, lots of history and a somewhat formal vibe, not too much of a party town. Naples is the badass younger sister, who would totally dress goth and stay out late, and not care what people said about her. It's such a bold and unapologetic city, which is totally intimidating at first but very endearing. At first we had Florence pegged as the stuffy oldest sister who would treasure old artifacts and drink fancy wine, being very unassuming and polite, but once we got there we reevaluated our judgement to a prissy, effeminate younger brother who loved art and architecture and just wanted people to think he was pretty. There was so much personality in the architecture and vibe of each city, and it was really interesting to compare them all.
We had a hilarious final day in Italy trying to get to Slovenia, which I think I'll have to write about another time, along with adding pictures. It's been a rainy day in Bled so it's a good time for journalling, but I think I've taken enough advantage of the free internet in this hostel for now.
Until then...
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Tyrelli
non-member comment
awesome
I know you won't want to spend alot of time hearing from us poor folk watching the leaves fall off the trees so I'll keep it short........Awesome..effeminate younger brother haha, I love it. Glad to hear your haveing a good time. Cheers from the other side of the pond.