Italy.... Hmmmmm....

Europe » Italy
June 29th 2013

Published: June 29th 2013

I really thought Italy would be better. I dedicated 9 nights to it, and so far, the only place that has stood out is seeing Florence. In Melbourne, Italians are known for being concreters, tilers, their coffee and restaurants, gelato and being Catholic... and it's all the same here. The houses of concrete arches, mission brown or orange brick with mission brown trim, roller shutters on every window so you can't let the world in, just makes it feel blah and stuck in the Seventies. Tonight is actually the first hotel in five that we don't have a tiled floor in the bedroom. We have seen plenty of Fiats and Vespas on the road, and were actually trailed through Tuscany by five red Ferraris lead by the club car burgundy Ferrari which brought a little excitement to the undulating hills of the olive groves and grapevines, but otherwise, it's a fairly dirty, inconsiderate, unfriendly place to be. The French and Swiss say 'Bonjour' to everyone, which is so nice to hear... in Italy, I've only heard a complete stranger walking passed say 'Bongiorno' once. The locals don't have a sense of happiness or pride in the air... it's a really shame. Our first night was in Torino where we only ventured to the local pizzeria to have our first pizza in Italy. Who knew that pizza was pretty much all we would be eating. We then went to Switzerland for 3 nights (which, as you know, was amazing!).

Milan felt boxy and full of shopping malls for the fashionistas who need to say 'I bought this shirt/skirt/scarf/frock/pantsuit/necklace/watch/whatever it is from Milan' and hope their friends think they are special. We essentially stayed in our glammed up hostel which had shitty internet and the safest thing to do was order pizza in rather than walk the streets hoping to find a decent restaurant (and from what we heard overnight with all the yelling and fighting in the streets, it was definitely the safest thing to do). We drove to Pisa on our way to Florence, which I will admit, was beautiful, but full of shonky salespeople trying to sell you tacky souvenirs or rip off sunglasses, handbags or watches.

Florence was charming... We got to our hotel around 2.30pm and left at about 3.15pm to catch a tram into the city. We felt safe in Florence and got back to our hotel around 8pm... We walked to Ponte Vecchio - the iconic bridge with loads of jewellers on it, I found a ceramic studio that had a turtle (I collect turtles from around the world as my memento of each place - some places, I don't expect to find any, as a turtle, by nature, is a tropical memento, but so far, I found a marble one in the Lakes District in England, an antique Art Deco wooden one in Provence (and a pair of salt and pepper shakers in typical white glazed ceramic turtles in Mougins near Cannes) and a hand-painted one in Florence....all my favourite places. We had dinner overlooking the Palazzo Vecchio towards the mock Statue of David in this cute little ristorante where - hallelujah, I was able to get a beautiful salad and the boys had a nicely made hamburger with salad on the side.

We drove through Tuscany to get to Rome. Had to throw the Ferrari pic in there!

Rome was dirty, but in some ways, fairly cheap. A bus/train ticket is 1.50 Euro for 100 minutes. We found another pizzeria where we could buy pizza by the kilo. For the three of us, including drinks (and I had a beer), we paid 12.60 Euro... so we went back the next night too. On our day trip to the heart of Rome, we checked out the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and the Pathenon... but really, I couldn't stand the crowds. We also discovered one of those gelato places you hear about that they con you inside their doors to buy a gelato, and before you know it, you pay 25 Euro for one ice-cream. But I was smart... I checked out the menu before ordering and asked for the 3.50 Euro gelato, asked what we could get for the 3.50 Euro price and got our 3.50 Euro gelato. But a lady who came in after us, was given her gelato, went to pay for it, was told the 25 Euro price and handed it back, refusing to pay. There was a huge commotion between the staff and the customer, but the customer just walked out. I must admit, they do make a pretty display of cones to lure you in!

So today, we drove down to Pompei with an end stay in Naples. We arrived in Pompei as the sun was shining, but there were dark clouds looming in... so much so, that we traipsed through the relics in a massive thunderstorm that created plenty of flash flooding in the streets. We were absolutely drenched, but the boys had fun! We are in a nicer hotel tonight with fabulous internet (it's been since Switzerland that we have had decent WiFi, hence the reason why it's been a while between blogs). I've been warned that Naples can be a little rough, so we will stay confined to our hotel room, and there is a restaurant on site. But tomorrow, we will drive along the Amalfi Coast and see the beauty Italy really has to offer!

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