2 Italies: Southern Italy & Tuscany / Italian Lakes

Jen and I flew into Napoli recently.

OK, lets get this out in the open straight away. Jen and I obviously have weird holidays in Italy. Our last holiday there included a larger than life tour guide who was arrested for possessing drugs and indecently exposing himself at a public bus stop. The postcard is attached at the bottom if you want to be amused. This holiday was colourful as well.

We took one wrong turn at the airport and we were on the wrong freeway heading the wrong way out of the city. By the time we got off it, we had largely crossed Napoli, and we were forced for the next few hours to navigate through it.

Now Lonely Planet equates wanting to drive in Napoli to "having a death wish". This is not the romanticized Rome traversed by scooter. We were forced to. Chaotic Cambodia was a cakewalk compared to a place where the road rules are clearly optional extras. We experienced:

· Watching a car overtaking the car that was overtaking us

· Making 3 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road

· Overtaking in tunnels

· Overtaking on blind corners

· Constant tailgating, often at high speeds

· Many people not stopping for nuisances like red lights and pedestrians

· Pulling out into traffic and then looking

Jen felt like she had about 10 near misses in about 2 hours so its no wonder they don't appear to waste money on panel beaters. One key tip: if you drive in a completely Anglo-Saxon fashion you will have an accident.

We eventually made our way through and on to our destination Sorrento, gateway to Capri and the Amalfi coast, and a traffic congested tourist trap. Our accommodation was a classic case of mis-selling: romantic bungalows set among citrus orchards turned out to be a school holiday camp amongst the pulped oranges.

During our week the weather was unseasonably bad and the light typically poor although not always. Normally it is t-shirts in February but this late March weather called for 3 layers of clothing and aching extremities. We were planning on going up Mount Vesuvius but that got snowed upon during the night. So instead we went to Pompei where the wind chill factor meant we got snowed upon. And it rained.

Despite the chill and rain, Pompei was amazing. It is one of those perhaps rare places that live up to the tourist hype and it is Italy's number one attraction. Apart from being amazingly preserved, it is the sophistication of the Romans that amazes. While Pompei was a relatively minor part in the Roman Empire before it got solid filled, it still sported such highlights as alfresco eating furniture, an amphitheatre, a Weights and Measures office, and 89 take away food joints. Since it suffered an earthquake 17 years prior to being pumice packed, the other thing we took away from Pompei was that it was an ancient version of Changing Rooms on a massive scale when Vesuvius enveloped it.

After Pompei we spent time at the Herculaneum site, which was also buried by Vesuvius in 79AD, the main attraction being an amazing mosaic in an excavated home, the likes of which are nearly all in museums.

The next day we took a boat trip to Capri. It is obvious why this stunning 6 km long piece of sun kissed rock has been on the tourist circuit for a few millennia. Features like the beautiful slopes and the stark sheer cliffs, the very pretty narrow streets and the Arc Naturale must have all helped. And then there is the apparently amazing Blue Grotto, a natural spectacular light show: it’s a pity the see was too rough for us to get enter. And the view of Capri from the top of Mount Solaro after the cable car ride is truly amazing. It is a playground of the rich and famous. For instance, we dined in a superb restaurant called La Capannina, which has served Dustin Hoffman and a person suspiciously similar to Jack Lemmon.

Roman emperors relaxed in Capri for centuries after Augustus liked it so much that he purchased it in exchange for a larger and wealthier island. Tiberius ruled the Empire from there for 10 years. The historian Tacitus says Tiberius spent time indulging in hobbies of the group sex kind, although there is no independent evidence of this. When we visited the remains of his pad Villa Jovis, the most striking feature were the huge water cisterns (which we suspect would have flooded the servant's quarters if they had collapsed).

The dramatic landscape meant the Capri experience for us was like a giant outdoor step machine: for instance we descended 800 steps after visiting the spectacular mansion of a doctor who prescribed placebos to royalty. The locals have adapted to the narrow lung busting inclines in various ways such as getting the dog to pick up the odd item at the shop.

The next day as we left Capri Jen had "rock hard and sore legs" (no surprise there). We returned to Sorrento before navigating the hairpins of the strikingly scenic Amalfi coast. Towards the end of the day we were given a display in papermaking by an old Italian man with a carunculous nose at Amalfi, where papermaking is a centuries old tradition.

Further down the coast we visited the ruins of Paestum, a Greek colonial settlement founded 25 centuries ago. It's reclamation from a scorpion and snake filled swamp in the early 20th century has revealed 3 fine temple structures. The surrounding area is now a large producer of mozzarella, much of it being the authentic buffalo derived variety!

We crossed pretty mountain scenery touched with snow to enjoy Certosa di San Lorenzo near Padula. This is a stupendously over designed and gargantuan monastery which took over 500 years to build before the monks left. It is so big that the courtyard was used during WW1 to hold Austrian prisoners of war.

When we found our digs for the night we broke a personal rule and ate at the Hotel restaurant. What an experience. We hit a boisterous party of school boys and their culinary budget that we were apparently subjected to was obviously very tight: basic pasta, pea and ham soup & pasta, mozzarella and tomatoes etc. Our 3 course meals with copious bread, adequate water & nasty wine strongly resembled University College Formal Dinner Nights. Two pubescent lads and a maitre d' with white gloves and uncombed hair attended us. We were going to complain about the expected extortionate bill but the total price was truly shocking: 5€! Given it is doubtful we have ever had such a cheap sit down meal anywhere in Europe we couldn't complain. Definitely cheap and cheerful.

If we were going to eat bad food, at least we wanted to choose it. So during the holiday we sated memories of Australia by munching on the Italian equivalent of the junk food Twisties. And we induced nausea when we demolished a pagan symbol Italian Style, aka Monster Easter egg. But we didn't try all the local delicacies.

We pushed further into the Southern Italian heartland where few tourists tread. It is easy to see why with the few attractions a good distance apart. Matera, famous for its former troglodytes, was worth 15 minutes of our time yet we got lost on foot in its (designed?) streets for hours without a toilet in sight. Ostuni was supposed to be a nice white washed town but it has a big, modern and ugly foreground.

The exception to these disappointments was Alberobello, a stunning town of "trulli" (conical roofed houses), many of them with symbols painted on the side. Staying in one was great and Jen was a truly happy shutterbug with so many things to photograph.

Spurred on by boredom, we left the Deep South a day earlier and deliberately headed towards the city with the highest population density in Europe, the mafia infested planning disaster known as Napoli. We figure that many of our best holiday experiences tend to be when we have low / non-existent expectations, so on that score Napoli was shaping up as a stunner.

Given our previous experience with the city the reentry was planned with military precision and Jen displayed some of her most positive emotions of the holiday once we had successfully returned the car to the airport without any dents.

We settled into our hotel only a few minutes from the airport that looked like it was in a Napoli wasteland next to a multi-level freeway but that still didn't stop taxi drivers from charging double for "being outside Naples". The hotel was weird. Never before have we gone down to the foyer in the morning to discover staff sleeping on the couches. Never before have we seen staff smoking in front of a "No Smoking" Sign. And never before have we eaten in the Hotel restaurant where the only other diners were the staff and the main course was a larger version of the first course.

For our final day we headed into Napoli and yes it exceeded our expectations. We enjoyed translations of the graffiti in the caves where thousands hid during WW2, coping with only a handful of toilets. The Museum had truly stunning Roman mosaics and an ancient statue so complex it is almost impossible to conceive how it could have been created. While the chaotic transport system initially stressed us we eventually got blasé enough to cross a Napoli road while eating excellent gelato and watching out for canine excreta.

Northern Italians apparently say that the contribution from the South towards the country's economy includes higher taxes and the Mafia. Our tourism experience was more positive than that, but still somewhat mixed. On the downside was bad accommodation and significant distances between things in the South. Also, the food was generally disappointing. But places life Pompei, Capri and Alberobello were truly special.

Until next time,

Andrew & Jen

*****************************************

Our First Trip to Italy: The Original Electronic Postcard from Tuscany and the Italian Lakes


Well Jennifer and I set off on Friday 27 May 1999 on the bleary 0705 flight to Gatwick.

Lets get one thing straight: taking 36 hours to get to Italy via Plane/Train/Coach/Ferry/Coach, with a pompous bronchitic man behind you spewing phlegm at you over 5 countries is not our idea of fun. In fact we were having misgivings before we had even met the man: we knew we had made the wrong transport choice when we were already running an hour late at the Dover Bus Interchange.

Unless you are a) over 80 AND/OR b) disabled, fly/drive is far superior, even fly/coach is better.

But in the interests of stupidity your correspondents tested
coaching: the joy of no videos, the complaining punters,
overly long and frequent toilet breaks, inability to stop
and take photos etc. etc.

But now the story gets interesting. Meet "Nick", our
hotblooded Italian 28 year old guide. Nick is animated. He
started us off playing "I Spy" while we languished in
Dover. He always carried his bags and had a thick Italian
accent (so we couldn't understand him)! Nick succeeded in
not being our tour manager - but more on that later.

The only interesting parts of our 36 hours of masochism
were:

* Luxembourg; at about 2am on Sunday we all piled out of
the bus to take advantage of the very low taxes on
goods at the petrol station. Petrol is only 29p (about
AUD0.76) a litre there - quite possibly the cheapest in
Europe.
* Switzerland; on the approach to the 17km Gothard Tunnel
(!) we saw lots of the surrounding mountains in the
preceding 2km traffic jam (the drivers have seen it up
to 19km!) Switzerland seems a very pretty, orderly and
tidy country - definitely worth a revisit.
* the currencies; on our trip we travelled across 5
currency zones (though the Luxembourg Franc is pegged
to the Belgian one). The checkout chicks at the road
side centres are amazing - accepting a whole hosts of
currencies, but typically only giving out change in the
local currency. The trick was to successfully get rid
of currency from countries you were getting father away
from, which typically meant buying something. This was
complicated by the fact that most places wouldn't
accept foreign coins, it was hard to see which country
the coins came from in the dark, you needed about 5
wallets and it helped to be au fait with exchange rates
and quick mental calculations.

Also a quick note about languages. Contrary to my belief
(Andrew), it was the Southern Europeans (Italians)
displaying more English skills than some of their more
northerly neighbours (eg Swiss Germans). Many a time menus
etc were in a number of languages, and we could get by with
the French ones. Often we would try our best (!) Italian
with handy phrasebook help and get a nice response in
English. The Italians don't seem to have the same language
hangups as the French. Contrast that to the Swiss Germans -
everything appeared to be in German, and people didn't
understand English.

But lets cut to our Tuscan arrival. We stayed at the
"Oceano" hotel in a Tuscan coastal resort town. Two salient
issues: Tuscany is not noted for its coast: which probably
isn't surprising given it takes a long time to find the
skerrick of beach which isn't private, after which you are
rewarded by jelly fish infested waters. So no wonderful
Tuscany of the postcards: no cedar trees, hills awash with
colour at night, walled hill villages etc etc. Just a very
sub-standard alternative to a Jersey beach. The second
salient issue was the hotel was very tight with food: try as
we may, we weren't allowed any of the cereal for breakfast:
that was for the full tariff people. As one lady commented,
you were never going to get fat at the Oceano.

Our first tour was to Pisa on the Sunday. Nick, our tour
guide, was almost 30 minutes late getting on the bus - which
didn't go down very well. Pisa itself is somewhat of a
dump. Sure there is this tower which would have been
moderately interesting if it had been vertical. But its
been closed to the public since 1986. And the lean is just
well, a lean. Plus there is a long line of kitshcy tourist
booths, selling - you guessed it, the minature electrically
powered version. It probably didn't help that the weather
was awful and the streets surrounding the tower are very
non-picturesque. And Nick the Tour Manager was late -
having left his bag in Pisa; and he tried unsuccessfully to
bring a lady friend back with on the coach. He was
becoming, as some diplomat delicately put it "About as
useful as a chocolate teapot".

On Monday we went to Florence. This time our tour leader
was STILL the last on the coach. Florence is such a pretty
city - largely through the Machiavellian and other excesses
of the Medicis, and it is easy to see why it is called
romantic. Our tour guide of the day had to leave us in the
lurch at the end of the tour because Nick couldn't be found
(hmm, I didn't realise the Tour Manager was paid to have
more free time than the tourists!). Jen met an English
Expatriate Painter and bought some of his pictures.

On Tuesday it was Lucca (a day of rest would have been
nice). Nick was (you guessed it) was late. Lucca has great
understatement. A pretty tower in the middle of the town
with trees growing out of the top. An amazing town wall
which could have fitted a 3 lane highway on top - more used
against floods than invaders I suspect. We had an excellent
lunch that included Calzione (rolled over Pizza) and Chianti
- it was very tough going in the hot Tuscan sun. At the end
of it, again, Nick was late, running dramatically to catch
the pulling away bus. On the way back Nick pointed out the
roadside prostitutes (even though there were children on
board), and tried to have us singing "Who stole the cookie
from the cookie jar".

At dinner that night the senior driver got up and said he
was disgusted with the situation, right in front of Nick.
The travel company had sacked Nick that afternoon and then
promptly reinstated him after he said the drivers had lied
about his time keeping etc. People promptly got up and left
as it looked like a brawl could have started. To the best
of my knowledge, Nick didn't help deal with any of the
Group's issues during the holiday.

Then came Wednesday, travel day from Tuscany. We had seen
little wonderful countryside, and all that from the coach,
missed the splendour of the 13 towered town of San Giormorna
(sp?) and missed the character of Sienna. Once again, Nick
was no where to be seen, 10 minutes after the starting time,
but this time the coach drivers had permission to leave
without him. Which they did. The travel day was broken up
with Verona, famous for pickpocketing gypsies (a common
Italian city problem), the fake Juliet's Balcony and the
Roman Amphitheatre which they don't tell you on the outside
is covered with metal seats. Did I mention that Jen nearly
fainted / twisted her ankle before we had a very average
lunch?

I am trying to be balanced and not paint too rosy a picture
of Italy. Which becomes quite hard, once we had driven next
to Lake Garda. Such a refreshing revelation: a tourist spot
that adequately meets the hype. Lake Garda ia the biggest
fresh water swimming pool in Europe, and has stunning
mountains on two sides. We stayed at the "Moderna" in the
village of Melchesine.

Melchesine is drop dead gorgeous. Most streets are actually
winding alleys with cobblestones. There are photo
opportunities in all directions. The fortress towers over
the spot beautifully. The shopping is great, there being a
Gelateria pretty well everywhere within a cones throw (We
enjoyed the many flavours of the excellent Italian ice cream
1 - 2 times a day). Car traffic is kept to a minimum. And
swimming in the lake is great - fresh clear water at a nice
refreshing temperature.

The hotel even provided such nice touches as having olive
oil at the table for dipping your bread in, and giving us a
nice room with a pretty view of the mountain behind us.

On Thursday we went to Venice. Jen liked Venice a whole lot
more than I did. I felt it was just an Italian town
surrounded by water, with its very own "Leaning Tower". I
think I would have the most fun if I could have commandeered
a jet ski for the canals, or put some of those prolific
pidgeons in a pie. Did I mention the friendliness of the
natives? We had one old crone flaying at us with her
walking stick because we weren't getting out of her way fast
enough.

For Thursday and Friday we had a replacement tour guide
called "Bruna". She was much more committed than Nick, but
her English was considerably worse. Our first guide didn't
tell us anything and the second one didn't tell us hardly
anything that we could understand.

And on Thursday night the unthinkable happened: Nick was
spotted in Melchesine. After being sacked as Tour Manager,
he had chased us across Italy to be our "friends" again, and
was asking for money.

Friday was a mistake. We should have stayed in Melchesine
and taken the cable car to the summit, followed by a
lesiurely bicycle ride around the lake. Instead we had
opted for the tour of the Lake, and what followed was a
progression of reasonably dreary lakeside village
experiences (with Jen and I fighting about our favourite
experience), none as a nice as the village we were staying
in. To make matters more frustrating, the day was capped
off with a 2 hour lake crossing. I would have though it was
some tourist boat, providing us with relevant, nice and
timely local trivia. Instead it was a cold and slow
commuter boat, with the captain announcing everything in
Italian. We learnt later that the tour company had
stipulated that the lake "tour" must be a minimum 90 minutes
long, but hadn't deemed it necessary for there to be any
information/activities of interest.

On Friday night we learned that Nick had been arrested at
3am at the Melchesine Bus Stop for possessing and perhaps
selling marijuana. Plus he was charged with indecent
exposure (he struck me as a having rather strange clothes
sense with his Leprechaun socks and Scottish kilt - though
we suppose he was following clothing traditions in one
sense). Now with our knowledge that "Nicholas had been
nickerless when he got nicked", the truth was out. Earlier
in the week I had speculated whether he was actually a drug
dealer, with his 2 bags always next to him. Apparently also
rampantly poor timekeeping is another often good indicator
of such substance abuse. I suppose I was most annoyed that
our tour company gave him £200 to get back to his
accomodation in England, even though he had quite clearly
broken his contract and willingly broken the law. It also
amazing how he could show his happy face around the place,
and treat the trip like one big holiday for himself: it must
have been the drugs. Nick was happy to the last: we last
encountered him on Friday night, when he waved like a silly
Puppy at us from outside the Hotel he was banned from
setting foot in.

The trip back from Italy was mind and body numbingly as bad
as the trip there, except it was worse, since we had seen
the scenery, the same spitual experience and there wasn't a
holiday to look forward to.

Jen is wanting us to sue the tour company for a partially
ruined holiday: so far they have russled up perhaps £1 a
person in the form of 1 complimentary bottle of wine per 4
adults.

Just to make everything perfect, the weather was absolutely
perfect that week in Jersey by all accounts.

If you have ever felt nauseous about the sickly sweet nature
of postcards from people enjoying the most wildly excellent
holidays, then I trust this has been a refreshing change.
At the very least, its been memorable.

Andrew & Jen