But the briefest snippet from Switzerland... until next I have spare time to get online... this blog is fast becoming obsolete, but I will attend the vast backlog within the fortnight, when we hit London!
giovedì 30 agosto 2007
martedì 28 agosto 2007
Catwalk on the Grand Canal
I saw this famous model in Venice... and she let me take some photos of her...
lunedì 13 agosto 2007
sabato 11 agosto 2007
Medieval Manhattan
On Thursday the 9th we left Siena for Florence, but decided to go via San Gimignano, partly on Liam's suggestion. This medieval town is truly a tourist wonderland in Summer, and would resemble some sort of crazy medieval theme park if it weren't for the fact that the town, with its prestigous towers, really was a medieval powerhouse. 'The Manhattan of Medieval Europe' is perhaps the best description I've read.
We had some difficulty lugging our backpacks in search of a non-existent bag-deposit, but thankfully Em found a nice hotel that let us store our bags in the lobby for a small tip. This allowed us to explore the town at greater ease - first up the Torre Grosso, with stunning panoramic views of the Tuscan countryside, rolling green hills all the way to the horizon, then a whip around the museum and the Dante room, where the poet addressed the local council. 
The icing on the cake of this half-day stop-over was the 'saffron cream' gelati from one of the most famous - and best - gelati stores in all of Italy (whose famous customers include Tony Blair and Ian Thorpe).
Top 3 Nun Moments in Italy
ROME: Our journey from Sorrento to Siena required a change-over at Rome. The sight of the nuns above were classic contemporary Rome, so I thought I'd offer my Top 3 Nun Moments during my time in Italy. Here they are, in no particular order.
1. Nuns eating ice-cream, one looking guilty, the other talking on her mobile phone (above) at Rome's Termini train station.
2. Almost being bowled over by a pack of wild nuns running to make a train at Napoli's main station.
3. Seeing a nun take a video inside the Colosseum - on her camera-phone. Liam was visiting at the time. I pointed her out; he remarked that it was like an American Express ad.
mercoledì 8 agosto 2007
Capri 3
CAPRI: Having survived the rowboat into the Grotta Azzura (post to follow), and having had the salty sea air blow in our faces on our unexpected circumnavigation of the island, we refueled and caught the cable car to Capri proper, the small conglomeration of whitewashed Mediterranean-style villas perched high up on the hill.
Desperate to avoid the jam-packed, Campari-soaked piazzas central, we found our way off the path in relatively no time at all, in one of those deliciously aimless wanderings that nevertheless seem imbued with the vaguest sense of purpose. That our walk initially followed one flight of stairs after another - upward - was of no concern given our recent day of ten-thousand ancient stone stairs-for-titans-centaurs-and-sirens on the Path of the Gods.
On said walk along the Amalfi Coast we were spoiled for stunning views, and this was no different, as we climbed higher and higher, in the direction, we soon discovered, of Tiberius´ one-time pleasure-palace. On the way, it so happened that I bumped into a mate in Rome, an Irish-English poet and soon to be father, strolling towards me with his fiance! This was definitely remarkable - on this stretch of the ridge, overlooking the whole of Capri, we came into contact with not one other person.
Unfortunately we were by this stage extremely pushed for time - it was a miracle we made it to Tiberius´ villa at all - so we had only two minutes to gaze out across the sea before we reluctantly high-tailed it back down to the cable-car and onto the ferry back to Sorrento.
Back home we had one last farewell dinner at a good value restaurant - Graham´s treat, as a parting gift to Em and myself. The next day we would be seeing him off at Rome, and heading for Siena, the beginning of the rest of our Italy trip, and then onward to France and Switzerland.
La Grotta Azzura
We´d decided to head straight for the Blu Grotto because of the three main sights offered by Capri, it was unlike anything we´d done, or were likely to do, on our trip... we´d all seen many (many) ruins (so Tiberius´ palace wasn´t our first priority) and unsurpassable views on the Amalfi Coast (so the other main sight, the cable car to Anacapri, was also usurped).
So we paid up our twelve euro for what we thought was the ticket into the Grotto - after our initial twenty-five euro return ferry from Sorrento - and it turned out that the boat only took us to the Grotto entrance but not inside. To enter, we had to pay another guy nine euros to row us inside...
Eight shades of blue
CAPRI: Better known as a port for the luxury yachts of football superstars, Saudi oil magnates, miscellaneous celebrities, and CEOs working on their tans; hordes of tourists and Roman emperors, who have all called the place home during various summers over the last two millenia, Capri meant two specific things to us: a way to ease the aches and pains from our eight hour hike along the Amalfi Coast the day before, and a conclusion of sorts to the south Italian leg of our trip.
Although we had recently enjoyed a dip in the Med on Procida - virtually uninhabited compared to the tourist-infested beaches of Capri - I was personally super keen on a lengthy swim... I can´t overstate how desperately, during my six months in Rome, I yearned for a cleansing dip in the sea, as I was wont back at home in Moreton Bay, the Gold Coast and Byron. This was my chance.
But first, we´d decided to make a beeline for the Grotta Azzura, or ´Blue Grotto´ as soon as we arrived on the island; so we paid up what we thought was an exorbitant twelve euros each to be taken to the entrance of the grotto (but not inside; more on this to follow) - but it turned out that we´d actually paid for a boat tour that circumnavigated the whole island - something we hadn´t planned, and that came as a pleasant surprise once we realised. 
And so we managed not only to see the Blue Grotto, but the Green Grotto, the White Grotto, the baths of Trajan, the stalactite that looks like the virgin Mary, the natural arch that looks like an elephant´s trunk, the lover´s keyhole, boys jumping off cliffs, and countless, priceless luxuy watercraft, that made us all realise how poor we were - especially given how many euros we hemmorraged at every turn on the trip to Capri.
Iscriviti a:
Commenti (Atom)
