Italia

As promised, here’s a bit of an Italy review. I was already thinking of wanting to go to visit my friend Turtle who’s staying there, even before I got the new job, so it kind of worked out perfectly; I got my own personal tour guide, who knew his way around, some of the people and the language!!

I won’t go through all that we did, as it was a lot, but will mention some points of note. Firstly I flew into Bergamo (an hour outside Milan) on Sun morning. I had to get up at 4am to get out to Stansted in time!! When will I learn? Bergamo is the little city that Turtle trained in Montessori Teaching several years ago, where he still has a few friends who are kindly putting him up (or putting up with him?!) . They are wonderful friendly people. I got picked up from the airport by Turtle and Rudi and we got taken to Rudi’s mothers place for a traditional Italian Sunday lunch. The home cooked food was amazing with veal and pork and polenta and more, topped of with some red wine (vino rosso) of course. Plus for a bit of a kick I tried some homemade grappa with a healthy 52% alcohol content! That night we had great dinner in a restaurant in Bergamo where I sampled the local pasta. We were seated outside under big arches in such a quiet street, it was almost romantic – except that Turtle and I don’t have that sort of relationship! After that off to a tiny bar where we stayed until close having fun talking to the locals.

The next day we saw a little more of Bergamo, and jumped on a train to spend a few hours in Milan. I can’t say it’s the most amazing city. The outskirts are nothing to look at and there isn’t a lot to do if you’re not into shopping. We did have a look the Duomo (Italian for Cathedral) which was pretty impressive on the inside but covered in scaffolding on the outside unfortunately. We got a train to Florence which took about 3hrs, then found our hostel. This was possibly the best hostel I’ve stayed in; spacious, large lockers in each room, only 4 people per room and breakfast delivered to the room in the morning! We saw some more Cathedrals and the like in Florence, punctuated by many a gelato or espresso. It seemed to me the whole time I was always thinking about where we would eat or drink next. We were having a few drinks in the hostel before we went out and met some Germans, Aussies and an Israeli girl who now lives in NZ. She had the most weird accent as a result. We went out for a few more drinks and came back to our hostel room to find our room mates - a couple of Canadians – in a bad way. One hunched over a rubbish bin exclaiming she hadn’t thrown up in 10years!! We found it all amusing; it always makes me feel better than I might otherwise be if someone is worse.

Feeling a little seedy (and a lot tired), we went to the Academia the next morning. We brushed past most of it to get to what everyone was there for: Michelangelo’s David sculpture. It was pretty impressive I must say. We weren’t allowed to take photos though. I notice he had a furrow on his brow and I found out later that it was supposed to be him thinking about his impending fight with Goliath. Why he was going to fight naked I don’t know. Maybe that’s how they did things back then, or maybe he had just showered.

We made our way to Rome that afternoon to arrive to more wonderful summer-like weather. For some reason I was expecting to have liked Florence more than Rome. I think someone had told me Florence was a beautiful city and someone else told me Rome was quite dirty. I guess they were both right, but I found that I was more comfortable in Rome. The reason I got frustrated in Florence was that the footpaths were so narrow and there were so many other tourists as well that you ended up constantly avoiding people and having to walk on the road whilst watching out for the crazy Italian drivers. Rome, however, even though it had probably more tourists, was a lot easier to navigate around with generally more space. Florence was probably more picturesque but Rome had more features to stop and stare at. One example in Rome was the Trevi Fountain. At first I thought “yeah, that’s impressive I suppose” but the more I looked at it, the more I noticed the detail and wondered how such a marvel was constructed/sculpted.

There are hundreds of people around Rome and Florence with little fold-up tables selling fake Gucci, Prada etc. sunglasses, belts, handbags and other accessories. I was keen to have a look at some sunglasses for myself, but was put off because they were always pressuring me to try them on, if I looked at one for more than 0.5sec. I just wanted to take my time and browse, but they were always pushing for the sale and looked pissed off if I declined to try them on. We found out why they push so much when I was actually trying on a pair one day and all of a sudden the guy grabs the sunglasses off me, folds up his table and runs off. We noticed another guy doing the same and wondered what was going on, until we saw a cop appear on the scene. He could have chased them, and probably caught one, but didn’t see too concerned, but it was funny for us to watch. Obviously it’s illegal to sell knock-offs, but it’s not rigidly enforced.

We saw many of the typical touristy things in Rome including St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, Pantheon, Coliseum and the Spanish Steps. These were all important and enjoyable, but we made sure we interspersed them with ample relaxing time as well. This was of course a week off for me between jobs, so I did want to return somewhat refreshed. Seeing all these places was highly educational and gave me a good feel for the history of Rome and how it al fits into so much of today’s culture. I figured out that even the cd/dvd burning software Nero is named after the 5th Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus who apparently let Rome burn during the great fire.

So, I’m happy I’ve explored Milan, Florence and Rome enough for the moment and next time I go back to Italy, I’ll try to see some more of the rural areas. Although after just finishing a Robert Harris’s novel called Pompeii, I’m quite keen to check that out as well…

A big thanks to Turtle for being a great guide and friend who put up with me for a memorable week!

(photos to come…)