Verona & The Mountains (Trento) with George

VERONA

Had a great few days in Verona, as per usual with my traveling I’m never quite sure how long I’m going to stay in a place but turns out that 1 or 2 nights here ended up being a few more, just enjoyed the people I have met and this region is just stunning. Ale lives about 30mins away from Verona city and his apartment is in an old railway station, he lives next door to two awesome chicks, Valentina and Silvia who I am so lucky to have met.

The first day I was there I just chilled out for the morning while Ale was at work, oh yea and also cleaned up the copious amounts of pee that Ginger, Ale’s dog, left for me outside the bathroom door, outside the door of my room and lastly on my bed! He is about 8 months old and looks like a huntaway cross with Doberman crossed with something smaller, but he is gorgeous and I soon realised that the look on his face when I tried to talk to him was of utter confusion as he is an Italian dog and doesn’t speak English ha, so I had to learn how to talk dog in Italian.

When Ale got home he took me up into the hills to show me the view of the town he lives in and Verona off in the distance, we went up to a church and sat there for a while, turned into longer than we thought due to a funeral being held there and everyone arrived just as we got there so had to wait for the funeral to finish! I had a go at driving for the first time ever on the other side of the road and I think I scared the both of us in the process, the roads are super skinny and my judgement is completely out of whack. So when a big white van was coming towards us I just screamed and tried to dodge the van and came precariously close to the stone wall on the other side, I could feel the fear from Ale’s brand new car at that moment also but all was well and then Ale took over.

Ale then introduced me to Aperitif, drinks and snacks before dinner, spritz aperol is the usual drink to have, white wine with bright orange liqueur mixed in, super tasty. We continued on to a few different bars, including the local where we ended up going quite a bit, a sign at the bar said that they would not serve anyone under 16, apparently there is no drinking age over here, anyone can have a drink at a bar but the young ones just don’t do it. Couldn’t help thinking that if that was the case back home then the bars would be packed with 14 year olds getting drunk!

Coming to Verona I instantly relaxed and felt like this was my chance to take a breather from all the tourist stuff I had been racing around to see the past couple of weeks, Ale was amazing, a great host and really made me feel at home.

The girls took me into the city one of the days and showed me around the city, Silvia cannot speak much if any English, so when Valentina had to go to an appointment that hour or so was hilarious as we couldn’t really talk to each other but we had our phrase books out and had a great time anyway.

The shops in Verona are fantastic, the clothing and shoes are so wonderful, nothing like what you get back home, however you definitely do pay for it here. There are no real cheap shops like Glassons or Supre here, it’s all high end but fabulous.

We went into an outlet shop for designer clothing and shoes, most things were reduced by a hell of a lot but you would still be looking at a few hundred Euro for a pair of heels.

Also went and saw Juliets house and balcony, not quite sure I understand how it can ben her house and balcony when Juliet is fictional, I know the families back then were real but the actual Juliet and the real balcony from the story? Not sure I’m convinced. It was packed full of people, there is a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and if you touch her breast then you’ll have good luck, I didn’t bother trying to battle through the crowds just to grope Juliet, it was a nice statue and all but not that nice J

The other highlight of Verona is the arena, similar to the Coliseum but 1 level less and a bit smaller, but still from a similar time period and it’s still used today for concerts etc.

My last night in Verona I went to a fashion show at the gym that Ale works at, some new Italian designer that has changed his name to Dom something, and has London written under his name, go figure. After about 45 minutes of terrible ballet by the local dance school we had 15 minutes of a fashion show, so after lots of see through mesh tops and nervous models it was over and we went out for a few drinks.

Decided that it was probably a good idea to organise my life a bit, so I planned the whole of the following week which is much more planning than I have done so far, got my flights sorted to Malaga from Milan the following Sunday, in between times was going to go and see George for a few days, and come back to Verona for a bit.

TRENTO WITH GEORGE

Wasn’t sure how many days I was going to stay up in Trento with George for, but once I got there I knew I wanted to stay as long as I could, I have to say that up there is the most stunning places that I have been on my travels so far, it takes your breath away how magical it is.

George picked me up from the train station, was so great to see a familiar face, and we headed off to first go to George’s mate Luca’s place to pick up my tent etc but it was raining so wasn’t looking forward to setting that up.

I met Luca’s parents, his Mum is so wonderful, she can’t speak any English at all and George proceeded to show off his skills at the Italian he had learnt, I was most impressed.

Luca’s mum then made us all lunch, everyday she cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole family, and the kids have one thing, the granddad has another and then the mum and dad have something else.

We got out the kids school books from when they were at primary and tried learning some more Italian, the more I try to learn it the more I want to learn it properly.

Luca & George decided to go for a jump that afternoon, so began the mission in the rain to watch a base jump for the first time.

The cliff that we went to is 300m high, above the lake and the landing area isn’t the biggest, we drove up into the hills along a road that I might have to say was one of the most beautiful roads I have ever driven on.

We got to the top and George made us a coffee, the boys got ready and we started walking, we got to the cliff and my heart rate started to increase at the thought of them jumping off this thing. I was on a raised part of the cliff looking across at the exit point for the boys, I had my camera but the rain was making it pretty hard, and just as they were about to jump off a big drop of rain hit my lens.

I managed to get one photo before they disappeared and it turned out to be a pretty epic photo if I do say so myself, the thing with this jump is that after they disappeared off the cliff I couldn’t see them open or land, all I had to do was walk back up this mammoth hill in the rain and hope they were still alive. The drive back down the mountain was interesting, my second time driving on roads only wide enough for 1 car and I’m now in a big van, can’t believe George trusted me with it to be honest! Managed ok though, it’s the roundabouts that really throw me but I got to the bottom and found the boys at the pub/café at the bottom of the cliff safe and sound.

We dropped Luca back home and headed towards Georges home, a campground carpark type area next to a café at the bottom of Monte Brento, a mammoth cliff that the boys jump off all the time. It was still pouring so put up the tarp attached from some trees to the van and started cooking dinner.

Chef Staite whipped us up some ravioli and saucy stuff, oh and we polished off a couple of bottles of vino rosso.

Still raining, the tent putting up was a no go, managed to weasel my way into the van so defo didn’t rough it as much as I thought!

When the rain stopped later on we went on a mission down the river that runs next to the camp, it was roaring from the rain but in a still pool we found these creeping bug things that we realised were bugs after George squashed one! Then he proceeded to fall into the water, ha karma!
The next day we just chilled out, missioned into the town and had ginormous gelato on the edge of the lake, it’s so stunning there, could sit there all day just looking at it all. In the afternoon we missioned up to the top of Monte Brento, George and I took climbing gear with us so we could get close to the edge to film the other guys jump off. Now my fear of heights has definitely got better since I started skydiving, but there is something that isn’t natural about clambering around on rocks 1000m above the ground to get to the spot where you harness yourself in. Once we were all safe, George went over the edge, I think I was more scared about him being over the edge like that than I was for me standing up on the top. There were some French guys up there with us with no rigs on that were just standing on the edge hanging on to the rope and smoking a cigarette with not a care in the world and here I was in a harness not as close to the edge as they were!

Was wicked to see the guys jump off though, especially the wingsuiters, awesome to see them go from falling to flying, Luca is insanely good, he jumped off and flew right to the other side of the valley before turning around!

We met a wicked guy from Liverpool, Howie, a genuinely super nice guy that is completely high on life and his positivity just rubs off and when you are around him you feel great. He is a tandem master and aff instructor but as just got into BASE, was awesome to see him jump off, these guys make it look so easy, but with this cliff its pretty hard for something to go wrong.

After about 10 minutes I started to get comfortable with being up there, and began thinking that I might be able to do this one day, there would be no way of getting me off the lower cliffs but this one is huge and would be just like doing a hop and pop. Glad that George didn’t jump off otherwise I was going to have to walk back on my lonesome and it was dark by the time we were driving back down the mountain again.

Dinner was an epic mish mash of stuff from the previous night and snags, if you didn’t look at the end result then it was great! Pretty much looked like vomit, but should never judge a book by its cover, ahh the joys of camping.

Day 3 involved heaps of lounging around and soaking up the rays, the boys went for a jump in the afternoon, it was Georges 100^th BASE and he did not disappoint with the entertainment for this special event. I dropped the guys to the top of the mountain and raced back and just got back in time to watch. George did the jump naked, but that’s not all, he got a hula hoop, wrapped it in a bandage, doused it in lighter fluid and set it on fire, then proceeded to jump off the cliff through the burning hoop, mad man but was awesome.

That night we all went out for dinner at a local restaurant, was planning on leaving the next day but decided to stay one more, we had a mission to accomplish – find these bloody cows of Italy!!

The next morning the boys went for a jump and I stayed back at the café and watched them from the ground, it’s so cool when someone in a wingsuit comes racing above you, just so strange to see people that low I suppose after seeing normal skydiving pitch heights.

We then went for a mission into the mountain, Luca told us the general direction to head in so off we went, was hilarious when we finally saw some, we must have both had our eyes peeled for ages then we came over a rise and there were 4 cows in a paddock and we both got a little too excited for seeing cows.

Stopped for a picture of proof, and continued on, we found another 5 cows at a different farm, so 9 all up, the mystery still wasn’t solved, 9 cows surely can’t supply Italy’s milk needs.

At the top of the mountains we chilled out in a park for a couple of hours, then went to get back into the van and we had left the lights on and the battery was completely dead. We managed to get the help of some locals and they pushed us towards the hill and eventually we got it going thank god.

By the time we got back into town it was quite late and we still needed to get dinner so found a pizzeria but they just had lasagne left, suited us fine.

My last day in the mountains we went back to the lake and met up with Howie, fed the ducks with our feet and Howie braved the freezing water and went for a swim.

I had such an awesome time up in the mountains, the whole region is one that I will definitely come back to, hopefully sooner rather than later, was pretty sucky to be leaving, but it will be there still when I get back.

After George dropped me back to Ale’s place, had lunch then Ale took me out on his motorbike into the hills behind where he lives and again the scenery is just spectacular, I could totally see myself living somewhere here, either up near Trento or in the back hills of Verona. Oh and here we saw actually dairy farms with cows being milked so after that I was satisfied that they do have cows in Italy and enough for the whole population.

Ale and I went out for dinner at a steak restaurant, the steaks were massive but was interesting to try the difference between Argentinian steak and Italian steak, the Argentinian steak is similar to back in NZ but the Italian stuff doesn’t really taste of anything.

The next day I just chilled out while Ale was at work, then in the afternoon he dropped me at the train station to where I was to head to Milan.

Over the past week or so I have met and got to know some amazing people, and seen some incredible things, I’m really sad that my time in Italy is coming to an end, but I know I will be back.

MILAN

Milan was not what I expected, it is meant to be the fashion and financial centre of Italy, and I was greeted at the station with countless homeless, the guys trying to sell stuff everywhere, dirty streets and a station that every wall I tried to stand next to smelt like pee. I didn’t get a chance to get any cash when I was in Verona but figured there would be a few ATMs at the Milan train station, but no, there was one and it was broken and I didn’t’ find it until after I had spent an hour or so walking throughout the station asking everyone I could and everyone sending me in different directions.

I walked into a newsagent and asked if I could pay by card for a bus ticket, he made me think that I could, then asked me if I had 1.50, I said no and then he tells me he cant help me. I was so tired and over this horrible smelly, dirty city and just wanted to get to my hostel but couldn’t without a bus ticket. I nearly started crying, silly I know, but I took a deep breath and told myself that crying isn’t going to fix the situation and that I just need to start walking to find an ATM in the city somewhere. I walked across the piazza in front of the station, dodged beggars and people trying to sell me stuff and eventually found a cash machine, yay! Jumped on the bus and headed towards the hostel, found it easy enough and from the outside it looked like a pretty good place although the neighbourhood wasn’t great, the first place in Italy where I have felt uncomfortable and not wanted to go anywhere out of bright sunshine.

Was taken to my room and it felt like I was in prison, there were 2 big queen sized beds and 3 single beds, my bed was a single stretcher looking think shoved against the wall like it wasn’t really meant to be there, there wasn’t much room to walk around each of the beds either.

My bed had a sheet on the bottom, no mattress protector, then a shabby old scody blanket for the top layer. I went and asked the owner if I get at least a top sheet as a barrier between me and the scody blanket and he said no that that was it. I then asked him whether he then washes these blankets every day when someone new arrives and he said he did but there is no way that happens, thank god I have my silk sleeping bag liner!

I had to order a taxi for the next morning, my plane was at 7.30am so I needed to be at the airport at around 5.30-6am, so I needed a taxi to take me to the bus station to then catch the shuttle. The shuttle I wanted was at 5am, so I wanted a 4.30am taxi. The owner just dialled the taxi number and handed me the phone, after some huge confusion obviously cause of the language barrier he grabbed the phone off me and I asked if he could order one for 4.30am. After he got off the phone he said it was ordered for 4am, he ordered it earlier cause he thought that would be better!! Was so glad to be out of there, will not be writing a good review of that place!

Being so early I made it to the airport fine and onto my plane to Malaga, I slept solidly the whole way, I’m getting really good at sleeping sitting up.

ARRIVING IN SPAIN

My day got so much better as soon as I arrived in Spain, the bus to the city was directly out the front doors of the airport, and the last stop for the bus was at the central bus station. I then only had 15 minutes to wait for my next bus to Ronda, I bought a new watch for 5 euro and after teaching the lady some English she gave me a free bracelet too. The bus trip to Ronda was lovely, but again I crashed out pretty soon and woke up just before arriving in the town. We drove past the train station on the way into town so it was easy to find, I bought my ticket to my final stop Jimena and had a couple of hours to kill before it was due to leave at 4.16pm. Went and had a beer at the station in the sun then started walking into the town, this is the first time I have had to carry my pack while sightseeing and its so hot here and the sun is intense. Found one of the oldest bull fighting rings in Spain, which is still used today, unfortunately I didn’t have enough cash on me to go inside it but will be coming back through he when I leave so will see it then.

Kept walking through the old city, I love that the streets are lined with orange trees and they are full of fruit at the moment, makes such a nice contrast against the white buildings.

By this time I was sweaty mcsweats and headed back to the train station to chill out and wait for my train, it was about 4.15pm and a train came past and stopped briefly, it had a destination on the side of it but it wasn’t the one I was looking for and with this station only having one platform I gathered that it wasn’t the right train, I tried asking someone and they started off in Spanish and I had no clue, but yea turns out it was my train and the next one wasn’t for another 3.5 hours, awesome.

So off I went again into the intense heat in search for a park to sit in and try and kill time, I dropped my pack off at the bus station cause they have lockers there, but the cost of the lockers was 4 euro and I only had 3.60 left, so the ladies there put my bag into one of their storerooms so I didn’t have to lug it around with me.

Got myself on the train heading for Jimena, there I was greeted by Fiona and her daughter Sophie and we headed to their place. They live in the town itself but where I am staying is on the farm down in the valley but walking distance from the house, about 1-2km.

Since it was late I was just to stay at the house then head to the farm the next morning when we start work.

Once at the house I then met Fi’s other kids, Lily who is 8, Daisy who is 4, Toby who is 12, and Sophie who is 10. Fi has two more daughters who are older and live back in the UK. Fi has lived in Spain for over 30 years and all the kids are bilingual and go to a Spanish school but when they speak English its with an English accent.

All the kids are wonderful, Sophie made me a bracelet to add to my collection and we all became great friends real quick. They have only ever had male wwoofers in the past, so I think they are enjoying the change.

Had dinner at about 10pm, asparagus and beans & tuna, real simple but super yum, it doesn’t get dark here till 10pm so we were sitting outside having a few wines before that, so lovely.

Crashed on the couch, really looking forward to seeing the farm.

VENICE

Venice

Woke this morning to rain, seems that places only seem to rain before or after I leave, which is awesome.

Had breakfast with Laura and said goodbye to her, we had such a great time hanging out together, laughed heaps and one of the many things I love about her is that she walks the same pace I do! Would love to go to Argentina to see her again, so will definitely be staying in touch, such a great chick.

Caught the bus to the train station, had about 20 minutes to get myself my ticket to Venice so went to the ticket machine and it took ages to load every page and then it froze, the next machine did the same thing, then there were queues next to the ones that were working. I raced to the ticket booths to a real person to get me a ticket, and the queue there was super long, my train was at 8.25am, I got my ticket at 8.26am, awesome, had to then wait an hour at the station for the next train.

Arrived in Venice and it was raining and freezing, so got out my pack cover, puffy jacket and raincoat then headed out in search for my hostel in amongst this maze that was in front of me.

I didn’t have a map, only the directions from an email which I was trying to read off my phone in the rain, not so easy, weaved my way through the streets and over numerous canal bridges, at one point I thought I was totally lost but then found my bearings again, eventually arriving at the Silk Road Hostel on the waterfront.

The rooms in the hostel are so lovely, all single beds and no bunks! Linen just like you would have at home and only 4 beds to a huge room, also a great kitchen area and modern clean bathrooms, awesome.

Got first dibs on the beds, chose the one with the canal view and then headed out the door to go for a roam around the city. I had a map from the hostel that the girl there had drawn things on for me to see and do, but this map was a photocopy of a photocopy, also in black and white and there was no way to know what was water and what was pavement, hence I found myself very lost on numerous occasions. But that’s what going to Venice is all about, if you don’t get lost then there is something wrong with you, shopkeepers are more than happy to oblige trying to point you in the right direction however after about 10 ‘left, left, right, second left, right’ you just ask them where you are on the map and you find your own way eventually.

Venezia is just as romantic and beautiful as they say and I’m so glad that I made the trip across the country to see it. Such a welcome change from crazy roads filled with scooters and a slightly slower pace of life which I really appreciated.

I walked through the streets for a good few hours, looking at all the wonderful shops including all the big designers, shoe shops for Africa and of course Murano glass shops.

I headed back to the hostel and decided to cook for the first time since I left NZ, craving meat and vegies I cooked up a stir-fry, was so so good, and had some left over for lunch the next day.

Also been hoeing into the fruit and feeling so much better for it, seriously there is only so much pizza and pasta you can eat!

After dinner the sun was beginning to set so I headed out to check out the city in the evening, the city just lights up colours of pinks and oranges with the light of the sunset and it takes on a whole new look, slowly the buildings change to purple and then as twilight hits they go back to normal except lit up by street lights.

The canals come to life with different lights coming from the restaurants, gondolas, boats and bridges, it’s so beautiful, I just hung on the main bridge for a while just watching everyone and offering to take photos for heaps of people who were trying to take them of themselves.

Continued on my walk and came around a corner to hear applause and a group of people all standing around something, I went to have a look and then all the people that were standing there started singing, they were a choir just doing songs around the city and they were so amazing, was such a nice surprise.

Walked through into San Marco Piazza, a huge Piazza by an old palace, the lengths of it are lined by restaurants and wonderful lighting of the buildings around the piazza. At two of the restaurants on opposing sides of the piazza they had mini orchestras playing music, each one would play 2 songs then the other would play, there were heaps of couples dancing in the middle.

The only thing that is disappointing about Italy are the people clearly not Italian, or probably legally in the country, trying to sell you either rip off designer handbags, sunglasses, or the squidgy things they throw at the ground then splatter flat then go back to their ball shape. At night they bring out these toys that have a light inside, they use a slingshot thing to fire them into the air and then they spin slowly back to the ground and they think that tourists would want these things, they are horrible. Oh and as soon as it starts raining these men with umbrellas to sell just appear out of nowhere. They ruin countless photos by setting up right in front of all the famous or pretty sights, and if you even look like you are looking at them they will chase you to try and sell you it.

On my way back to the hostel I found a chick on her own with a backpack on roaming the street our hostel was on looking pretty concerned, it was about 10pm so I asked if she was ok and she was looking for my same hostel. Lucky I found her cause she had walked straight past it (it is pretty hard to find in the day time let alone at night) and was about 400m down the road from it.

The next day I headed out to the islands of Murano – famous for the glass and Burano – famous for its lace and multi-coloured bright houses. Bought a ticket for 18 Euro, which could get me on any boat in Venice for 12hrs. At Murano I found a free display/show thingy at a glass blowing factory there and they told us all about what they do etc, then direct you through their shop of course.

Here I bought a wee present for mum then went for a quick walk around the island, had my left over stir-fry on the water front then caught the boat to Burano where I spent a lot more time.

Burano is a neat place, the houses are all brightly coloured lining the few canals that they have there, apparently they did that cause back when it was a thriving fishing village the fog would come in and the fisherman would be able to see their houses to they all painted them a different colour.

Here I bought a little lace doily thing as a token purchase from the island, also I found a really pretty Murano glass necklace so I got that too, then I walked past a lace shop and saw an item that I couldn’t walk past. Now so far I have been really good with my spending, I haven’t bought myself anything, I have painfully said no to many things I have seen on my travels but this was different for some reason. It was a white full lace blazer – I asked the shop keeper how much and she said 55 euros, I must have looked really disappointed and she said I can do it for 50, I said that I would go away and think about it. So I did, I converted it into NZ$ and decided that I would go back and just try it on to see what its like on first. As soon as I put it on, everyone in the shop started going ‘Ooooo’ and ‘aaahhhh’, saying how beautiful it was etc etc and yes it was wonderful. I pleaded with her if she could take any more off the price and first said no, then I ummed and ahhhed and then she brought it down to 48. So I told the voice inside my head telling me that I’m not allowed to buy things like this and I went and got some cash out. Now this is where I’m starting to get good at bartering, it works every time, I pulled out 40 euros and then started scratching around for coin to make up the 8, I knew that I only had 6 in my wallet, so I put the 6 on the counter then started hunting through my bag saying ‘I knew I had 2 euro somewhere’, taking ages she finally just accepted the 46 and smiled saying ‘Just for you’. Score! It’s still a $78 blazer but hey it put a massive grin on my face for the rest of the day.

Headed back to the mainland a bit earlier than I had originally timed to, but thank god I did, for some reason the boats to get back took way longer than the ones to get there and I only had time to race from the train station back to the hostel, grab my pack and race back there again. The water-taxi pulled up outside the hostel just as I was leaving so I jumped on that instead of walking so I think that saved me.

Florence

Woke up in Napoli to rain, the first time I had seen it since I left London over 3 weeks ago, got out my pack cover for the first time and my raincoat that was stashed somewhere down the bottom of my pack and headed out.

The thing about these Italian streets is that they are all made from stone, the ones in Napoli are made from lava rock, are black and really shiny, therefore when wet they are lethal.

Had my usual power walk on to get to the train station, and all of a sudden I was on my way down, and once you are going down with a pack on your back there is no way of saving yourself, I smashed my knee on the ground pretty hard and got pretty soaked in the process too. Dusted myself off and limped to the station, it came right after a few minutes and I yet again have another bruise, however I got to the station in the end and was soon on my way to Firenze.

For some reason I wasn’t feeling on top of the world like I usually do when I’m heading to a new city, not sure why, most likely just the tiredness was catching up to me, always working out where to go next, traveling there, walking the lengths of that city countless times to see everything, then doing it all over again every day, it’s pretty exhausting after a while.

I managed to get myself on a fast train, travels at about 300kph, only stopped in Roma and then Firenze, so all up it was about 2.5hrs, cost about 53 Euro.

Got off the train and was hit by a blast of freezing cold air, totally was not expecting that, Firenze was so cold and I only had my cardi on, the temperature difference was huge between the two cities.

The directions to my hostel weren’t the greatest, so it was a bit of a mission to get there, but once there I was greeted by the receptionist who didn’t even look at me, grunted how much to pay, gave me a key and pointed to where the lifts were, she could speak English as I was a big hostel but she was just awful.

I unpacked my gear and got myself organised for what I was going to do for the rest of the day, I got in at 10.30am so I had a lot of time to kill but I had no clue about the city or what to do here, apart from of course Michelangelo David, so like I do in every city I headed out walking to see what I could find.

I asked the lady at reception for a map, and she said nothing & didn’t look at me and handed me a map, I then asked for her to please show me where on the map the hostel was, she grunted and then marked my map with an X. Definitely not the warm welcome I got in Napoli that’s for sure!

I hate buses, anywhere I hate them, love trains but buses aren’t my thing, so I started walking into the city.

Stopped on the way to grab some food, desperately in need of an espresso too, was real nice just to get a normal ham sandwich for once, and not bloody pizza or pasta! Continued on my way and came across the stunning Duomo Cathedral and bell tower, it is built from green, pink and white marble, a huge structure and so pretty. At this point I was still not really feeling great, just felt like it was a bit of a chore to go and see the sights, and where I had just walked from wasn’t anything special and I was wondering what all the hype was about when people say how beautiful Firenze is. So the best way to get an idea of a city is to get up high, so I climbed the bell tower, 6 euro to get up there but it was so worth it, 416 steps to the top and once there my mood instantly brightened and felt heaps better about being there.

Terracotta roofs on white buildings, surrounded by green tree covered hills, it was really beautiful. Took a few token self photos, and just chilled out up there for a while enjoying the cool air and recharging my batteries.

I went into the info centre in the square and they circled a few more things, they said that if I only have 1 day in Firenze then I need to do the things they circled.

There was a huge queue to get inside the cathedral, so I joined them, and met a couple from Melbourne, Phil & Julie, who helped me out by marking my map with places to go. They invited me to dinner as they were meeting some friends back at the cathedral at 6.30pm, so I thought why not and told them I’d see them there. As it was a Monday, most of the museums and galleries were closed, so they showed me where the famous bridge was and a few other things. After seeing the magnificent outside of this cathedral I expected the inside to be just as if not more, but I was pretty disappointed when I got inside, it was just a big empty room really. None of the walls or ceiling was decorated, there was the usual alter at the end and a big clock on the opposing end, so after about 10 minutes I was on my way.

A museum at the back of the cathedral was open, and it was one of the ones marked on my map so I headed inside, spent 6.50 to do so, it was ok, nothing great, the highlight was that there was a piece my Michelango that was unfinished, the arm of Mary and leg of Jesus broke off while he was carving it, the grain of the marble wasn’t the greatest, so he gave up and handed it to someone else to finish but it never really did, so Jesus is all finished but the others are all still rough.

Next I headed to the Palace of Medici, also marked on my map, this was a massive disappointment, I paid 6 euro to get in and it was just a big old house, it was nice and pretty but nothing really amazing that I believe my 6 euros was worth seeing.

Walked back through the city towards the river, walked along the riverfront to the bridge, lining the edges of it are jewellery shops, some stunning jewellery there too. In the middle of the bridge is a viewing area to look down the river, again took some self photos, and continued on to the next spot circled on my map, however at this point my expectations weren’t very high of these so called ‘must-do’s’ that were taking all my money.

Walked through a piazza that had protesters in the middle, blowing whistles and banging pots and pans, just making noise, it was awful, just like the protesters up on Mt Vesuvius they had no signs or anything so there was no way of knowing what they were even making all that noise about.

In this piazza there was a replica of the David and some other really neat statues, also the next place on my list to visit. This was another palace, but it was really quite stunning inside, so I wasn’t so disheartened to pay to get inside.

At 6.30pm I met up with Phil & Julie for dinner, also met the other 2 women they were meeting but their names escape me at the moment. We went to Piazza de Republica, a stunning piazza just down the road from the Duomo, it had a carousel in the middle of it and the restaurants lining it looked super expensive which I was a little concerned about.

I had promised myself that morning that I was going to stop having pasta and pizza at for dinner, and that if I’m going to have it to restrict it to lunch only, cause this sudden change of diet isn’t the greatest for me and my thighs!

I got a green salad with tuna and egg, was super nice and refreshing change from carbs, Phil and Julie shouted me a glass of vino rosso too which I was stoked about.

I had about 3km to walk back to the hostel after dinner so I left before dark, Phil was really worried about me walking on my own, and gave me a big hug and their email address to get in touch with them. I said goodbye to my adopted mum and dad for the evening and began my mission to the hostel, there were heaps of people around and lots of women walking on their own everywhere so I didn’t feel worried. There was a train station in between the city and the hostel though so I went the long way round to avoid it and was back at the hostel in no time.

Only one other person sharing the 4 bed dorm I was staying in, and that was a wonderful girl from Buenos Aires, Laura. Back in Argentina she is a surgeon, her day job is running her own plastic surgery clinic, then she also works in the hospital as a burns specialist surgeon. She has been studying full time for the past 12 years and this is her first real holiday. I said to her that I might have to travel to see her after I finish in Europe cause I’ll probably be in need of some lipo by then ha. We got chatting and made plans for the next day, she was only in Firenze for the same amount of time as me and then she was heading to Siena so we decided to head to Pisa in the morning. We knew that there was nothing really else to do in Pisa apart from see the tower so we weren’t too sure if it was going to be worth the time going out there just for the token ‘holding up the tower’ photo but we went anyway.

We caught the bus to the train station, a man standing by the ticket machine saw that we were going to Pisa and had two tickets for Pisa-Firenze that he didn’t need anymore, so we bought them off him for 10 euro instead of paying the normal 14. We still had to buy our tickets to Pisa with only about 5 mins to spare, the machines were a nightmare and time was ticking, we got our tickets with 3 mins to go and the platform we had to get to was on the other side of the station, so we sprinted, jumping on the train with about a minute to spare.

On the way we learnt some Italian, with Laura already speaking Spanish she can talk to people in Italy really slowly in Spanish and they understand her so she already had a head start on me.

We walked through Pisa and eventually saw the leaning tower, it was really pretty, another beautiful sunny day so the cathedral and the tower both looked wonderful against the grass surrounding them.

Its so funny when walking around the tower, its as though a few hundred people are all doing a big miming show, standing still with their arms in front and palms vertical, but we had to join them.

There was no way we were going to pay 15 euro to climb to the top, so we paid 2 euro to get into the cathedral, which I think was a bit crappy seeing as even St Peters Basilica in the Vatican City was free, this was the first church I’ve had to pay to get into. And in the end it was just ABC, another bloody cathedral, was the same as heaps of other ones I’ve seen, pretty but nothing new.

We stopped for lunch then made our way back to the station the long way, seeing the rest of the small town, we fell asleep on the way back and were in desperate need of a gelato when we arrived.

Our next mission for the day was to see the David, the queue to get into the museum was huge, way down the street, but we joined the line and enjoyed our gelato in the sun while we waited. It was 11 euro to get in, but it was just something you have to do when you are in Firenze and he did not disappoint, he was beautiful. Over 4m tall, and just perfect, there were signs everywhere saying that photography was forbidden, and guards yelling ‘No Photo!!’ very angrily at anyone who did take photos, but did that stop us, hell no! We were seeing the David, probably never to be seen again, we had to record this. One guy from Oz said that he got told off and a warning that he would be kicked out if he did it again, but we were very sneaky with our photo taking, first taking some from way down the back of the hall and using my awesome zoom. Then close up, I would have my back to the guard blocking his view of Laura and she’d take a photo, then visa versa. When right next to him I took one of him without them seeing, then one of his back too.

We stayed in there for a while just enjoying the view of Dave, also there were other Michelangelo sculptures in the museum, half completed ones that weren’t finished due to lack of funding, but it was neat to see the process of how he carved them and the stages of turning it from a block of marble to a masterpiece.

There was one more thing to do for the day, see the pig statue, apparently if you touch the pig you will return to Firenze. It’s a cool looking statue, made of brass I think, looks like a wild hog we have in the NZ bush and is life sized.

On our way back to the hostel we stopped for dinner, I fought my demons and said no to pasta and ordered a caprese salad, and it was amazing. Laura wasn’t used to eating so early, 7pm, back home she has dinner at about 10pm, but after a big day she was starving and got a pasta.

Absolutely wrecked we got back to the hostel to find that our room was still empty, only the 2 of us again which was awesome. I really wanted to get to sleep but I had heaps of organising to do, at this stage I still had no idea where I was going the next day, after brainstorming with Laura, I decided to train to Venice, stay there one night, then train back to Verona. In Verona, there is a friend of Matteo, Alessandro, and I am able to stay there for a few nights which will be awesome, I’m looking forward to just chilling for a few days without doing anything in a rush, having a house to stay in and not a hostel. Alessandro emailed me back this morning saying that I’m all good to stay there, and that he hopes that I like small dogs and wine, sounds great to me!

Also I have heard back from a farm I emailed to Wwoof at in Spain, they couldn’t accommodate me but they put me in touch with a place in the South of Spain who I emailed and they have availability from now on, so I will hopefully make my way down there in the next week where I can have a place to stay for a few weeks.

NAPOLI

10.05.2012 – 13.05.2012

Napoli!!

My Lonely Planet just does not give this city any justice whatsoever, I had originally booked in for 2 nights, so that I could spend one day exploring the city then another doing Pompeii etc, I totally underestimated this wonderful city and have now booked in for 4 nights.

Navigated my way through the streets of the Old City to arrive at Giovanni’s Home Hostel, up the 3 flights of stairs of which the stairs gradually increased in height I was greeted with a huge ‘Ciao Samantha!’ as I walked through the door, and from that moment on my stay here in Napoli got better and better.

I met the gorgeous Emilie from Kentucky who was staying at Giovanni’s for a few days before heading down to Lecce to do a 1 week cooking course as she has just graduated from a Degree in Culinary Arts. The three of us then proceeded to make Asparagus Risotto, there was a very socially awkward man from the US that hung around too, who had never seen risotto before and wanted to comment on anything and everything that was happening in an attempt to try and show his intelligence but in fact came across very weird.

Anyway, we all sat down in the courtyard 3 stories above the streets of Napoli and enjoyed this awesome meal Giovanni welcomed me with.

Giovanni then sat me down with a map, and about 5 different coloured highlighters, and told me in orange the route to take through the city to see everything, in green were the sights to stop and see, purple was a no go zone and blue was other random places of interest.

He told me about the history of Napoli and how to get everywhere, what time the trains leave and arrive and then went through personal safety in Napoli. He showed me youtube clips of pickpocketing in Milan, and showed me the crime statistics of Napoli in comparison to other cities and it is one of the lowest here due to the mafia.

He said that in 2006 there were 87 murders, 84 of them were mafia. In his whole time in Napoli he has only ever heard of one sexual crime, and said that a woman travelling on her own is safer here than a woman traveling with one or 5 men cause no one will harm a woman here.

He did ban me from wearing my satchel and made sure that I only took my backpack with me cause no one will touch a backpack, and made sure my passports were kept safe in the hostel and not in my bag.

And on that note he sent Emilie and me out the door to go check out the city, not before walking us to the local coffee shop where he shouted us an espresso and some of the local pastries.

Emilie and I walked down through the city and checked out some of the churches, we did manage to get lost once which isn’t hard to do in these narrow winding streets but we soon got back on track.

One thing I have noticed here that is different from Rome, well I have noticed numerous things different from Rome, but the people here are just wonderful. People come up to you on the street and ask if they can help without any other motive other than actually wanting to help you, in Rome if someone asks if they can point you in the right direction they then want money for it. So we were a bit taken back when men would want to help, but after a while we became comfortable with the people and realised they are nothing like those in Rome.

The streets in this city are chaos, there are scooters everywhere, you can’t really get around on anything else although many try to navigate these streets with cars but unless you have a smart car, which many do. Any cars bigger have scratches and dents all down the sides of them from trying to squeeze through these streets, the scooters do not give way to pedestrians, and there are no footpaths. So its everyman for themselves, and scooters seem to have the right of way over everyone, all they do is warn you they are coming at you by tooting their horn and it’s your fault if you don’t get out of the way.

We arrived at one of the city’s highlights, the underground cave/reservoir system that was built yonks ago, 50m below the ground we were taken through a cave system built by slaves to provide each house with its own water reservoir that they would then access through wells in their homes. The caves were later used as bomb shelters in the second world war.

We kept walking through the city and it slowly became a bit more modern and wealthy, piazzas and plaza’s, opera houses and castles.

We eventually made it to the waterfront and there in front of us across the bay was the magnificent Mt Vesuvius towering above the city, it’s a beautiful mountain, perfect volcano shape and we were very excited to be climbing that the next day.

Tired and hungry we made our way back to Giovanni’s and headed out for the very famous Gino’s, Giovanni told us that it is the best pizza in Napoli therefore the best pizza in the world. When you first arrive at Gino’s you are not quite sure what is happening, spilling outside on the streets are crowds of people all drinking wine from plastic cups, however  soon realised that they are all waiting for a table and then over the loud speaker an Italian womans voice shouts ‘Maria Due’ and 2 out of the crowd would walk up the stairs.

We went up the stairs and put our names on the list then went and waited back outside, the bar across the road was selling red & white wine for 1 euro a glass to the people waiting outside, so we joined in of course.

Eventually our name was called and we were ushered to a table where we had about 2 minutes to decide what we wanted to get, we took the 2 recommended by Giovanni – an eggplant one and a spicy salami one. Within 10 minutes the pizza was on our table and I then ate the best pizza of my life, we couldn’t work out why it was so good, then we narrowed it down to that it must be the base. The base you could easily and very gladly eat on its own, it was so good, but as far as working out why the base was so good is still a mystery.

Stuffed & happy, we slowly walked up the hill to Giovanni’s and into bed, what an awesome day.

The next day we set off early towards the 3 sights of the day, sight 1 – Encoda, sight 2 – Mt Vesuvius & sight 3 – Pompeii.

Ercolano is a town that was buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius at the same time that Pompei was destroyed, however Ercolano is much better preserved as it was hit slightly differently to Pompei.

Ercolano is a lot smaller than the ruins of Pompei so it doesn’t take too much to walk around but it is stunning, the mosaics there are still perfect, the paintings on the walls of the houses are still as they were back then, there are still the street numbers on the outside of the houses and the street signs still look as though they were placed there yesterday however this occurred 2000 years ago.

Next stop was Mt Vesuvius, we caught a shuttle bus near to the top, took ages to get up there as the road was super windy and a big bus on the narrow roads takes a while to get anywhere. Once at the top, we then had to walk the rest of the way, the advertisement says that is it a ‘Gradual Up-hill walk for 15 minutes’ to get to the crater, I think gradual in Italy may mean something different cause it was a pretty steep climb on very slippery gravel but we just kept thinking about the pizza we needed to burn off.

Cracked up when I saw a girl walking in bare feet and in her partners hands was a pair of heels, I’m not quite sure what she was expecting that day in climbing a volcano but her shoe choice was not ideal. Even people that were wearing chucks were struggling to grip, Emilie and I had our mcawesome shoes on so we were fine.

The view from up there was incredible, we were over 1000m in the air above Naples and could see forever, we were probably up there at the hottest part of the day but the breeze made it seem heaps cooler. We walked around the edge of the crater and looked in at this seemingly innocent landscape, trying to imagine the force required to have blown the top of this off and cause the destruction that it did.

Starving, we went to a local restaurant and got ourselves a caprisi salad and some toasted sandwiches, the mozzarella was amazing.

Pompei was next on the agenda, it was much more destroyed than Ercolano but the size of the place was ginormous, the streets had grooves from where the chariots would ride, there were large stepping stones that would go across the streets so that when they flooded the streets to clean then people could still get to where they were going, the chariots would just weave in between them.

There were water fountains everywhere like in Rome, so we stopped to fill them and have some official Pompeii water, it tasted a bit chalky or sandy, but it worked.

It’s an incredible sight to see, however after a while we started to get super tired and it all became ruins are ruins are ruins and we decided to get out of there before we stopped enjoying it and it became a chore.

Outside, there were lemonade stands with lemons like I have never seen before, they are literally the size of soccer balls, I don’t know how they do it but they are huge.

Glad to be back home at the end of the day, Giovanni made us dinner, Fava bean pasta, was so good and didn’t take us long to then creep to bed.

Another early start to the day, this time heading to Paestum – where the ruins of the ancient city of Herculaneum stands, Greek ruins from 2500 years ago, huge temples and amphitheatre ruins as well as houses.

The only unfortunate thing about this place is the lack of trains to the next place we were heading, there was only one at 11am, and we only got there at 10.30am, or one at 2pm. We were finished at Herculaneum at 12.45pm, so with over an hour to kill we went walking through the countryside, Herculaneum is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by agricultural farming (I am still yet to see one cow or sheep here in Italy).

We followed the city wall around and then checked out the stalls of souvenirs, that included lighters with American flags on them, t-shirts with American flags on them and Simpsons merchandise. In amongst the junk that clearly had a) nothing to do with Herculaneum and b) nothing to do with Italy there was some of the classic merchandise, I got myself an Italian patch for my pack.

At 2pm we caught the train to Salerno where we then were to catch a bus along the Amalfi Coast to Sorrento, however again the transport wasn’t that regular and we had to wait till 3.30pm for the bus. A gelato and walk along the waterfront later, we caught the bus along the very long and winding road of the Amalfi Coast.

Poor Emilie who is from a flat state with straight roads surrounded by cornfields felt the effects of the turns and began to turn a little green around the gills. The Amalfi coast is so stunning, cliff faces with gorgeous building clinging on to the side of them, towering above the towns were wispy cloud covered mountains and the bright blue ocean below had super yachts and fishermen enjoying the early summer.

Lemons were everywhere, terraces climbing the cliff faces held these lemon farms which the yellow bursts created a pretty contrast to the green of the hills.

We stopped for a break in the town of Amalfi, only for about 30mins then carried on with the next bus to Sorrento. We only had enough time to grab a quick espresso before the train to Napoli, but although beautiful Sorrento was just a giant glamorous shopping mall and with us both being unable to shop we were glad to get out of the torture.

It was a really long day, and we didn’t really get to see much apart from out the window of the bus or train, however we thought we would treat ourselves to Gino’s to cheer us up.

Not considering that it was a Saturday night, we cruised there straight from the train station, it was around 9pm, the crowds were huge so we quickly raced upstairs to put our names on the list and then we waited, and waited. We got a glass of wine and soon we heard ‘Emilia Due’, we were so excited Emily didn’t get a chance to finish her wine but we were half way up the stairs when the Mamma running the show looked down on us and just shook her head and finger saying that it wasn’t us just yet.

So we waited and waited yet again, nearly 2 hours later we were seated, now I know 2 hours seems a bit extreme to wait for pizza but you just won’t understand until you have this pizza why it was all worth it.

We got a prosciutto & rocket one and a mushroomy bit of everything one, once again it did not disappoint, AMAZING!!

As it was nearly midnight, we thought that maybe Giovanni would be worried, and then he rung to check up on us to make sure we were ok cause the last train from Sorrento left at 9.30pm and we should have been home by now.

With our tummies full, feeling very happy we headed home and to bed.

One more day in Napoli, and I decided to not bother going to the super-volcano and instead see the sights in Napoli that I didn’t get to the other day.

I got up early cause everyone else did, said goodbye to Emilie and then started to plan my day. Then Giovanni told me to quickly get ready and he took me on a tour of Napoli on his motorbike! We went right up into the suburbs and around the water front, got to see the supervolcano from a distance, magnificent by the way, took a few videos of riding through the streets and got to see a whole new side of the city I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

He took me for coffee at his favourite place and tried the Napoli famous pastry called Sfogliatella, pastry with sweet ricotta cheese inside, so yum. I asked Giovanni if this was what Italians normally have for breakfast and he said ‘I have coffee for breakfast, I’m Italian!’.

Once back at the hostel I took a walk down to see the Veil of Christ statue, google that, it’s unreal, possibly the most beautiful piece of art I have ever seen, I’m not an arty person by any means but this was just incredible.

After that I headed to the Archaeological Museum, heaps of statues, huge statues of roman gods and all sorts, there was a section dedicated to Pompei however I didn’t realise that it was the Pompei exhibit until I was on my way out and I asked where the Pompei stuff was and they directed me back to where I was. Not sure what I expected, but there was just a heap of mosaics and an paintings, a few statues but not many and was disappointed there wasn’t any of the casts from where people were laying when it hit..

Back at Giovanni’s to make some time to catch up on this and to have lunch, Giovanni is making mushroom pasta, YUM!

So I headed out after lunch on a walk around the city, went down along the waterfront and back, about 2 hours worth. Trying to get used to the amount of PDA in this country, it’s pretty gross sometimes, there is just some stuff that others don’t need to bear witness to!

Later that evening Giovanni whipped up some basil pesto pasta for anyone that was staying there and wanted some, there was a really rude Australian guy who had rubbed Giovanni up the wrong way since he arrived, when Giovanni asked if he would like some dinner he just grunted back ‘I’ve got my own’. We both just looked at him, we must have had the same look on our faces cause he then said ‘No….thankyou’.

We all sat down in the living room and had to listen to the guy from the US that had everyone rolling their eyes at, the hostel was pretty much full too so there were a bunch of people I hadn’t really spoken to before.

I had to say goodbye to Giovanni that night as I was leaving at 6am the next day, I had such a wicked time in Napoli, by far the best place I have been so far, staying at Giovanni’s was a major part of that and I would totally go back there again.