Italy

Probably one of my all time favourite spots on this trip, Taromina is simply gorgeous and my only regret is that we couldn't stay there any longer. Upon our arrival at the Taromina train station we saw a sign stating it was a 3km to the hostel but this didn't mention it was a steep mountain 3 km hike on a road with no pedestrian pavement and
crazy Italian drivers. Somewhat confused I walked into a local hotel asking for directions, when he realized I was intending to walk to the hostel he called me crazy and directed me to a local bus stop. Funnily enough the hostel was called Odyssey Hostel and it felt like we were on one just trying to get there. As we hiked our way forward, with the Sicilian sun searing our backs, fellow backpackers would shout out encouraging comments such as - "you're nearly there," "only ten minutes more." By the time we got there both our backs and our spirits were broken.

However, once we settled into our dorm rooms and sculled two litres of water we discovered a cool little seaside resort. We had a lovely meal at a local trattoria and discovered that the owner had a friend
who lived in Melbourne and owned an Italian restaurant on Glenferrie Road - small world.

Jeremy - doesn't everyone in Italy have a cousin or friend in Melbourne?
We spent our only full day here on the pebble beach, accessed via a funicular. This beach was great and we nearly forgot about the lack of sand. The water was crystal clear and really refreshing, it was a little difficult to get into though,as the rocks were smooth and slippery. After a few hours lazing about we headed back up the funicular, before we got sun burnt, to enjoy a meal on a terrace with views of Mount Etna (as the sun set we could see a line of lava flowing down its side). The next day we left for Salerno.

Heading to Naples, I have to say I wasn't sure what to expect. Some say the South represents the true Italian lifestyle, "la dolce vita - the sweet life" while others label Naples the Garbage Capital of the South, so who is right?

The truth is somewhere in the middle - the south is a lot poorer than the north and it shows. On our arrival Alfredo, the hostel owner, gave us a quick lesson in the art of pick pocketing and told us not to have any more than twenty euros on us while travelling around Naples and to keep an eye on our bags, wallets and other valuables. With this knowledge we headed out into the mean streets, side stepping street hawkers, a guy trying to sell us a laptop (obviously stolen from a tourist) and of course the never ending supply of garbage!

The city does have a garbage collection problem which isn't helped by its citizens disposing their household wastes in the neighbourhood piazza. Seriously, I witnessed a man dump his queen size used mattress in the middle of the neighbourhood piazza! However, the food in Naples was fantastic we had fabulous pizza in local eateries and ate some great cheese with some local vino of course!

As the Italian summer slowly began to heat up we decided to head out of town for a couple of days and visit Pompeii and the Isle of Capri. We were also getting a bit wary of Naples as we had seen some dodgy stuff happening on the streets, including a women being assaulted by her boyfriend in broad daylight and what seemed to be clandestine meetings taking place in a local church.

The Market we had to negotiate on the way to our hostel (you could get a knock off of anything here!)

The Local Castle

The great pizza!

The rocks around the port covered in locals soaking up the mediterranean sun

We arrived in Venice at 7.30am after a another long train ride, stored our luggage and eagerly stepped out of the station to get our first glimpse of Italy. The city was just starting to wake up as we saw shop keepers opening their stores and unloading their daily produce from trolley boys who were running deliveries around. In true Italian style Jez and I found a local cafe and had our first coffees ordered in Italian. After the waitress corrected our grammar we had perfected a phrase we would use for the following twenty four days," Vorrei due cappuccini."

We then hurried along to the Doge's Palace in San Marco's piazza as we had be warned by Rick Steves (an american guide book Jeremy had "found abandoned") that the lines to most tourist attractions would double by midday, if we weren't organised we'd see nothing.

We arrived in San Marco's plaza and noticed something unexpected, it was almost empty! We hurriedly got a couple of photos and then made our way to the Doge's palace. As we arrived we witnessed the arrival of the first wave of tourists appearing over the little bridge to the north of the gondola docks and they seemed to just keep coming, (all with numbered stickers on their chests, a favourite form of crowd management by the cruise ship operators). As we queued, this mob joined the line next to us, the special group entry line. This line extended around the corner of the palace and as they were waved through we wondered whether we would ever get in

We weren't the only one an elderly american couple were verbalising the same thoughts and their disgust at being refused a senior citizens discount because they weren't citizens of the EU.
An interesting quirk of the new "United Europe" is that EU citizens get free entry to museums and gallery's while the rest of us support this great policy by paying full price.

Finally,we (and the american couple) made it in and spent the rest of the morning viewing art and learning about life and politics in Renaissance Venice before heading to the Basilica San Marco.

Inside the Palace we saw the numerous rooms that held the various levels of government and legal proceedings that kept Venice running. It was interesting, particularly the huge hall that housed meetings of the largest group of local politicians (the lowest level, which consisted of the big wig families of Venice. Of course the whole place was lacking any furniture and the paintings on the wall all seem to have been added after the Doge's had left (as we found this is common in Italian sights), at least the architecture was the same. The Basilica was more impressive though packed to the gills with fellow tourists. Perhaps this explains the floor, which resembled a wave pool rather than church floor. Years of floods and sinking earth had left its mark.

By midday we were stuffed (mainly from lack of sleep) so we headed to the local pizzeria for oversize pizza slices to refuel. Our train left at 5.30pm to Florence so we still had a full afternoon of sightseeing ahead of us. We wandered the canals and streets, visited a couple of churches with famous art works (and the tombs of famous artists).

We also dropped in on the city museum as it was included in the entry fee for the palace, and we could see why they did this. We had our photo taken at the Piazza and watched in amazement as people fed and handled the local pigeon population, had they not been warned about the germs carried by flying rats??? By now we had made it across the city about 4 times! Before we knew it it was 5.30pm and we had boarded our train for Florence and farewelled the Venetian winged Lion (what a formidable creature), tired but happy that we had made the effort to spend sometime in Venice. It being Italy our train was late and we arrived in Florence at around 10:30pm.

Empty Venice

Here they come...

Not sure if the bird knows whats coming...