Cinque terre - ultimate beach paradise

I decided to make things hard from myself from the outset, and set off from La Spezia train station, intending to walk to Cinque terre on the other side of the peninsula. After walking in the wrong direction (straight down, instead of across, the peninsula) for two hours, I started again, taking a path that threatened wild boars in the area. It was worth the risk of goring by wild boars, because at the top of the mountain (halfway to Cinque terre, 3-4 hours walk from the train station) there is a town called Campiglia nestled amongst the hills, that you wouldnt know existed without a strenous hours-long walk uphill. I have no idea how the residents get there.

After another 3-4 hour long walk, I arrived in Riomaggiore, the first town in Cinque terre with feet with worn-out soles at 3pm. After a snack of local lemon tart (exquisite!) I jumped in the warm, warm water. Cinque terre is a paradise, with brightly coloured buildings rising up out of a sharp cliff valley from the clear, clear water. Bright coloured sailing boats laden with nets cruise around, garnishing the sparkling sea and providing the final magical touch on the perfect beach. Nearby there is the Via Della Amour, (the way of love) to the second town. Along the walk halfway down a sheer rock cliff, locks enscribed with lover's names are suspended from nets on the cliff.

Agerola and the best of the Amalfi Coast

For a small town, the citizens of San Lazzaro in Agerola, overlooking the Amalfi Coast, sure know how to party. Every night I was there, something fun was on, starting with a birthday party for the owner - with fireworks! Italians know how to party, and the festivities dont even usually kick off until 10pm or so. Dinner is consumed at around 11, and drinks and dancing happens sometime after Cinderella has already lost her shoe. The next night, it was a festival in Agerola town centre, with a famous Italian singer up on the big stage, and corny carnival rides and cheap plastic toys everywhere. God I hate carnivals, they represent everything thats cheap and tacky in the world... I would love to see a proper fete like they would have had before horrible carnival rides and chinese toys were invented, with hay and boiled corn and animal shows. The night after, the hostel had a hot dogs and beer party. Initially I didnt join in, I didnt really feel like hot dogs and ate salad instead, but after an hour or so, the hostelier came in and offered us all free beer - they had a keg outside, so I couldnt say no. The last night I was in San Lazzaro, there was a star watching conference on the summit of the highest hill overlooking the town, with telescopes pointed at milky spots. I dont know what they are, but everyone was very excited about them, so I will have to look them up sometime in the future. After the stargazing, as I was walking down the hill I heard a few acoustic guitars and Italian singing, so I went to check it out. On the piazza below, a concert of an Italian singer was taking place... it was great, and such a lovely night, almost a full moon. I missed Bec a lot as I was standing on the balcony overlooking the concert, with the moonlight night making the view of the sea look even better than in the daylight.

So the nights were filled with fun, but that didnt make the days any less active. On the first day, I made friends with all the guests at the hostel - it was a particularly social one. Everyone was fun. There were two Canadians, one who had recently sustained a perforated eardrum from cliff jumping in Croatia, so he was initially a bit quiet. There was a dutch guy, who was always having fun, as well as two English girls who had been held up at gun-point in Naples, another English woman, and an Australian girl. This crowd just grew as the days went on, being augmented by extra Americans and Australians. The first day, all the guys decided to climb down the 3000 steps to the beach on the Amalfi Coast. The day was absolutely sunkist - after the climb, we took a boat to a grotto on the beach, where there was a rock arch to jump from into the water, and a cave that a Roman fellow cliff jumping girl told us was called the Lovers cave. Anyone can guess what goes on in there. Afterwards, we drank beer on the beach and sunbaked on the sun-warmed rocks. After a perfect day, for some reason we elected to climb the 3000 steps back up... not an easy accomplishment, but we beat the bus back to the hostel and were drenched in sweat and sunscreen. We definitely earned our dinner that night!

The next day, the Canadians, the English woman and I visited Pompei, which wasnt particularly impressive, apart from the awesome brothel, with a la carte sexual positions painted on the wall. Another day on the beach and it was sadly time to head up north again, to Bologna.

When I arrived in Bologna, I immediately was not impressed. After a mosquito-armageddon night in the out-of-the-way hostel, I decided to head to Pisa again instead of staying longer in boring Bologna. I didnt even get to eat a bolognese there, although my roommate Australian did, and said that it was horrible. No points for Bologna. Now that I am in Pisa, I intend to get up early the next two days and see Cinque Terre.

Naples: Pizza, pizza, pizza!

Not much to do in Napoli. For three days, I lived off the hostel breakfast - a croissant and juice, and one pizza for dinner. The pizzas are the best and cheapest in Italy. Napoli itself had very little to do, but nearby Hercolano is well worth the trip. Having since been to Pompei, I can say with certainty that it is by far the better of the two. While the most interesting sights in Pompei are all closed for reservation, and take ages to walk between, Hercolano is like a fairy... magical and small! Paintings from 2000 years ago are still in an amazing state of preservation, while the mosaics on the floor of the baths put modern tilers to shame. The one group of skeltons, 4 people clutching each other in fear and covering their heads, is far too lifelike, and gives an excellent idea of the fear the victims of Vesuvius would have been feeling.

Before the ruins, I checked out the local morning markets in Hercolano... extensive markets selling everything from cheap jewellery and thongs to fresh olives and bargain cheap fruit. I bought some olives while walking around, and the seller did not believe that I only wanted 100 grams. At the third ladle I realised what she was up to and hastily took the bag before she could ladle any more in. Just outside the fresh seafood markets, a fisherman had just caught a large octopus, which took up nearly a whole bucket. It was wriggling around in confusion when I saw it, although I fear it didnt have much longer to wriggle before it made a particularly fresh calamari lunch for some lucky local.

Rome - Random Amblings

After seeing the heavyweights of the Roman tourist sights, I had to work out what to do next. Lucky there were still many things left to see. The next day saw me at the capuchin crypt early in the morning - lucky I didnt go at night! This has to be one of the scariest things that I have seen. The capuchin monks used human bones - those of prior monks - to decorate the crypt in all sorts of designs. The first room has a painting of Lazarus and his resurrection, and is decorated with pelvises and skulls, with femurs making up a wall at the back of the room. The second room has ulnas and radii used as centrepieces with whole spines as borders. Gradually increasing in gruesomeness, the third room has a severed human arm - only half decomposed - hanging from the wall. The final room holds the piece de la resistance, the skeletons of children - one of which is nailed to the ceiling. What possessed these monks to preserve their dead in such a novel and admittedly creepy fashion, I will never know. I was happy to leave the place, with a visit to the Trevi Fountain next on the itinerary, hopefully a little more cheerful!

The Trevi fountain was absolutely packed with tourists when I arrived. The monolithic structure is worthy of its great fame, with superb marble statues much larger than man looming over the crowd. The Trevi fountain is also the beginning of the walk through the old town to the Pantheon, along which are lined lots of touristy restaurants. The pantheon is grand but quite a modest form of greco-roman architecture, and I did not spend a long time in there. After a short while, the constant loud recordings of "silence, please" in four languages seem strangely ironic.

After the Pantheon, I walked across to Trastevere, the most beautiful suburb in Rome. Small, well decorated and very cute restaurants line the pavements along a windy stretch of roads starting in piazza trastevere. The pavement-layer was clearly as drunk as all the guests in the restaurants, as all of the streets wind in the cutest way imaginable.

The day after these extensive wanderings, I was in for another long walking day. After the metro broke down on the way to the Vatican, I got off early at the Piazza del Popolo and wandered along the roads, seeing on the way the Augustus mausoleum, and a castle. The piazza of the Vatican is very grand, although I did not enter the basilica. I saved my time at the Vatican instead for the Vatican museum, which was more richly furnished than any I have seen. The hallway of cartographers was very interesting, as well as the statues. I loved Rafaels Stanza, filled with brightly coloured characters that almost seem to come to life, and preferred it to Michelangelos paintings in the Sistine chapel.

After wandering the Vatican museums for hours, I walked up a hill which promised to be a national park. Instead, it turned out to be where all the rich people lived. I did happenstance upon the nicest fountain in Rome, however - the Font dAcqua, which is much more peaceful than Trevi, and gives the grandest view of Rome that could be wanted for. The next day, it was to Naples - the city known for pizza and theivery, and not much else!

Rome – The Colosseum and Roman Forum

I have now endured the longest queue that I have ever submitted myself to. Needlessly, as it turns out – I could have gotten a ticket a lot faster if I had purchased it at the Roman Forum rather than the Colosseum (the tickets are combined for both attractions). After more than an hour, I finally got my ticket. At the time I was in the Colosseum, there was an exhibition on the Emperor Nero, famous for his strange sexual urges, killing his mother, and possibly burning down Rome so he could start again – quite the passionate individual. The room where he lived was absolutely amazing, a sunken marble terrace with spouting fountains all around. Lucky guy! The colloseum itself was quite amazing, it was quite brutal the way they put executions by animal or fire on show, as well as animal vs. animal, animal vs. human, and human vs. human fights on show.

The Roman forum nearby is beautiful, as well as the rest of the ruins, which stretch out over a long space. These included various arches, pillars, palaces, and gardens. The palace itself was absolutely huge, originally built with two massive wings stretching over hectares, and intended to have an extra wing. I found it very strange, seeing brick-and-mortar buildings from the time of Jesus, built as the normal masonry material of the time. I expected marble, but having seen this, it's amazing how little our building techniques have changed over time – 2000 years and no advancement!

Florence, part 2: The Uffizi and Michelangelo Square

The Uffizi was great. My favourite painting was Spring, closely followed by the birth of Venus. The statue hall was amazing, there were marble carvings from 50 BC! I didn't think art could have been preserved for that long. There were so many Madonna with child's and Jesus on the cross' that I couldn't stand to see another one, especially because christian-themed art is mostly quite droll. I loved the pagan art – Roman gods are much more interesting subject matter.

The next day I walked out of my hostel and there were my English friends from Pisa, walking by my hostel! I shouted out and took them for a brief tour of the bits they hadn't seen in Florence (their hostel was in a small town an hour from Florence). Then we headed up to Michelangelo square, where a copy of David in bronze stands, presiding over the whole of Florence. The view from the square is amazing – Florence is such a good city to have a view of, all the mediterranean buildings are awesome when seen en masse.

Florence

Florence has confirmed my love of Italy, although in Florence the tourist presence is much more obvious, and you have to fight against each other to get through crowds. Yesterday, after catching the train here I dropped my bag at my new hostel, a very basic dorm -no kitchen, fridge, or lounge area, just a bed and a toilet. It's quite good, because it forces you to go out and enjoy the city, as it's impossible to enjoy the hostel. I've spent the last two days walking non-stop, and now my ankles feel like jelly. Yesterday I went for a scope around the city, which encompassed the Ponte Vecchio, where the goldsmiths are, the Palazzo Vecchio, and a bunch of churches – the Basilica di Santo Spirito, the Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Flore, the Basilica di San Lorenze, and the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. While the churches are absolutely huge here, they are not very ornate – it looks like they scrapped the artistry budget and just built the biggest monstrosity possible, perhaps they needed the extra room to fit all the christians in. I checked out multiple markets, which line every street, as well as the leather markets with the hog. I also found the most awesome scribe's shop, with ink, pens, sealing wax and stamps, anything you could want in order to write the most stylish letter this side of Milan. While I walked past the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, I didn't go in yesterday. Today, I visite the piazza pitti after a bit of a walk around. The part I was most excited about was the Giardina di Boboli, which are supposedly famous. In my opinion, they turned out to be famously crap, mostly consisting of a bunch of overgrown trees with grass and weeds underneath. The occasional marble statue was nice, but nothing like the beautiful palace gardens in Sintra, Portugal. After circulating the massive garden grounds, I headed in the museum, which was much more wortwhile – the treasures of the Kremlin were currently on display, as well as the most ornate carvings you could ever expext to be possible, and a few oddities, like a whole display of small statuettes made entirely of shells. The latter part of the display included jewellery with more diamonds on a single necklace than a normal collarbone could be expected to hold.

The last exhibition I visited was a fashion throughout the ages exhibition – I always wondered how dress codes changed from ballooning, multiple-layered skirts and petticoats to slim dresses. There were even some very old, preserved clothes that had to be viewed under a dim light so as not to destroy them further. While the exhibits on the different clothes were interesting, I came out none the wiser why people used to wear so much and why we are now more practical – the exhibit only vaguely postulated the culture and women's desire for independence fueled the change.