Ah what fun we had........
We landed in Naples, not the nicest of cities, where we spent a couple of days. Fortunately at least one of these was to tour Pompeii. Pompeii was incredible. The detail of what is left in the streets and houses, lived in nearly 2000 years ago and covered in ash when Mt Vesuvius erupted is quite amazing. There are mosaic on floors, beautiful statues in temples and some quite startlingly pornographic frescos in the bath houses! In all seriousness one of the interesting thoughts which struck me was how similar the layout of churches is to the ancient temples left at Pompeii; you can really see how much the early christians appropriated from the religions around them. Also in Pompeii we visited the Museo which had some fabulous mosaic removed from Pompeii and more erotika! We were quite glad to leave Naples and would advise others wanting to visit Sorrento, Capri or the Amalfi coast, all of which are WONDERFUL to either get out of Naples quickly or avoid it if possible! Next we headed on the local train down to Piano de Sorrento, a hill side
suburb near Sorrento and breathed a sigh or relief to be in a cleaner place free of so many pick pockets, beggars and life threatening mopeds! Sorrento itself was beautiful. I bought some silk scarves very cheaply. We then headed out on a day trip to the Isle of Capri. This was mum's favorite day of the whole Italy experience. We caught a boat around the island. The water was a clear bright aqua colour and the coral growing on the rocks was bright orange. Amazing! We had a lovely Pizza for lunch (along with our usual 1\2 litre of Vino Rosso) in a restaurant in the village of Capri, overlooking the white cliffs and the harbour way down below. It was truly an idylic day!However, this day was not quite so happy historically, as it was the day after the death of Pope John Paul II. The outpouring of grief at the death of the beloved "Il Papa" was quite mind blowing. That night we heard on the news and read in the papers that there would be about 4 million pilgrims expected in Rome (the final count exceeded 5 million according to the Italian newspaper Il Reppublica if my understanding of Italian serves me correctly!)and we decided that our trip to Rome in 2 days time would have to be cancelled. As it turned out, the day I had tickets booked for the Vatican Tour (having been knocked back for the Vatican Necropolis when it became obvious that JP II was on his final legs) was the very day that 2 million filed passed his coffin, spending upwards of 15 hours in a queue for 15 seconds infront of the bier with his poor old body on display. I think we made a very wise decision! Of course I was very sad to miss out on Rome for a second time. Mum tried to comfort me by saying that really it's just a church with a painted ceiling, and we'd seen plenty of Madonnas with child anyway, but I still reckon it would have been good to be there! Although I suppose I have seen rather a lot of it on TV in the last 2 weeks…. Ah well…. Next time perhaps!!
The following da
y, whilst desperately trying to call to cancel our Roman accomodation, we took a two hour loal bus ride along the Amalfi coast to the town of Amalfi. Once again amazing scenery, a very narrow road and lots of hair raising stories of cars passing us on bends. Amalfi itself was beautiful. We had a delightful lunch at a "beachside" restaurant and then went and saw the remains of St Andrew, apostle of Jesus, in the cathedral. A beautiful little town perched very precariously on an incredibly steep cliff - definitely worth a visit.Next, in order to fill the 3 days we were supposed to spend in Rome we w
ent to Perugia in Umbria. This was partly because our next stop was Assisi and we figured it was sensible to head in the right direction. On our first morning there we called Brendan at home in Melbourne who checked the internet for us to get information on what to see and do in the area and how to catch a train. It was quite surreal to be standing in a square in Italy speaking to someone in Melbourne who was describing to me perfectly accurately what I was actually seeing in front of me and how to find the tourist information bureau! Perugia is a lovely city with a beautiful medieval town square, a great art gallery and several quite interesting churches and chapels. (Including a beautiful one painted by Raffaello himself!) Next we spent a day in Cortona (Home to Frances Mayes who wrote Under the Tuscan Sun we discovered on arrival) which is another really lovely medieval hilltop town. Unfortunately since the weather was appalling there wasn't much open, but the Etruscian museum was interesting and the lunch and the coffee and superb chocolate we had later certainly made the trip worthwhile!
Our next stop was my highlight of the trip - Assisi. It was marvellous. Once again a beautiful medieval hilltop
town (I was starting to feel like a mountain goat by this stage, and it was doing great things for my weight -bottles of vino rosso and delightful lunches not withstanding!) I absolutely adored the cathedral which was dedicated to San Francesco (St Francis of Assisi in English) with a very peaceful and simple romanesque chapel tomb below it. The ancient wall frescos were absolutely beautiful too, and covered every wall. We had 2 days here and visited all of the sites linked to San Francesco and also to San Chiara. (St Clare, his follower who started the order of the Poor Clares) Despite bitterly cold, rainy, windy and wintery weather we really enjoyed Assisi. Besides, a town dedicated to a saint who dedicated himself to poverty, chastity and obedience to God is hardly a place where one should complain about a spot of bad weather now is it!
From Assisi we travelled to Milano. We only had a day there. The youth hostel where we stayed was ordinary, and the bathrooms horrible, but the town itself was lovely. Milano, believe it or not is a FLAT city! The only one we visited. I had pre-booked tickets to see da Vinci's Last Supper on the net and we had a 15 minute tour. (good thing I did too as when we arrived at 9 am for our appointed tour the "sold out" signs were already up for the day.) Despite the huge amount of damage the fresco has sustained over the years, and the fact that it's original painting as a dry fresco was a very bad mistake on da Vinci's part, it was still breathtakingly beautiful. I found it very hard to take my eyes off it. For those who have read The da Vinci Code, yes John does look rather feminine, but then he does in most of the other paitings we saw of him in Italy (and we saw a few!) so I really am not sure that I reckon it's really Mary Magdelene. The tour guide said that his feminine face was to show that he was much younger than the other deciples. It is beautiful and well worth taking the trouble to book in advance on the net to see it! Other highlights of the day were the Duomo (shrouded in canvas as it's being cleaned) but enormous and beautiful inside as well as 2 more art galleries with works by da Vinci, Raffaello et al again. They had the cartoon of the famous Raphaello painting in the Vatican of the Greek Philosophers - so I kind of felt I got close at least!
We then spent a relaxing 2 days at Lake Como. After nearly a week in youth hostels we stayed in rather a nice little B & B just a short 750 m ride straight vertically up the cliff on the funicular. There was a great country market in the square and we had a wonderful 2 hour boat ride on Lake Como. Several nice lunches and some beautiful dinners at our B&B were also a highlight of this city. I have some really nice photos of the lake and our time there!
From here we caught a local bus to Bergamo near Milano to catch a plane to Sweden. The views of the Alps from the bus windows were beautiful. As if we hadn't seen enough art we took advantage of the 1.5 hours we had here to go to a Cezanne/Renoir exhibition which was refreshing with it's Impressionist lack of religious themes! Arriving at the airport we discovered that Ryan Air (a European cheapie airline we were taking to Sweden for about $50 each) had lowered their baggage allowance to 15 kgs per person. Given mum's purchases this meant we were about 9 kgs over! No matter, we pulled everything out, secreted the heavy stuff in our hand luggage(something I am well practiced at) and went through without any excess luggage bill. I must say it was nice for the first time EVER not to be the one responsible for the heaviest luggage!!
We've spent the last 3 days relaxing at Perolov's place in Sweden. He took us to see the cranes that fly up from Spain for the summer and we also had a look at a Viking Stone Circle nearby which was about 1500 years old. We've also downloaded the photos, and I faithfully promise to create an edited selection for anyone who wants to see them -there are rather a lot already! (and that's for me you'd be horrified if you saw how many mum has taken!!) On Wednesday we head south for Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Wales Ireland for a day, and then¨ Scotland. From there mum heads back to Sweden and I am going to London for 10 days to catch up with people I met when I was there in 2002. Then I'll go back to Sweden for Midsommer festival which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully the travel from now on will be easier (touch wood) because we are borrowing a car from Perolov - bless him! Mum has promised to write the next installment for all of those brave enough to read more from us. To those of you who made it to the end of this, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed hearing about our trip and stay tuned for the next bit of the journey!!
Fun huh!! Next I'll post mum's email of the travels we did in the rest of Europe.....
ent to Perugia in Umbria. This was partly because our next stop was Assisi and we figured it was sensible to head in the right direction. On our first morning there we called Brendan at home in Melbourne who checked the internet for us to get information on what to see and do in the area and how to catch a train. It was quite surreal to be standing in a square in Italy speaking to someone in Melbourne who was describing to me perfectly accurately what I was actually seeing in front of me and how to find the tourist information bureau! Perugia is a lovely city with a beautiful medieval town square, a great art gallery and several quite interesting churches and chapels. (Including a beautiful one painted by Raffaello himself!) Next we spent a day in Cortona (Home to Frances Mayes who wrote Under the Tuscan Sun we discovered on arrival) which is another really lovely medieval hilltop town. Unfortunately since the weather was appalling there wasn't much open, but the Etruscian museum was interesting and the lunch and the coffee and superb chocolate we had later certainly made the trip worthwhile!Our next stop was my highlight of the trip - Assisi. It was marvellous. Once again a beautiful medieval hilltop
town (I was starting to feel like a mountain goat by this stage, and it was doing great things for my weight -bottles of vino rosso and delightful lunches not withstanding!) I absolutely adored the cathedral which was dedicated to San Francesco (St Francis of Assisi in English) with a very peaceful and simple romanesque chapel tomb below it. The ancient wall frescos were absolutely beautiful too, and covered every wall. We had 2 days here and visited all of the sites linked to San Francesco and also to San Chiara. (St Clare, his follower who started the order of the Poor Clares) Despite bitterly cold, rainy, windy and wintery weather we really enjoyed Assisi. Besides, a town dedicated to a saint who dedicated himself to poverty, chastity and obedience to God is hardly a place where one should complain about a spot of bad weather now is it!From Assisi we travelled to Milano. We only had a day there. The youth hostel where we stayed was ordinary, and the bathrooms horrible, but the town itself was lovely. Milano, believe it or not is a FLAT city! The only one we visited. I had pre-booked tickets to see da Vinci's Last Supper on the net and we had a 15 minute tour. (good thing I did too as when we arrived at 9 am for our appointed tour the "sold out" signs were already up for the day.) Despite the huge amount of damage the fresco has sustained over the years, and the fact that it's original painting as a dry fresco was a very bad mistake on da Vinci's part, it was still breathtakingly beautiful. I found it very hard to take my eyes off it. For those who have read The da Vinci Code, yes John does look rather feminine, but then he does in most of the other paitings we saw of him in Italy (and we saw a few!) so I really am not sure that I reckon it's really Mary Magdelene. The tour guide said that his feminine face was to show that he was much younger than the other deciples. It is beautiful and well worth taking the trouble to book in advance on the net to see it! Other highlights of the day were the Duomo (shrouded in canvas as it's being cleaned) but enormous and beautiful inside as well as 2 more art galleries with works by da Vinci, Raffaello et al again. They had the cartoon of the famous Raphaello painting in the Vatican of the Greek Philosophers - so I kind of felt I got close at least!
We then spent a relaxing 2 days at Lake Como. After nearly a week in youth hostels we stayed in rather a nice little B & B just a short 750 m ride straight vertically up the cliff on the funicular. There was a great country market in the square and we had a wonderful 2 hour boat ride on Lake Como. Several nice lunches and some beautiful dinners at our B&B were also a highlight of this city. I have some really nice photos of the lake and our time there!
From here we caught a local bus to Bergamo near Milano to catch a plane to Sweden. The views of the Alps from the bus windows were beautiful. As if we hadn't seen enough art we took advantage of the 1.5 hours we had here to go to a Cezanne/Renoir exhibition which was refreshing with it's Impressionist lack of religious themes! Arriving at the airport we discovered that Ryan Air (a European cheapie airline we were taking to Sweden for about $50 each) had lowered their baggage allowance to 15 kgs per person. Given mum's purchases this meant we were about 9 kgs over! No matter, we pulled everything out, secreted the heavy stuff in our hand luggage(something I am well practiced at) and went through without any excess luggage bill. I must say it was nice for the first time EVER not to be the one responsible for the heaviest luggage!!
We've spent the last 3 days relaxing at Perolov's place in Sweden. He took us to see the cranes that fly up from Spain for the summer and we also had a look at a Viking Stone Circle nearby which was about 1500 years old. We've also downloaded the photos, and I faithfully promise to create an edited selection for anyone who wants to see them -there are rather a lot already! (and that's for me you'd be horrified if you saw how many mum has taken!!) On Wednesday we head south for Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Wales Ireland for a day, and then¨ Scotland. From there mum heads back to Sweden and I am going to London for 10 days to catch up with people I met when I was there in 2002. Then I'll go back to Sweden for Midsommer festival which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully the travel from now on will be easier (touch wood) because we are borrowing a car from Perolov - bless him! Mum has promised to write the next installment for all of those brave enough to read more from us. To those of you who made it to the end of this, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed hearing about our trip and stay tuned for the next bit of the journey!!
Fun huh!! Next I'll post mum's email of the travels we did in the rest of Europe.....
Hugs to all,
SB
SB
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