Reality looming (and even more train stuff)

Thursday 30 and Friday 31 May

On Thursday morning we felt that we were starting the long trek home, although there are still several days of travel to go. All a little sad although good things must come to an end and there are plenty of reasons to look forward to being back in NZ of course!

We drove from Positano back up to Rome via Cassino and stopped to look at the abbey and commonwealth cemetery. The abbey was completely destroyed during the fighting in WW2. It has been rebuilt and is back in use as an abbey - this wasn't the first time it had been destroyed and rebuilt in the course of its history after all.

The view from the abbey just reinforces how difficult a military position it must have been to take - it dominates the whole valley. About 40,000 German troops held up 345,000 allied troops for about 9 months at the Gustav line of which Monte Cassino was a part. There is a good book about the battle and the bigger strategies involved by Michael Parker. The cemetery had rows and rows of NZ war graves, bringing home the human cost of what happened. Then there were the rows of Australian, British, Canadian, and Indian graves too. And then whole separate cemeteries (although we did not have time to visit them) telling the same stories about the German, French, American and Polish soldiers who died there.

Friday - as I write we are humming along on the Frecciarossa train en route to Milan. This is the fast train, capable of up to 360kph, but we haven't yet managed more than about 250kph. There have been a number of delays and some slow running which has made us over 30min late (predicted) on a 3 hour journey. Not a problem for tourists on a relaxed schedule! The on board displays tell you how fast the train is going, how early/late it is predicted to be, and various notices about coming changes due to engineering works etc (which I can't really decipher.)

The train is otherwise excellent. Very smooth - just a few little lurches that coincide with the spelling mistakes in the blog. (?) There is a cafe car and we also get served free cold drinks at our seats occasionally. And thats just in 2nd class. For the record, espresso coffee on board is 1.50 euro and maxi toast is 4.50 euro. Maxi toast is a ham & cheese toasted sandwich - pretty chic. Mine was delicious but J's was not. The prices are pretty normal, in fact the coffee is cheap compared to most cafes. But I've long since stopped caring about how much such things cost. (Might have to revise that attitude soon...)

The rail infrastructure is massive of course. There are huge yards, mostly empty of wagons, and quite a few yellow machines parked up. Very little sign of activity - perhaps it all happens at night or in special blocks. A side effect of having such an asset is that there are lots of great opportunities for graffiti, most of which have been taken up, and there seems to be little effort to do anything about it. But as mentioned a while ago it doesn't seem to be as ugly as back home for some reason. Also they are not short of a weed or two in the ballast. 

Milan's main station, Milano Centrale, is the largest station in Italy. It was built by Mussolini in a sort of fascist architectural style although the obvious symbols of his regime have long been removed.

P.S. For anyone interested the train did stretch out to 300kph for a while - conveniently next to a motorway so we could be seen flashing past all the cars.

La dolce vita

Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 May

The Amalfi Coast is one of our favourite places from our last visit so many years ago. And with a couple of days of good weather it did not disappoint this time either.

We are staying in Positano, a picture postcard little town seemingly glued to the side of a cliff. 

Day 1 we took a ferry to the island of Capri for a look around and a visit to the Blue Grotto. Entrance to the grotto is by small boat and you have to lie in the bottom of the boat (literally) as the entance is very small with very little room for error. 2 days out of 3 the boats can't get in at all due to the swell so the tourists leave disappointed. We were very lucky to have a calm day and got inside - after our old bodies creaked down into the boat. 

The colour is lovely - apparently caused by the sun reflecting off the mix of sand and coral at the bottom of the grotto.

Even the bus ride to the grotto was an experience. The roads are very narrow with long drops down to the sea, and the drivers are very 'confident' from long practice. The island is very steep and lazy people use the funicular to go up the hill. We were not lazy as we only used it to go down. Its a bigger version of Wellington's cable car.

As the next day was someones birthday, we (two of us) pre celebrated with dinner at a local Positano restaurant with an amazing meal, while looking at the amazing view. Better not repeat the food rating exercise again I guess .... but it was very, very good.

Day 2 we drove around the Amalfi Coast on hair raising roads admiring the scenery. We went high up into the coastal mountains to visit Villa Rufolo which is known for its gardens and its views. 

There is an annual orchestral concert held at the villa and the stage for the orchestra was being being built while  we were there. It iis a temporary scaffold stage built out over nothing much more than thin air. Depending on the conductor's head for heights I suspect there may sometimes be rather more 'allegro' and less 'andante' in the performance than the composer intended?!

Lunch was at a home way back in the hills where the famly cooks for visitors in their traditional way. The idea is that you can experience a 'normal'  meal in a typical Italian family setting. So we  sat outside and looked at the mountan and farm views and enjoyed a feast - so much so we were extremely full by the end! Somehow a birthday cake appeared, with 3 candles - 30 something again!

La dolce vita indeed.

Pompeii unburied

Monday 27 May

Today we made the long journey south towards Positano on the Amalfi coast. The route took us via Naples, past Mt Vesuvius, and we stopped at Pompeii to have a look at the excavated ruins from the eruption in 79 AD.

The Pompeii visit was a repeat for us, but ths time we saw and understood a lot more. No doubt this was partly due to the 30 years of  work that has been done on the site since we were last there, and partly due to Sandra our local guide. Once again it was very helpful have a knowledgeable person explain what we were seeing  rather than relying on our own research. The excavated ruins are very extensive, although not all open to the public. We saw public bath houses, private dwellings, shops, amphitheatres, as well as the public forum and roads.

Vesuvius still looms over the town. 

Couldn't resist this pic - the local lemons are massive!

Under the Tuscan sun

Sunday 26 May

The day dawned fine and sunny and we set off to visit 2 classic Tuscan towns, and also a couple of lesser known destinations.

The classics were San Gimignano and Siena. Both are historic walled towns that have been largely preserved as they were many hundreds of years ago. 

San Gimignano is known for its many towers, and is jokingly called the Manhattan of Tuscany. 

I climbed the bell tower, Torre Grossa, and was rewarded with terrific views over the town and Tuscan countryside. The country is rolling and green, with olive groves, vineyards, villas, cypresses - just as we have seen on various TV programmes about Tuscany! In fact we passed a few villas that were in the process of being renovated - possibly by mad Englishmen, but we couldn't tell.

Siena is famous for the Paglio horse race held each year in the central piazza, which is something of a scallop shape. The race is apparently very hard in the horses, who often come to grief at the very tight corners. 

Siena is also well known for its grand cathedral, and for its roast pork sandwiches called porchetta. We couldn't get into the cathedral due to queues, but successfully acquired and munched a porchetta.

Our lesser known stops were at a winery, Vescine, which makes chianti style wine. Chianti is the name of the region, and the wine is made primarily from sangiovese grapes, sometimes with small amounts of other types blended in. We tasted a couple of the winery's chiantis, as well as their Sauvignon Blanc (a surprise that they had this!) The Sav was very different to NZ ones.

Lastly we stopped at the village of Greve (just on spec as it was such a nice day) and found there was a festival going on with market stalls, performers, and a debate (in Italian.) So what could we do but sit in a cafe and soak up the atmosphere!

I can really see the attraction of living here!

Arting in the rain

Saturday 25 May

It's wet and windy in Florence today so what better to do than visit a few art galleries crammed with priceless masterpieces?

First the Uffizi Gallery with it's Leonardo da Vincis, Caravaggios, Boticellis, Michelangelos and many others. Second the Duomo (cathedral) and Baptistry (with its amazing sculpted bronze doors). 

Third the Academia with the original of Michelangelo's David, looking as magnificent as it did last time we saw it 30 years ago. The story goes that Michelangelo 'saw' his finished sculptures inside the blocks of marble before he started work, and released them by chiselling away the excess stone. There are several unfinished sculptures known as the 'Prisoners' for that reason, and when you look at them you can imagine the figures trying to 'escape' the stone.

The art works really are wonderful and it was a privilege to see them in person. We were lucky to have a local guide, Paola, which again added a lot of insights and helped avoid the frustrations of queueing too much.

Once sated with art we shopped in the thunderstorms and rain and got cold and wet. Shop front vernadahs have not caught on here. My 4 euro street hawker umbrella got frightened by a gentle puff of wind and half fell to bits - but I still hope to nurse it along and not discard it till our last day in Italy!

So much to see here, but better on a fine day!

Check out the exclusive rowing club on the Arno River near the famous Ponte Vecchio (bottom right.)

Italian food experience - why I may decide to go native

Friday 24 May

Non foodies needn't read on, but for everyone else - this is better than trains!

We went out for a traditional Tuscan meal to a restaurant just out of Florence - called I Tre Pini (The Three Pines) if you are ever there. It was amazing! A real experience (at least for tourists) and one that may have convinced me to become Italian after all. I Tre Pini prides itself on fresh, traditional Tuscan food and on trying to provide genuine Tuscan hospitality. The owner and head chef, Libero, is a good friend of ours now.

So lets record it in the approved fashion (scores are out of 10):

1. Aperitivo - blue (yes) wine, rather sweet but an interesting start to the meal. I don't know how it got to be blue, but who cares.  10/10

2, Antipasto - liver pate on bruschetta, tomato on bruschetta, sun dried tomatoes, pizza bread, prosciutto with soft cheese, deep fried pasta bread, polenta cakes with tapenade.   12/10

3. Pasta - ravioli cheese filled, with ragu sauce.   12/10

4. Meat - florentine steak. Giant T bones, many cm thick, medium rare and cut up to share. (A hot stone was provided on the side in case you needed to cook it more.) Superbly tender!   15/10

5. Potatoes and fresh salad - to accompany #4.  10/10

6. Choice of dessert - the best was chocolate fondant, but all the others were fantastic too.  12/10

7. Coffee and digestivo (limoncello of you were a lady, grappa if you weren't).   12/10

All  accompanied by the local red and white wine made by Libero's family, and by roving musicians singing traditional Italian songs like Fernando and Stairway to Heaven. It was guitar plus singer - they were actually very good. So good I bought their CD!?

If this is Tuscan food then I could easily live here!

Whaddya reckon mate? I think it's got a bit of a lean on it.

Friday 24 May

Yes, its the leaning tower of Pisa, a classic sight in Italy, almost a cliche. But you have to go there - just to say that you've been, if nothing else. Getting access to the tower is a drama in itself. Parking is so far away that you need to take  a local shuttle to get to the site, and then negotiate a large contingent of street hawkers trying hard to sell you sunglasses, umbrellas, souvenirs etc (genuine items of course.) 

And going up the tower requires a pre booking as only a set number (about 50) can be in there at any one time.

The leaning tower is actually the bell tower for the adjacent church and baptistry, all located in the immaculately kept 'field of miracles', the commonly used name for the site as a whole. We visited the sites with a local guide, Roberta, and were very well informed about the history and the architectural style - 'Pisa Romanesque'.

The story of the tower is quite interesting. It is  built on soft ground, hence the problem, which has also affected the other buildings nearby, but not in such spectacular fashion. The tower was started in the 12th century but after 3 tiers were completed the lean was already so pronounced that construction stopped for a century while everyone was preoccupied with other matters (wars). The original architect of the tower is unknown - no doubt he was at pains to keep a low profile at the time!

In the 13th century the next 4 tiers were added with the columns on the leaning side made a bit longer in order straighten up the tower. Hence the slight banana shape. This wasn't a complete success, and construction stopped again for another century.

Finally the belfry was added in the 14th century and the tower was complete after 348 years, although it was still moving with its lean increasing at about 1mm per year.

At its leaningest point the tower was 5.5 degrees off vertical with the offset at the top being over 4m horizontally. There have been several attempts in modern times to stop the lean increasing and make the tower safe for the future. The first few failed, showing that the problem was a tough one even for modern engineering. But it is now stable and has even been straightened up slightly. The engineers say it's safe so we can all be confident. (Did you hear about the highway bridge that collapsed in the US?)

Anyway most of  us ascended the spiral staircase to the top and noted the odd sensation you get from the lean as you spiral around. The views are excellent!

Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso - the Cinque Terre

Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 May

The weather finally obliged us and started to improve - great timing as these were the days for visiting Portofino and Santa Margherita, and then the much anticipated Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre day was brilliantly fine which helped show off the area to best advantage.

Portofino is a hideaway for wealthy boat owners and people who have family villas nearby. 

Access is by primarily by boat and there are regular ferries circulating around Portofino and other towns in the area. The ferries bring the proletariat to ooh and aah and spend their money in the shops and cafes. But other than that Portofino and S Margherita are lovely spots with nice beaches. Its hard to overlook the local habit of having beach concessions where you pay to hire a space with a deck chair, changing cabin etc - that takes some getting used to!

The Cinque Terre (five lands) are five villages wedged into the steep coastal hills that drop into the Mediterranean Sea. For a long time they were only accessible by boat or on foot. Today there is an expensively  engineered road, and I'm afraid there is a railway too - look forward to more on that later.

But we went in by boat which is the funnest way in our opinion. The boats just nudge in to a concrete or rock landing place and everyone gets on/off over a temporary gangway. This is not something you can do safely when there is any sort of rough sea, so the ferry service is often suspended without warning.

The villages are quaint, steep and spectacular. You would quickly get fit living there from all the steps and walking. There is a coastal walkway between the villages but unfortunately (other than the northern part) it is still closed for safety concerns after a landslide injured 3 tourists about 1 year ago. Some of us did the northern part - about 90 minutes walking between Vernazza and Monterosso. This walk was for me one of the highlights of the whole trip. Spectacular views and great to be out in the fresh air. The track was a bit like the Routeburn in its condition and walking challenges - but if we thought the Routeburn was busy then this one was busier (much) and there were blockages on the narrow sections and long delays stuck behind slow groups.

Lunch at Monterosso after the walk was well earned.  We had a looong one, in a cafe in the square with trains rumbling past frequently on the viaduct that ran through the middle of it. But no one minded.

Couldn't  resist coming back by train part of the way of course. It is a serious train track - passenger trains run every 20 min or so and sizeable freight trains too. Pretty much the whole route through the Cinque Terre is in tunnels due to the terrain. The track pops out from time to time for stations in the open air. But there isn't room for a full length platform so they are extended into the tunnels - very narrow, not much standing space behind the yellow line so quite nerve wracking to  be waiting there when a non stopping train comes past.

I think the Cinque Terre lived up to the hype and our long anticipation - a very good day!

Beautiful Lakes

Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 May

The Italian lakes are famous for being exceptionally beautiful and being a popular haunt of the rich and famous. In our 2 days the weather was at best overcast, with flashes of sun, so we did not see them at their very best - more moody, but still very lovely.

We were staying at Stresa, a small resort town, on Lago Maggiore, the second largest of the lakes. Our hotel, La Palma, was great. To get to the lake you had to walk all the way across the road - but when you got there you could sit at tables and take tea or whatever to recover from the exertion.

The hotel had a superb restaurant plus a roof lounge area with infinity pool (complete with spa jets), bar and seating areas. On a good day you could stand on the roof and see to Switzerland - literally. We can think of at least one person who would just love it there!

We cruised to the islands in the Lake. Two of them - Isola Bella  and Isola Madre - both owned for hundreds of years by the historically important Borromeo family. The islands are covered with castles, botanical gardens (even plants from NZ), white peacocks(!), and the ubiquitous history.

Our visit to Lago Como, probably the most well known of the lakes, included a boat trip part way along the lake to Bellagio and back. Como is another very pretty lake with high, steep sides from glacial action. George Clooney apparently  has a villa there, which kept some people interested.

The towns of Como and Bellagio are tourist traps as well as residential towns. We got sucked into SHOPPING.

Both lakes are very built up by the the NZ standard for pretty lakes. There are villages everywhere on the shores, and churches or castles appear on many of the peaks. 

They all have railway stations and you can go there by train - as you do. Maggiore has a huge eyesore quarry, but you have to forgive even that when you find out that the stone was used to build the  Milan cathedral back in the day. 

If you compare these lakes with say Waikaremoana, or even Wanaka, the experience is quite, quite different in terms of natural, unbuilt, environment. Thats's not to say the European ones aren't beautiful - they are, but in a different way. One can see how a NZ lake would be quite a thrill for someone used to the European 'model'.

I thought of Lake McKenzie on the Routeburn - unrecorded until the last hundred years, and still exactly in its natural state (barring a small hut and various mustelids as some will know.) 

Which is the best? I think I would need to carry out further research in the field to answer that...