RestlessNatives.net NativeGuide to
ITALY
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We travelled to Italy in May/June 2002, "on our way" from Hong Kong to Sydney the LONG way. Our big "we're homeless" trip started in Hong Kong and included a week in Hanoi, a couple of stops in the USA, about three weeks in Italy, and about two weeks in Croatia, before finally landing us in Sydney. Whew. Much fun was had.
Roma/Rome
This big, sprawling, buzzing city was our introduction to Italy. Our official entry into the EU (customs/immigration) had actually occurred in Frankfurt, Germany; after a brief layover we went on to Rome via a short, scenic flight over the Alps. The total travel time from the US is easily bearable for those of us accustomed to transpacific routes.
The core of Rome is peppered with ancient ruins, parks, piazzas, fountains, monuments and the like, many of them genuine sites of interest for tourists. To visit them all would take more time than we could or would allot for Rome. But we managed to see a good assortment, and pretty much everything that really interested us.
In fact, we ran into half of them accidentally, like stumbling across the Pantheon on our first night in Rome (turns out it's located near a good restaurant that our hotel manager had recommended), or happening upon the cat haven Largo di Torre Argentina on one of our walks (more on that later). We came across Trevi Fountain this way, too. A nice enough fountain but we don't really grasp why it's such a tourist magnet.
The first place that we intentionally visited was the Vatican City, the ultimate monument to the wealth-accumulation potential of controlling a major religion. It's good to be the Pope. This place is, like the Forbidden City, a cliched tourist draw that lives up to the hype (regardless of your religious views). Awesome artwork, and the commanding architecture to display it properly. We checked out the public areas of the main plaza and cathedral, then headed over to see the museum and its main draw, the Sistine Chapel. After a wait in the queue outside the Vatican walls and a long shuffling march with the rest of the herd through lesser (but still interesting) bits of Vatican, we arrived in the strangely familiar chapel - like the Mona Lisa or the statue of David, everyone knows what (part of) it looks like. But in person, surrounded by the paintings, we felt the full effect of the carefully designed perspective and the fantastic details.
The Coliseum was the other must-see place on our list, and we hopped on the subway to head over there. Unfortunately, we timed it a little close and Deb got caught in the doors as they closed (she blames this entirely on George, who made it into the train fine but didn't make enough allowance for the fact that Deb was following him; George says she who hesitates is stuck in the doors). They didn't want to open back up either, but eventually we extracted her without needing the jaws of life and continued on toward the Coliseum with a trainload of snickering Italians.
The Coliseum is probably the biggest tourist draw in Rome outside of the Vatican, but it's big enough to not seem overly crowded (we still had to stand in line to get in, though). And it has a good dose of silliness, like the locals walking around in full Roman soldier costumes taking photos with tourists for a couple of bucks, or the tourists walking around in togas. Once inside, it doesn't take much imagination to picture a Gladiator-type scene and realize what an intense venue the place must have been in its heyday. The cells located under the arena floor are partially visible and we even spotted a lion down there (ok, it was just a feral cat).
From the Coliseum, it's just a short walk to the Forum and neighboring sights. In fact, we eventually meandered all the way back through the city to our hotel. This was one of several long walks through Rome (some because it was fun, some because we didn't realize how far we had to go). On one of these walks, we were making our way to the Piazza Navone, which is a lovely long oval plaza lined with 4 or 5 story buildings which isolate it from the surrounding streets. Nestled against the buildings are the usual assortment of cafes, oozing the aroma of fresh pasta, and out among the fountains and flagstones in the square are an assortment of street performers and artists, everything from magicians to caricaturists to wandering guitarists. It's something like the crowd that gathers at [what is the name of that square?] in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
A few blocks from Piazza Navone, we came across a curious place called Largo di Torre Argentina. There's a sunken area about the size of a city block, about 15 feet below street level and fenced off with low railings. The pit is grassy, with ancient Roman ruins as well as various tools and grates and ditches scattered about. And it is full of cats. This made Deb's day, as she was missing our cat at the time. So we hung around and watched the antics for a while. It's clearly a long-established feral colony, but we also saw signs that they may get a regular food delivery too. Basically cat heaven. They spend their time lolling around on the grass, chasing each other, and posing for tourist photos.
Firenze/Florence
We rented a little car in Rome, to be turned in at Venice a week later, and headed off to see the sights in between. Our first night on the road was less than auspicious, as our reluctance to plan ahead cost us a few hours - we stopped too early and then took too long to find a vacancy, which turned out to be in a mediocre-but-expensive motel in the middle of nowhere. George got the first use out of his very basic Spanglish/faux-Italian here, making a phone call to a b&b whose proprietor spoke zero English. These exchanges always provided good entertainment for Deb (and presumably the Italian party), but usually got the job done.
Things picked up when we reached Florence the following day. First, we found the holy grail - an actual parking space! (Bad traffic, full parking lots, and misleading map info on the one garage that wasn't full - the combination had us circling like parking buzzards for what seemed like hours.) Then we took advantage of the local tourism office and got ourselves booked into a b&b (well, really more of a b) in a village outside of Florence called Mercatale (see the next section). And finally, we got down to the serious business of walking around Florence (a few hours that day and more time later in the week).
Our first stop was at the museum that houses the world-famous scultpure of David. Like the Sistine Chapel, it's oddly familiar but much more impressive in person. It exudes the sense that it might decide to walk away at any time. The rest of the museum's collection is interesting but David is definitely the reason to visit.
There's a "Duomo" (so-called for the domed roof on the cathedral) in seemingly every good-sized town in Italy, but as far as we're concerned, Florence is home to THE Duomo. It dominates the central city, has some great artwork to offer (there's a set of doors that are awesome), and its belltower offers commanding views all the way to the hills around Florence. We'd definitely recommend the tower climb to anyone who can handle the climb. Interesting interior, nice views, and a unique perspective on the Duomo itself.
Between the Duomo and the river you'll find a good portion of Florence's tourist district. Museums, street performers, statues, tourists, shops, cathedrals, vendors, squares, all the usual. Once at the river itself, we walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio, a shop-laden bridge which was long ago reserved for gold merchants when Florence's ruling class got tired of crossing a reeking butcher-lined bridge to get to their palaces. Lined with gold shops whose little doors and shutters look straight out of the 15th century, it's like a little piece of living history. It's also a magnet for African useless-crap vendors (quite common in Florence) and the cops who halfheartedly harass them. Incidentally, the gangs of guys (African or not) who worked the useless-crap trade in Italy had very much the look of a scam about the way they set up and the fact that they never appeared to actually sell anything, but we never figured out just what the deal was. Our best guess is that it's a cover for a pickpocket operation or something.
Once on the other side of the river, we visited a couple of elevated parks that offer good views of the city and pleasant walks. Boboli Gardens was a good walk among formal gardens, and one of its particularly restful tree-lined paths offered a nice break from the bustle of Florence's streets for a while.
Mercatale San Casciano Val di Pesa and the Chianti region
There's actually a reason for the long name - in Italy a lot of town names are duplicated, so you have to add the regional identifier: in this case Mercatale is a suburb of San Casciano, and this San Casciano is in the Pesa River valley. So there ya go.
Mercatale is only a half hour or so from Florence, but it's a very different sort of place - a village centered on a little town square and surrounded by villas, vineyards, pine woods, and winding country roads. Our b&b overlooked the town square and (except for an unholy odor seeping out of the bathroom drain) was a perfect cozy base for a few days of exploring the region. Our day trips took us to Florence, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano, and to villages in the Chianti countryside. Deb loved being able to go for early morning runs through the vineyards, and we spent our evenings walking in the woods and eating the incredibly good local food. It goes without saying in Italy that the food is good, but Mercatale had the best food of the trip - both the upscale restaurant and the local diner were fantastic.
Our friendly hosts (a nice older couple) spoke almost no English, so we relied on George's extremely limited grasp of Spanglish-Italian to get us through. Typical conversation might include George turning to Deb and saying confidently, "He says it's fine to leave the car here, we won't get a parking ticket from the police. Or, well, something about the car, here, parking, and police. I think."
We got some bonus entertainment when a German motorcycle tour went through town. Mercatale's little town square packed full of Harleys is something of a weird sight.
We had an extra day in Mercatale and figured it would be a crime to leave Chianti without tasting a couple of wines, so we hired a guy who took us to several obscure little towns in the region. The most memorable stop was at a winery which occupies what used to be a fortified town. Apparently the land value dropped so far at one point that the current owner was able to just buy the entire thing - castle, walls, fields, church, and all. Good grief. Anyhow, they gave us a tour and we tasted some of their wine. The wine was great, but the cheese was unbelievable. We had NO IDEA that pecorino could be so good. The long and short of it is that bread and pecorino became a regular cheap and tasty lunch for us throughout Italy and Croatia. And now we are going nuts in Australia because we can't find any pecorino that doesn't taste like barf (even the stuff imported from Italy is horrible - we know this sounds bizarre, but it's true).
Pisa
Pisa is an easy enough day trip from Mercatale, since there's really no need to spend all that much time in Pisa. The main attraction, as everyone knows, is the famous leaning tower, and we and a zillion tour buses were on hand to get a look at it. It and its less famous but still slightly listing neighbors form quite a scene on a grassy square in the center of town. It's hard to explain why a simple architectural goof makes a church and belltower into such a compelling tourist attraction, but we'd guess it's something to do with the optical-illusion sort of feeling that the tower ought to fall over but doesn't. And with the recent high-tech shoring up of the tower, it's supposed to last another couple hundred years.
Once you're a block or two from the tower, the place rapidly becomes less touristy. That's a good thing but unfortunately it seemed to be mostly because there's not much else in Pisa that's worth travelling to see. But we enjoyed a nice walk along the local riverfront and got a look at a couple of minor sights like a quirky little chapel that perches on the very edge of the riverbank.
San Gimignano
San Gimignano is a small fortified town perched on a hilltop a couple of hours from Florence. It is famous for the medieval towers that dot the city, particularly around the main square. The original purpose of the towers is a matter of debate (rival families building for prestige and/or fortification is one explanation, another is that the towers were used in fabric dyeing operations), but they certainly give the town a unique look.
One of the stranger things we've seen is the Museum of Torture in San Gimignano. Let's just say we were happier not knowing about some of these things. The human capacity for cruelty and sadism is simply mind-boggling. (And, of course, most of the imaginative implements and methods on display are brought to you courtesy of the Roman Catholic Church.) The museum is disturbing (even more so when you see idiots bringing their little kids in there!) but it's grimly matter-of-fact in its approach, more scholar than sideshow.
Siena
Deb has fond memories of Siena from her trip to Europe as a teen; on this trip we felt it was a bit overrated. To be fair, it was drizzling, we were stressing over finding a place to stay in Venice the following night, and we only spent a few hours in town. But for whatever reason, Siena didn't wow us.
The Piazza del Campo is, on occasion, the site of possibly the craziest horse race in the world. Once a year they turn the square into a half-assed, lopsided racecourse and then a bunch of horses and riders go full tilt around it. Crashes are, as you might expect, not uncommon. We gather it's occasion for a big party - something of a Pamplona running of the bulls flavor, maybe? In any case, we weren't around for that - it was just another drizzly day in the piazza. Schoolchildren and tourists sitting or standing in knots on the square, restaurants scattered around the fringe doing a brisk business as customers and waiters bustled under the canopies. The place oozes tradition, despite the masses of tourists that flock to this town.
Our other stop in Siena was the local Duomo. The building is done in a striking alternating pattern of stone, giving it horizontal stripes. Ornate gargoyles, statues, and other sculpture teem on the exterior. This cathedral is not a testament to religious asceticism, that's for certain. One wonders how many people must have absolutely hated the "too much is not enough" design at the time the Duomo was built. Now, of course, it's an architectural treasure.
Venezia/Venice
Venice - by which we mean the island bits of the city - is probably the most photogenic (though not always beautiful) city on the planet. The canals, the architecture, the gondoliers, the bridges, the palaces, even (especially) the back alleys have a mystique about them. Maybe it's the lack of cars, or the years of Hollywood mythologizing, or the draconian insistence on maintaining the look of the city. Whatever it is, it works. Even in the rain. George had to be physically restrained from using a lifetime supply of film in three days or so.
Our first night was spent in Venice proper, which was fun, but then we moved to a hotel on the Lido which was considerably nicer and cheaper (and it's easy to get around town on the water buses, so staying out there was no hassle). We're just glad we visited in the off season - the places in town were mostly full and all were expensive (even more than the rest of Italy). It must be a real zoo in the summer. The beach lifestyle of the Lido itself was pretty much in hibernation.
The hub of Venice is the Piazza San Marco, full of tourists, pigeons, tourists, street vendors/grifters/artists, and tourists. The smells of coffee, sweets, and pasta waft from the shops and cafes lining the square and the nearby alleys. Gondoliers do a busy trade from the nearby dock, and the Piazza is the gateway to the most popular sights in the city, from the San Marco cathedral to the Bridge of Sighs.
Speaking of sweets, the ciambello (ciambella?) has attained legendary status in our household. After Deb got hold of one of these pastries in Venice, it became the Holy Grail that we searched for everywhere we went. And like the Grail, it proved very tricky to track down. Turns out that ciambello is a name that can be applied to quite a variety of pastries, and we never did find another one as good as the Venetian version.
If San Marco is Venice's hub, the Grand Canal is its axle/aorta/spine. And it's easily seen by just taking the water bus from one end to the other (you can spring for a gondola, but it ain't cheap). The Canal is lined with ancient "palaces" (ranging from immaculate mansions to run-down brownstones) and crossed by Venice's major bridges, including the Rialto.
We stopped into the city's museum and a couple of churches for a look at some of the many artistic treasures in Venice. And we visited the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which displays some amazing murals and paintings by some of the greatest Italian painters.
Venice also has some outlying islands, each with its own appeal. We paid a brief visit to Murano, which is famed for its long history of turning out superior handblown glass goods. The water bus out there gives a good view of the "back" side of Venice (i.e. the one you can't see from the Lido). We took in the sights at the glass museum (interesting historical exhibits along with some outstanding glass works) and did a bit of shopping (eventually picked up a multicolored set of dessert wine glasses as our only Italy souvenir).
We mentioned the gangs of useless-crap hawkers earlier, and they were in Venice too, but we also came across a group of local guys and gals running a full-blown 3-card monte game (lookouts and shills and everything). It was cute, but seriously, who still falls for this?
After a while in Venice we were tired of Italian food (shockingly enough) and tired of paying the prices that were being charged for Italian food, so we opted to visit one of the many local Chinese restaurants. The proprietor did not even bat an eyelid when Deb - thinking she would impress the heck out of the woman - ordered in Chinese. In Venice, they've seen everything, many times over.
Ancona
From Venice, we headed to Ancona to catch a ferry to Croatia. See the Croatia page for more on that. Once back in Ancona, we saddled up for a LONG train ride to Sicily via Rome. We'll spare you the gory details, but between the ride to Rome, a few hours of babysitting our bags in Rome, and a long overnight trip to Sicily without benefit of bunks, we were pretty beat by the time we arrived the next morning in Taormina.
Taormina
Luckily, we had decided to spring for a decent hotel in Taormina -a little more expensive perhaps, but probably the best deal all trip in terms of cost for quality. It was an intriguing little place with a warren of rooms built into the hillside, close to the town center, and with great seaviews from our balcony.
Taormina sits high up on a coastal ridge near the northeastern tip of Sicily (the tip that's nearest the mainland), with views to the mainland in one direction and Mt. Etna in the other. (We didn't visit the volcano, but it dominates the island and we got some impressive views of it from several viewpoints.) It's fairly touristy, and in season is said to be a popular spot for the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" crowd. Happily, we got there before the tourist season really got going.
Because Taormina is so far up the cliffs, there is a cable car that makes it easy for people to move between the town center and the beaches (there's also a bus of course, and we even walked down once, but it's a long, twisting road). We visited early in the year, so the beaches were mostly deserted, but Isola Bella had attracted a few hardy beachgoers. It's a tiny, pretty island (thus the name) which is accessible at low tide via a sand spit. Apparently used as someone's home before being turned over to the national parks people, it looks a little like a gnome's abode, with bits of the residence popping out from various points of the hillside.
There's a dive shop near Isola Bella, and George didn't want to miss the chance to add a whole new continent to his log, so he got in a quick dive. It was a mite chilly, and the viz and critters were nothing special, but there was an excellent swim-through - basically a big sunlit cavern that went straight through an entire little island.
Back in town, we visited the Greek theater which is the main draw in this area. It is well-preserved, and looks down the coastline toward Mt. Etna - probably the best backdrop to be seen at any theater. Unfortunately, people just can't seem to stop themselves from festooning these ancient amphitheaters with modern lighting/stages/electronics, etc. We're sure this all works nicely during a performance, and makes money, but it's a drawback for anyone interested in seeing the amphitheater preserved in its original form. At least it wasn't nearly as bad as the one in Syracuse.
We spent a fair amount of time just wandering around Taormina's little town center. It's packed with photogenic details, amusing shops, colorful characters, and outstanding food. Sicily has great food, and it's noticeably different from the mainland Italian fare. Capers, olives, and swordfish are perhaps the most prominent ingredients (swordfish is very cheap and plentiful - doesn't bode well for attempts to curb the overfishing problem). Deb was in pastry heaven - every ten paces or so, there's a shop selling fantastic pastries in every shape and flavor imaginable. And that's on top of the gelato, which we couldn't get enough of (yes, yes, we gained a few pounds on this trip, but the great deal of walking helped to even things out).
One windy afternoon we took a walk up the mountainside with our daily dose of bread and cheese to visit some place we can't remember now because it was closed - only no one bothered to tell us that before we started the long winding walk up there. It started to drizzle on us as we neared the top. Just as we started down, we saw a small cat on the path. "Aw, what a cute little kitty", said Deb. "Do you think it would like some cheese?" She busied herself breaking a small chunk of cheese off, mumbling something to the cat about being patient. When she looked up, the innocent little decoy had disappeared, to be replaced by a horde of drooling fangy felines. Suffice it to say, they liked the cheese. And the bread. We were lucky to escape with our lives. It was all very cute. And then the skies opened up on us, and we continued down the hill in driving rain. Unfortunately, the wind hadn't let up, so when George opened his umbrella, the entire canopy disappeared in a "WHORP", leaving him holding what resembled a homemade tv antenna (or lightning rod). It was a priceless moment; we laughed the whole way back to town despite getting soaked.
Agrigento
We spent most of a day riding a bus and then a train from Taormina via Catania to reach Agrigento, which is located on the side of Sicily that faces southwest. (The train ride gave us some great views of the interior of the island, which is a different world from the coastal cities.) Agrigento is world-famous for its Valley of Temples (the temples themselves are on a ridge, not in a valley, but never mind), a very impressive assortment of ancient ruins including several temples dedicated to a variety of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses. The entire area bears testament to the surprisingly large ancient city that preceded modern-day Agrigento - the remains of everything from an amphitheater to burial chambers to city walls. The aura of antiquity is everywhere, and if you can get out to the temples ahead of the crowds (as we did), or stay after the tour buses leave (as we did), it's very rewarding. There are a few things we could nitpick about, but short of maybe the Acropolis, we figure the Valley of Temples is about as good as it gets for this sort of thing.
There's also a very good church/museum nearby that has some cool sculptures, artifacts, and other stuff worth seeing. You can buy a ticket for this and the temples together.
Aside from the temples, there's very little to recommend Agrigento. The food was good, but that's nearly a given in Italy. There are a few monasteries and churches in town, but by this point in the trip we were suffering from cathedral fatigue. There were also two annoyances - our hotel and the locals. We got really overcharged for a pretty crappy, basic hotel room (and understand, by this point in the trip we were used to Italy's inflated prices, so it wasn't just that). And Deb thought the local men in Agrigento were easily the creepiest of the trip. Sicilian guys in general seem to have the leering, pseudomacho, assgrabbing, harassing thing down to a tee, but the guys in Agrigento would circle like vultures any time Deb got out of George's eyesight and/or hand-holding radius. The funniest moment in Agrigento was Deb watching an attractive local woman in a short skirt walk past two of the resident Neanderthals, and quietly asking George in exasperation, "Why don't they stare at her?" As if on cue, the Sicilian Beavis and Butthead stopped, turned around, and ogled the girl until she disappeared from sight.
Siracusa/Syracuse
For our last stop in Sicily, we chose Syracuse instead of Palermo for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it was more convenient. There are two parts of Syracuse, the old fortified city center that occupies an island, and the larger portion on the mainland nearby. We liked Syracuse, and we should note that we probably would have been more wowed if we'd visited at the start of our trip rather than the end.
The island is home to the squares, museums, cathedrals, fountains, and everything else that you'd expect from an old town center. It's reminiscent of the walled old towns that we saw in Croatia (though it's bigger and maybe less coherent). The main fortifications, at the seaward end, are actually still in use as a military installation and as such are not accessible to tourists. Syracuse has several excellent plazas - Plaza Archimede is perhaps the most beautiful though not the largest, with an outstanding fountain and an enclosing screen of buildings. The waterfront esplanade on the south side makes a nice walk, as do the city walls on the north side. A regular boat tour departs from the waterfront to offer a different perspective on the town (note to self: elderly accordionist and drunk German tourists do not make for serene boat tour). The local restaurants were good, there are a couple of really interesting artists in town, and Palazzo Bellomo had some really outstanding works of art and other relics from the city's past. Good chocolate, too.
There is also one area of mainland Syracuse that is must-see, with Roman ruins, a church with a maze of catacombs, and the city's main archeological museum among other attractions. (We walked from the island to this area, and to the local train station, and there ain't much inbetween that's worth visiting.)
The museum here is a larger cousin to the one in Agrigento, and it has exhibits on everything from dinosaurs to Roman pottery. If it can be dug out of the ground, it's likely to be here. Definitely worth an hour or two.
The church with the catacombs (San Giovanni) is nearby. Tourists are allowed in only with a tour guide, which is just as well because there's some fascinating backstory doled out by the guide. Our young guides didn't exactly speak fluent English, but they communicated well enough that we got the idea. We saw some of the more famous occupants of this maze of tombs, got to see the crypt under the church, heard about the use of the catacombs as a bomb shelter in WWII, and most importantly didn't get lost.
The rest of the attractions are together in a national park. There's a large Greek theater, which would probably be spectacular if it hadn't been overflowing with the annoyingly modern set design for whatever play they were running at the time we visited. Cars, lighting platforms, cables, seats, etc, even a towering crane - it sort of killed the chance of enjoying it as an ancient theater. The Roman amphitheater nearby has fared better, and it also seemed not to attract as many tourists - in all, more enjoyable to visit.
There are a couple other ruins including an enormous sacrificial altar (suitable for hundreds of animals at a time), but perhaps the most unique feature is Orecchio di Dionysio, a big funnel-shaped cavern. The story goes that it was used as a sort of giant ear used by the local tyrant to spy on workers, or something like that, but Lonely Planet says it was probably just a part of the quarry and was later used as a sounding board for the nearby theater. In any case, it's a cool cave.
Out of Italia
Another very long train ride took us from Syracuse to Rome. We'll spare you the whole story, but basically the train station guy sold us tickets to use bunkbeds on the train without ever selling us the actual tickets to ride the train. It all seemed fairly Kafkaesque, and to make matters worse, we didn't discover it until we were well underway. After some heated discussion, we ended up having to give our friendly conductors pretty much all of our cash to let us stay on the train. But those bunkbeds are SO much better than sitting in 6-to-a-cabin seats all night.
Anyhow, we made it to Rome (first stop: ATM), where we would spend one last night before catching our flight out. After checking in at the hotel, we spent some time moseying around Rome. We ambled off to the sections we hadn't seen the first time around, not looking for anything in particular. Among other things, we walked down the Spanish Steps, which are indeed a gorgeous staircase, and visited the local zoo, which is actually quite good.
Finally, our big trip was over and it was time to head to the airport for our flight out of Italy. As if atoning for having such a great time since leaving Hong Kong, we spent close to 24 hours in coach class en route to Sydney via Singapore.
PS: A note on the photos -- it was very difficult to pick just a few photos for this page; we have lots more that are at least as good, but we can't scan in everything. So we'd be interested in your feedback if there's something in particular that you'd like to see more of.
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