Italy Wrap-Up

Despite the disappointing day at the Amalfi Coast, overall we enjoyed our time in Italy and wouldn't mind returning again someday. Here are a couple more pics, one of the ceiling in the Map Room at the Vatican, one of a fountain in the Vatican, and one of a cute little Fiat.








Our favorite things:

1) The pastries (especially Meringue con Panna!)
2) The gnocchi and street pizza
3) The pleasant weather (except for the one rainy day)
4) The ancient history
5) The cute little cars
6) The bustling plazas in the evening, full of people mingling and strolling through the neighborhoods

Things we could have done without:

1) Dog poo all over the sidewalks
2) How the Italians like personal space - YOUR personal space
3) Seat-less toilets (although I guess I should be glad they had more than just a hole in the ground!)

How to end up lost and stranded in the rain with very little money and being forced to pee in the Sea

The following day we planned to head to the Amalfi Coast, which we were both looking forward to and had heard was absolutely gorgeous. The guidebook recommended taking the SITA bus from Sorrento, since it ran fairly often and was able to adeptly maneuver around the curvy 1.5-lane Amalfi Coast Road. But in keeping with our typical pattern, we arrived at the station right as a bus was pulling away, only to be told that since it's not tourist season, the next bus wouldn't be for another hour or two. As we're walking out of the station, we're approached by a cab driver who offers to take us to Positano (the first town on the coast) for "15 Euros, 1-5... cinquanta". Having just bought all-day bus tickets, we were hesitant, but decided to go for it since who knows when the next bus would have come. So we take her up on the offer and arrive at the bus stop in Positano... which she points out, but then keeps driving another mile or so steeply DOWNHILL from the bus stop to drop us off - where suddenly the cost becomes "50 Euros, 5-0... cinquanta" (about $75) - apparently cinquanta is the Italian word for 50, not 15. (Important Lesson: Learn Italian numbers before negotiating cab fare.) We begrudgingly paid the fare, she peeled off, and we were left standing at the bottom of a ghost town (everything had closed for the season in Positano) with little money left in our pockets, staring at a steep uphill to where the bus stop should be (see pic of looking up at Positano). We finally found an open internet cafe and were able to find a bus map that showed a closer stop, but still a long way uphill. We climbed up to the stop (see pic looking back down at where we had been) - I'm sure a bus had probably just come before we got there - and waited almost an hour for the next bus, during which it started pouring down rain (see pic).

We finally got on the bus and had planned on stopping at a few other towns to walk the coast for a bit, but decided to head straight to the main town of Amalfi due to the rain. We walked around the town for a bit, but the weather was not really cooperating (see pic of dark clouds over the coast)... and it turned out all the public restrooms were closed for the season. Brian was forced to discreetly pee off the end of the dock into the sea while I distracted with some ultra-touristy photo-taking moves in the other direction. Then we went back to the bus stop and waited another 45 minutes for the next bus... which we watched drive right by us and continue on its merry way without stopping to pick us up. :( So another hour in the rain, and we FINALLY were able to get on a bus back to Sorrento. Sadly Amalfi Coast, you are not our friend.

The next day the rain had moved out, so we checked out of our B&B and got back on the Circumvesuviana train north to Ercolano in hopes of climbing Mt. Vesuvius this time. We arrived at the station to find that the one shuttle of the day was leaving at noon - we had about 45 minutes to spare! When we went to pay of course, suddenly the fare chart on the desk was whisked away and we were quoted a much higher price, but at this point in the season they were the only game in town so we took it. We were joined by a male Japanese traveler who we ended up having lunch with later on. We got to the drop-off point for Vesuvius and were told we had about 55 minutes before the shuttle would leave - which is about enough time for a marathon racer to run up to the top and run back down... and we had all our luggage (our 25-lb backpacks) on us. It was tough, but we made it up to the top (see pic), and looked into the smoking crater. We were also able to see the coast and Pompeii down below in the distance (see pic). By this point we had about 10 minutes to get back down the volcano, so we ran like a Pompeiian, and luckily enjoyed a better outcome than they did, making it back to the shuttle just before it pulled away.

That afternoon we walked down to Herculaneum, also destroyed by Vesuvius, but better preserved than Pompeii. It was a vacation 'resort town' on the coast, unlike the middle-class working town of Pompeii. We actually found these ruins to be a bit more interesting, despite the area being significantly smaller than Pompeii (see pic of ruins with Vesuvius in the background, and a pic of one of the decorated walls). That evening we returned to Rome on the high-speed train and prepared for our flight to Moscow the next morning!

Making our way from Rome to Pompeii and down to Sorrento

After 4 days in Rome, we boarded the high speed rail down to Naples, and from there got on the Circumvesuviana line (a clunker of a train, covered in graffiti - see pic) down to the Pompeii Scavi stop. Our plan was to visit Pompeii, then catch the bus up to Mt. Vesuvius in the afternoon. After having the worst food we had in Italy (outside the entrance to Pompeii, what should we expect), we made our way through the ruins for about 2 hours, using the rented audioguides and the Rick Steves Pompeii Walk that we printed off the internet.

Most of the artifacts are now in the archaeological museum in Naples, but they do still have a couple of the plaster casts at the site (see pic).

We didn't see a whole lot of tourists until we got to the brothel - which was teeming with giggling Japanese travelers. See the picture of one of the brothel "bedrooms" - comfy, eh?

When we finished at Pompeii, we went to catch the bus to Vesuvius only to find that the one bus of the day had just left (this seemed to be the theme of our next few days of traveling!) - apparently in the "off season" a lot of the transit shuts down. (We actually came to wish we had rented a car for this part of our trip.) So we got back on the Circumvesuviana and headed further south to Sorrento, where we waited a couple hours until we could check into our B&B, which was hidden in a grove of citrus trees - these trees also line the streets of the city. Once we got checked into our room, Brian promptly managed to cut power to the whole B&B by putting the heater on turbo mode - whoops! That evening we ventured out to the main square in town, and just happened to catch the Sorrento tree lighting (see pic), which consisted of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" being played on repeat for about 15 times in a row before the tree was lit. No Christmas music or anything. The Italians started cussing every time the song would start again, and it was good to see that despite the language barrier and cultural differences, we all shared a universal hatred of Randy Newman music.

When in Rome...

Well, we got about 4 inches of snow today in Moscow (despite the mayor implementing a 'cloud seeding' program to spare the city of snow this winter), which is nice since we rarely see snow in Texas, but tough since the only footwear I have here is sneakers. So I'm going to hide out in our apartment for a bit and post some more Italy pics (the sun went down about 6.5 hours ago anyways, around 4pm). Here are some more of the oddities we encountered on our travels through Italy:


Thirsty? These water fountains are scattered through the city of Rome. They are always on; to drink from them, you plug the end of the faucet and the water shoots out through a smaller hole in the top of the spout pipe. (Alright, so maybe we tried to drink out of the faucet before we saw someone do it the "right" way, haha.)





Another interesting thing we discovered immediately is that Italians will park their cars anywhere they will almost halfway sort-of fit. They mostly drive tiny little cars, and we saw them on the sidewalk, double parked in the middle of the road, behind trees, pretty much anywhere they could wedge them. They seemed to have an unusually large number of scrapes and dings too... made me glad we didn't rent a car!




In Italy you don't have to worry about guys leaving the seat up since public toilets have no seats!







Poker anyone?









Local Typical Food?! Just what I was in the mood for! (from the Amalfi Coast)






And here is the strangest port-a-potty I have ever seen, located on Mt. Vesuvius. Just pull the handle and all your unsundries are whisked away by the conveyor belt!

Journey to Rome

Well, so we're actually in frigid Moscow right now, but due to a lack of reliable internet in Italy, I will start from the beginning of our trip. We departed November 25 - Austin to DC to Rome, overnight, arriving at 7:45am on the 26th. Jetlagged and exhausted, we managed to get on the train without validating our tickets, got on the tram going the wrong way, stepped in dog poo on the sidewalk (apparently Italians have not yet discovered the concept of "dog poo bags"), pissed off 2 Italian women by asking directions, and finally arrived at our B&B in the Trastevere neighborhood after about 2 hours of being lost! But at least we avoided having to take a cab and being ripped off by an Italian cab driver, which happened in the next segment of our trip.

After dropping off our luggage, we headed off for lunch, where we discovered that 1 kg of pizza is a whole helluva lot! (It's ordered by weight in Italy.) Then we took a guided tour of the Vatican, which is now selling billboard space around the main plaza to fund renovations. There is one billboard visible in the picture (Italian Telecom), but there are more around the sides that are even more gaudy. Don't worry though, they're all God-sanctioned. :) The Sistine Chapel was fantastic - I've wanted to see it ever since reading "The Agony and the Ecstasy" in high school - but of course, no photos were allowed.

The next day we went out exploring historical Rome, visiting Largo Argentina (with thousands of cats that take sanctuary in the ruins), the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and Capuchin Crypt, which is made from bones of over 4000 monks donated between the 1500s and 1800s (see picture). In the evening, we wandered around our neighborhood (Trastevere) - it's a fantastic local neighborhood with shops, restaurants, and lively activity. The weather was great too - 60s every day.

The following day we took a guided tour of the Colosseum (see pic), Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum. We had lunch in the Jewish Ghetto at a local place called Sora Margherita - no English was spoken, and we had to become "members" to eat there. They chuckled at Brian's name when we got on the list, and kept referring to him as "Life of Brian". :) We had a fantastic meal that included the famous fried artichokes (see pic). It was later this evening that I fell in love with Merengue con Panna (2 meringue "buns" with creme in between) from a local pastry shop... these proved to be my downfall at pretty much every pastry shop we passed from then on out in Italy! I wanted to get a picture, but they always disappeared into my belly by the time I remembered.

The next day we got up early and took the train out to Toffia, Italy, about 1.5 hours north of Rome, where we met Sally and Guido in the old medieval village for a cooking class with Convivio Rome. This is olive country, and the village is on a hill surrounded by olive groves in every direction (see pic). We made pumpkin risotto, melanzane alla Parmagiana, and Guido's award-winning apple cake, using local produce and cheeses. After the meal, we headed to the Annual Olive Oil Festival at the monastery in Farfa, where we sampled local olive oils, breads, and cheeses. We pretty much had to roll back to Rome that evening!

I guess I'll stop here for now... maybe tomorrow I will post some pictures of some of the stranger things we've seen in Italy, including the conveyor belt toilet, and then continue our travel tales as we ventured south to Sorrento.