Archive for October, 2009

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Oh Sienna!

31/10/2009

I’m on my way to Sienna at the moment and am in somewhat of a stuper. I don’t really have a hangover but am just immensely tired. One more month of hardcore hi-octane travel action and then I will sleep for a week when back on English soil.

When I arrived I had to have a little power nap on a bench in an attempt to recover some vitality, a bit of a jakey thing to do but necessary regardless.

Sienna really is very pretty, it was well worth the visit and ideally I’d have spent a night or 2 here. As it was I only got a couple of hours but I squeezed a fair bit in during that time whole just trundling round the narrow streets.

Piazza del Campo is sometimes described as the most beautiful main square on the continent, I don’t think I’d go that far but it’s certainly very nice.

I’m stuggling to find different way to express all the different Cathedrals I keep seeing, Italy must easily have the best in the world. This one is no exception. Apparently upon first seeing it, Richard Wagner couldn’t hold back the tears. Get a grip soft lad.

The Stadio Comunale Artemio Franchi is right next to the bus station and strangely you can just walk around it freely, it’s only a tiddler but imagine seeing AC Milan playing there. Wowzers.

When I got back to Firenze I purchased my train ticket, I managed to find a regional route that saved me about €20. I have to change a couple of times, go via Bolongna and it will take 90 minutes or so longer but it’s still worth it I reckon.

I duly spent the 20 Euros saved plus another 10 on a plain v-neck blue jumper from United ColoUrs of Benetton. It’s getting mighty nippy now at night and I’ve very little warn clothing. France in late November should be fun!

The agenda for tonight is to try to stay awake while swimming and then give this Turkish bath lark another whirl.

Prior to some front crawl action I had a salami and peppers pizza in the canteen, though I wish I’d gone for the lasanga the girls on the table next to me had, looked amazing.

I like Florence but with the day tips I’ve been on I haven’t actually seen that much of it, it gives me a good excuse to come back to Tuscany again though which is no hardship.

Venice tomorrow, fingers crossed my hostel won’t be as bad as I reckon it will be.

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Gelatastic

30/10/2009

Here’s that Palladino goal I mentioned the other night, lovely stuff.

I’m not having a very good day, I’ve wasted most of it trying to sort out a hostel for Venice. It’s pretty much impossible on my phone so I had to pay for proper access. Unless you want to pay through the nose though, there’s very little on offer. So much so that I was actually thinking about just leaving going to Venice altogether but this would have meant loads more fresh planning to figure out a different route and schedule and I just couldn’t face it.

So I’ve had to book a hostel that is pricey and has rubbish reviews, I can’t say I’m looking forward to it much!

It’s a good thing that I had a lot of cheap days in The Balkans as Italy is proving to be very expensive in general.

San Marino is off my trip list (damn, that’d have been a whole new country scalp) as to get three I’d have to go via Bologna and I haven’t the time or again, the inclination to make more route changes.

I was going to go to Sienna today but there just isn’t time now so I’m going to San Gimignano. I have to change buses but I couldn’t hear the bloke on the other side of the glass so I had to try and decipher the pamflet he gave me, I figured it out just in time to watch the bus I needed going past me and I was only metres from the right platform. Very frustrating as I’ve got to wait an hour now and then I’ll be on the bus for an hour before another half hour wait and finally another half hour bus ride. With my late start to the day by the time I get there it’s going to be a waste of time, grrrr.

Can you tell I’m tired and grumpy? I’ll stop moaning now.

When/if I get to San Gimignano I think I will neck a bottle of chianti, th th th th th th. That’s my Hannibal Lecter impression.

I only stayed in the small and pretty walled town for about an hour and a half but I enjoyed that time. The surrounding Tuscan countryside is beautiful, if I was a millionaire I think I’d get a 2nd home there, I’d probably get a 1st home in Manchester while I was at it too.

I managed to grab a glass of chianti at the wine museum overlooking a sweeping landscape. I’m a bit of a philistine and clueless on such matters but this is what I paid for, ‘Colli Senesi Docg Selezione/Riserva’.

The joyous melodies of Devendra Banhart were a good choice to go with the Tuscany scenery, first up was his latest offering ‘What we will be’. It’s got more if a soul and funk vibe to his previous work, but it’s still has all the voice warbling and acoustic guitar trickery that is his trademark. There’s a bit too much filler for it to make my purchase list but I will be listening to it again.

‘Rejoicing in the Hands’ is an album from much earlier in his career and it doesn’t really do it for me, far too much filler. I can forgive him though as his next album was ‘Niño Rojo’ which is stunningly brilliant.

Before I left the town I treated myself to some world class ice-cream, literally. Pluripremiata Gelateria has twice won the World Championships in recent years and after tasting their gear I can see why. Yum.

I’m not feeling too well, this seems to happen every 3 or 4 weeks when I’m travelling. The lack of sleep catches up with me, I get run dow , I get a cold and then feel rotten. It passes pretty quickly though and I’m going to go out with Jukka anyway, I’ll be home soon enough and can rest up then.

He was kind enough to make me some sphaghetti at his gaff then we went to a few bars and ultimately back to Foco where we were the other night. It’s a really cool place but they need to sort out the tunes, some woeful stuff was coming out. Still, a good night was had.

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The leaning tower of pizza

29/10/2009

The brekkie here is belter, €5 for as much as you want. I had a big plate of bacon and scrambled eggs, some cereal, a croissant and 2 glasses of orange juice. I also made four rounds of toast and whacked some cheese and ham in them for my lunch later. €5 for 2 meals, jobs a good ‘n.

I’m now on route to Pontedera, I know it’s quite sad but I’m pretty excited about seeing the Piaggio Museum It’s free admission ‘n all.

I only spent an hour there but I enjoyed it immensely, there’s some right beauts and rarities on display. There’s also some proper shockers.

Amazingly, Jukka spent more than me in the shop and he’s not even a fan. A quality Vespa bag for €38 was his purchase while I spent €13 on a little notepad, magnet and 2 very small scale models (Primavera ET3 and GS 150 both scooters I hope to own one day, or slight variations of anyway). Actually, I think I may already have at least one of those models somewhere already, so a bit of a numpty purchase really.

We are just on our way to Pisa now to checkout that tower that Clark Kent is always messing about with, see.

Man, I’m absolutely knackered. This evening I plan to relax and have a swim and a sauna and do a bit of planning for the next week or so. Then hopefully an early night. My intentions rarely work out though.

Pisa was not bad, the city itself is pretty average but the Cathedral is nice and the tower is, well, weird. I looked at it for 10 minutes just thinking, well why hasn’t that fallen over then. We didn’t bother going up, at €15 they can do one.

Ravioli al pomodoro was my tea tonight from the hostel, pretty nice but again not enough to fill my belson. That’s why pizzas are so tempting as they are relatively cheap and get the job done. I can’t wait for my breakfast already.

I did manage to go for a swim in the end, that’s the first time I have swam in years literally. I done 100 lengths using front crawl (I can’t do breast-stroke!), though I should probably point out it was no way near a full size pool.

Then I had a Turkish bath (finally) and a sauna afterwards. I don’t think either of them were as hot as they should be though, plus there was a large group of loud Americans ruining the mood. I’ll give it another go tomorrow probably.

So there has been a few more changes to my travel plans. I want to visit Verona so I am going to spend 3 nights in Venice after all and then use 1 of them for a day-trip to fair Verona. To accomodate this I’ve chopped off Monaco and Montpellier, though I’ve also added an extra night in Nice so I can do Monaco as a day-trip too.

Right I’m just going to try and find a hostel for Venice and figure out if it’s easy to get to San Marino and back from Florence in a day, then it will be time for some much needed shut-eye.

A day-trip to Sienna is likely on the cards tomorrow folks.

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Goooooooaaaallllllllll Napoli!!!!

28/10/2009

I made my train to Florence this morning by 1 minute due to a bit of a delay on my egg and bacon sarnie. Priorities, you know.

Actually I hope I’m right in thinking Firenze is Florence otherwise I’ve no idea where I’m going to but I’ll be 4 hours away from Rome anyway.

My pal Topi has a mate studying in Florence so I’m meeting up with him later I think. As I’ve said before, always good to have an inside man.

What’s the chances of me finding a bar tonight that is showing the sexy football that is Manchester City’s encounter with Scunthorpe United in the Carling Cup. Probably a bit shabby and even more so with Fiorentina being away at at Genoa. Maybe due to public demand and uproar it will be featured on a large screen erected in one of the main piazzas. Maybe not.

Florence will be something of a base for me really. Tomorrow I plan to go to Pisa and Pontedera and I may also fit in trips to Sienna and San Marino. I’ll have to see though as I need to allow sometime to see Florence itself.

There’s a lad sat opposite me who I think hasn’t stamped his ticket and looks to be on the end of a hefty fine. He’s doing the praying/pleading action to the inspector that Italian footballers so often do to referees to try and get out of bookings. I think it might have worked ‘n all. Crafty.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to grab any more albums on Spotify while in Rome. So I’ve been forced to go all retro and actually listen to tunes on the iPod. I love it when you get a passage of 30 seconds or so in a song that just seems musically perfect, like this from 1:40 to 2:20.

I just reprimanded (though I’m not sure he understood me in the least) the lad who had the ticket incident. He seems like a whoopsy (it’s difficult to tell with Italian fashion and mannerisms!) but for the last 5 minutes he has been rubbing himself rather too often and vigorously for it to be a token scratch and it’s disturbing me. I believe I said something along the lines of “Do ya want to stop doing that ya freak”. What a weirdo.

I’m in Florence now and I’m bursting for a waz. €1 to use the train station bogs though! I’d rather walk in pain the 1 kilometre to the hostel on a matter of principle, 1 smeggin’ Euro for a basic human right.

The hostel where I’m staying seems excellent. It’s huge with 450 beds. It has a swimming pool, mini-gym, sauna, bar, disco, games room, restaurant and more. On the downside there’s no kitchen, probably to get you to buy their stuff (which while not exactly cheap, it will be less expensive than eating at proper restaurants every night). Another negative is that it just cost me a whopping €7.50 to do my washing (that’s the most expensive I’ve seen in 70+ hostels) though as I’ve not done any since Montenegro it’s a necessary expense. Also this bunk-bed is the noisiest contraption I’ve ever known. Still, it’s a good hostel.

Right, I’m off to meet Jukka (Topi’s mate) now for a wee tour of the city.

Based on my brief night-time tour I’d say Firenze looks a nice place, some epic architecture and pretty streets.

Jukka knew a place where it was €6 for a pint and pizza. I’ve had far too much pizza lately but a deal like that round these parts should not have a back turned upon it.

Then we went to another bar to watch the Genoa (no, not really … bad joke, sorry) vs Fiorentina (I’d faced facts and conceded that I wouldn’t get to watch City’s 5-1 victory, ahem). It was a great game featuring one of the most brilliantly blatant dives (seriously a desert of daylight between the defender and attacker) you will ever see and an amazing Palladino back-heel. YouTube clips may be available by the time you read this. Genoa went down 2-1 in the end though.

Then they switched the idioto boxo over to injury time of the game in which Napoli trailed AC Milan by 2 goals to 0. I’d already decided that Napoli would be my team well before (when in Napoli really) they brought it back to 2-2. Great scenes.

Italian football appears to be played at a lot faster pace than I thought it was going off all I’ve seen so far. I’m impressed.

I should mention that the best bit about this pub was that they served 2 pinters (formidables in France) at €6 a piece, goodo.

After that we went to a really cool bar/club called Foco (fire). I had to pay€5 to join but I didn’t really mind as the place had a really interesting left wing vibe to it. I reckon I’ll return to get my money’s worth before I leave.

Me and Jukka got on well and it looks like he is coming to Pisa with me tomorrow. Though as I post this at half 3 in the morning, I’m not sure I’m going myself.

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Roman Holiday

27/10/2009

Amazingly, I made my way over to the Vatican this morning without getting lost once. Not bad considering it’s the complete opposite side of my map and I encountered several one way streets where I wanted to turn.

I need to reiterate what I said last night though, these roads are chaos! The riding style for 2 wheels is completely different. In the UK you are taught to dominate your area, so act like a car and drive in the centre of the road to discourage cars from over/undertaking you in the same lane. Here sccoters and motorbikes just fill any channel or gap instantly and filter at mental speeds, you just have to go with it. The thing is you can ride like that but from personal experience I know you won’t get away with it forever.

Don’t get me started on roundabouts. I think my new tactic for them might just to be close my eyes, it can’t be any more deadly surely?

Is there any point in mentioning that I’ve been blitzed by mosquitoes once more? Probably not.

St. Peter’s Basilica is ruddy massive. It’s also very grand and beautifully built. I was going to go into la cupola (upstairs!) too but the queues were huge.

Next on my list was the Vatican Museums and thanks to my trusty ISIC I got in for €8 rather than the normal €14. A lot of people do this on a guided tour and it does make sense to do it that way but I think that would have been around €40 (that’s what someone told me they paid) and it doesn’t make that much sense.

I still got a lot out of it just going round by myself, I was in there for a good 2 hours. All I can say is crikey, there’s some amount of money gone into the Catholic church over the centuries, the collection they have is most extensive and impressive.

The Sistine Chapel (which is part of the Vatican Museums) is pretty amazing but I can’t say I was blown away by it. I think it’s because a lot of churches I’ve been to in the last few months have had similar frescos but not quite on the same scale. Still, there’s no getting away from the fact that it is very impressive.

After that I nipped over to the Pantheon again to see the inside, very nice too.

My guide-book reckons The Colosseum closes at sun-down. Nope, is actually 15:30, which is round about when I got there. It was still worth the trip though as I found thr view from the day better than in the evening.

Then I still had 2 or 3 hours to kill before I had to hand in the Vespa so I just cruised around randomly. It’s quite liberating to ride about in Rome as there don’t really seem to be any rules and people just do what they want, but because everyone does it there’s no need for road rage or anything. I got right in to it and was darting in an out with the best of them and giving out the occasional toot on the horn (though that’s more of a Neopolitan thing to do). I felt like stopping for a cappuccino, I don’t even like cappuccino. Like I said though, if you ride like this all the time your chances of coming a cropper rise significantly. There are a lot of Vespas with dented side panels knocking about.

It then occured to me to go back to the Vatican to try and see the upstairs of St. Peters, so I did. I queued and got in but by the law of St. Sod it was the only part of the basilica that had already closed.

I’ve made another travel plan decision, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go to Cuba now. As much as I’d like to the money would be better used to set myself up in New Zealand. I’ve no idea how long it will take me to get a job so if I still have a few quid in the bank it will take some of the pressure off me. So I plan to be back in England for all of December and will then look to get a flight to Auckland in early January.

Not going to Cuba should also mean I can get a new camera, that Samsung thing I got in Vienna is a waste of space and the Sony one I broke in Bratislava wasn’t much better. I’ll be looking to get something maybe not quite at SLR levels but at least capable of taking a bloody picture at night!

Hiring the Vespa was definitely the best way to cram everything into a day. The only thing I really wanted to see that I’ve missed was the interior of The Colosseum so that’s not bad.

I’ve now ridden 2-strokes in places as far apart as the Orkney Isles, Boston in The States, The Isle of Wight and now Rome. I hope to add to this on a large scale in the future.

I think today’s efforts have warranted a great big dirty pizza so TTFN.

One last thing, the pizza I had was the best value meal I’ve had in Rome so if you come this way yourself lonely pilgrims, you may want to drop in at Taverna Pretoriana. They give you a 10% off card if you speak to them and there’s no service, cover or ‘linen fee’. €10 for a massive pizza, a beer and some bread.

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To hell and back

26/10/2009

When I left Napoli on Saturday I knew that I would one day return, I didn’t expect that day to be Monday. Hopefully in 7 hours I’ll be back in Rome with passport safely in hand and just going to pick a Vespa up. No hitches please.

With all the train travel today was a good opportunity for a Black Lips marathon, as I had 4 albums to give a listen, first up was the eponymously titled debut (that’d be Black Lips! then). It shows the great promise they had at the time as a garage-rock blues and punk outfit, but it’s just too erratic and the production is awful.

‘Let it Bloom’ is basically more of the same. Some half decent tunes but the it’s sounds like it was recorded in a trash can.

Next up was ‘Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo’ and, erm, same again. Except this is a live album, but with the production value of the other two I’ve mentioned so far, they may as well have been also.

Lastly, ‘We Did Not Know the Forest Spirit Made The Flowers Grow’ is just rubbish. There’s maybe a few tunes that are okay but on the whole it’s pointless. I do like Black Lips, the time i saw them live at The Deaf Institute was brilliant, but the only album of their’s I’d have any real interest in listening to again is ‘Good Bad Not Evil’.

Christ, what a complete and utter stress that was and it’s not over yet. The important thing though is that I have my passport back.

Getting it was a bit of a nightmare mind. My train to Napoli just had to be 15 minutes late didn’t it, meaning I had around 55 minutes to get to the hostel (which is probably at least a half hour walk each way at normal pace), pick up the passport and get back in time to make the train to Rome. If I missed that one the next one my ticket was valid for wouldn’t be for 3 or 4 hours meaning I’d be much too late to hire the scooter later and wouldn’t even get any evening at all in Rome.

So this meant I had to combine some serious power walking with sprints when there was enough room (space isn’t something you get much of in Napoli) and then run up the 6 flights of stairs to the hostel and do same all over again on the way back.

When I got into the main square where the station was it looked like I’d be okay for time and I even managed to spare 30 seconds to pick-up a Naples butty for lunch. Then when looking at my ticket I realised that in the usual tired and and stressed state this morning I’d stamped the Napoli – Rome ticket rather than the Rome – Napoli one. I thought well if I can show the other ticket and the stamps it’s pretty obvious what has happened and shouldn’t really be an issue.

Here is where the next problem arose, I could see the train on platform 11 and I had a good 3 minutes before it departed. What I couldn’t see were the little yellow boxes that you use to stamp the tickets, they are on every platform in Rome. I looked about but none were in view so I asked a group of staff and rather than just pointing me in the right direction the guy put his hand out for my ticket and asked where I was going, he would have seen that it was the wrong ticket and with only about 2 minutes left I didn’t really have time to explain so I ran off to look further myself. I found one but it was out of order, arghhh! I found 2 more opposite but there were some girls dawdling and when I did try to use the first one it made the right noises but didn’t print anything. The 2nd one just about printed something but it was barely ledgilble. It would have to do though as I then sprinted and only made the train by about 20 seconds. Napoli station is bobbins!

So now it makes it a lot harder to explain what happened with the tickets. I’ll just play dumb and handover the one I’ve just stamped and see how it goes, if the the inspector does say anything I’ll try to explain and if he does try to fine me I’ll just outright refuse to pay and take it from there. That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it! Maybe my ticket won’t even get checked, it wasn’t on the way here and there were inspectors on board then too.

I can’t wait to get on that Vespa later and ease the tension of today. It will be like a radox on wheels. Even if it is on the mental Roman roads.

Phew, just about got away with it. I thought I was okay as I gave him the ticket and he put it between the clipper before doing a double take and putting his glasses on. He was checking the stamp that you could hardly read, I don’t think he noticed that the from and to points were the wrong way round. He eventually clipped it so crisis over and €50 fine averted.

I picked up the scooter without a problem, a sky blue PX. The clutch is a bit off so I have to watch out for wheelies but it idles and runs well so that will do nicely for the next 24 hours.

So I spent the next 3 hours or so racing round Rome, quite the terrifying experience really. I wanted to visit (at least to see the exteriors, if I’ve time tomorrow I’ll try for the interiors, but the queues can get pretty big and the stuff in Vatican City is priority number one) The Pantheon and The Colosseum (see pic below) and I did, eventually. The problem is that I’d work out a route on the map and then that would rendered obsolete within a turn or two by one way streets, it was also hard to check for the right junction while dealing with the truly crazy Rome traffic. So this often led to me ending up in scary and bendy high speed dual carriageway tunnels and such like, miles from where I actually wanted to be. I did get to see a lot of the city though and I had good fun doing it. Tomorrow will be even better in the day time.

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The singer out of Skipknot went to Rome to see The Pope

25/10/2009

I’m just on the way to the Stadio Olimpic to try and get this ticket, it doesn’t sound overly promising though from what people have been saying. Also, as I don’t have a passport even if they are selling them to foreigners they might not let me get one without it, hopefully my driving license will be enough if it does come to that.

The stop where we needed to get off the metro and grab a bus is right near the Vatican and as it was 11:45 on a Sunday, The Big P was in the middle of his stuff. So we went and had a butchers at that.

On the way down there was a nun with a massive arse in front of us and as I pointed this out to my Australian pal, I tripped over and nearly went flying. Divine intervention? Who knows but I wasn’t risking any further wrath in case a vilolent thunderbolt with my name on it was next up.

I’m not religous (agnostic as it happens) but it was pretty special to see The Pope in a place as powerful as that. I’ll go back to Vatican City on Tuesday and see the Cathedral, museum etc. then.

Well that was a complete waste of time, half the day pretty much gone and I won’t be seeing Roma vs Livorno. After loads of messing about walking around the ground and surrounding areas and getting conflicting views from various people (official and otherwise) about where and if you can get tickets, it finally seems that for security reasons tickets are only in sale to Rome residents. Boo. I hope Livorno leather you Roma (which as it transpired is what happened, well Livorno won 1-0 anyway).

I can’t say I’m enjoying my Rome experience overly so far, I’m not having much luck. Though there’s that much to see I’m sure I’ll have enjoyed it a lot more by the time I leave.

Now I’m going to take a few sights in on my way to a bar that is supposed to be showing the City vs Fulham game.

Castel Sant Angelo, Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish steps (not very impressive) and the Fontana di Trevi (very impressive) were all gazed upon. The bigger stuff like the Pantheon (this trip has been enlightening as I used to think that and the Parthenon were one in the same which always had me confused) and the Colosseum will all be done properly on Tuesday, hopefully with transit between them being via a hired PX125.

I found the pub, an Irish one (of course) named Scholars Lounge and it was absolutely heaving because of the Liverpool vs Rags game. 85% of them were Scousers (well, it sounded like 0.3% of them were actual Scousers, but they were supporting Liverpool anyway). The bar staff ensured me that the City match would be on the other big screen and indeed it was, I however was the only person in a completely full pub glancing that way.

At 5 and a half € a pint I felt it wise to do my best student impression and nursed one for the whole game.

It was annoying to only come away with 1 point when we were cruising easily to 3, it was a very sloppy way to surrender the 2 extra points. But other results weren’t too bad so it’s still very tight at the top.

Today while mooching around Rome I’ve been listening to ‘How it Ends’, which is an earlier album by DeVotchKa than the one I mentioned yesterday. It’s very much with the same dark film score vibe, haunting and rewarding. I’m going to have to try and get hold of the rest or their stuff because it seems right up my cul-de-sac.

I’ve just purchased my train tickets for tomorrow, the return train is just over an hour after I get to Napoli but that should be more than long enough to pick-up my documents and get back to the station. What a ball ache though.

Now I’ve just ordered gnocchi alla Bolognese from a cafe near the hostel, €7. I won’t mind so much if it’s nice and a decent portion. It’s a shame the hostel doesn’t have a kitchen or I’d save a decent wedge. The days of a drink with my tea are long gone, Western Europe is a different beast.

It was pretty nice but I’m still starving, it felt like a starter.

Rome certainly is a place full of historical wonders and amazing architecture, but it is a bit too touristy for my liking, in terms of the tourists themselves and the ecosystem set up around them. I think I would hate it in the peak season. I much prefer the naturalness of Naples.

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What a numpty!

24/10/2009

On the way to the station today I saw those savoury delights that I had 2 of yesterday for tea. I can confirm that they are called a Panini Napoletani (or Naples butty to you and me, though my predictive text just tried to change it to Naples bitty which is something very different indeed). I’ve now had 3 of them in the space of 17 hours.

As per usual I just made the train, after getting my ticket via the machine and my cash card. I noticed it said remember to stamp the ticket before boarding, I didn’t see anywhere to do this though and as it was about to leave I just got on anyway. I played the dumb tourist (rather too well) and the inspector explained the process to me but let me off the €50 fine. Phew.

First task when I get to Rome, get a ticket for the match tomorrow. I’ve compiled a list of places that sell them, now I’ve got to hope one of them is close enough to the hostel for me to get there before it closes. Wish me luck readers.

On the train I’ve been listening to DeVotchKa who I’d heard of but never heard anything by before. An American girl in Montenegro recommended them so I looked them up on Spotify.

‘A Mad and Faithful Telling’ is an album that won’t be for everyone but it’s bewildering mix of styles and dark film score qualities appeal to me greatly. It’s a strange fusion of Balkans (the good kind!), Mariachi, French accordion, Russian folk, gypsy jazz (I may have just made that term up) and sweeping strings all fronted by someone sounding like a Feargal Sharkey. It’s blended together with magnificent results.

When I arrived in Rome my day begun to take a turn for the worse. As I checked into the hostel they asked for my passport and it then dawned on me that it was sat safely in the locker (together with my spare cash card and the paper part of my driving license) that I had handed the key over in the morning at my last hostel in Napoli. Brilliant.

It was lucky I had the card part of my license as I wouldn’t have even been able to check in to this one. I’ve spoken to the bloke at the one in Napoli and he has it waiting for me so I will have to get the train there and back again on Monday which will pretty much take most of the day leaving me only 1 proper full day (if I get to go to the footy tomorrow) to see Rome. It will also cost me another 20 odd Euros in fares.

Oh well, it could be a lot worse as at least I know where it is. That’s the problem when you’re tired trying and constantly organising loads of stuff though, at some point you are bound to make a mistake.

So by the time I’d sorted all this out it was too late to attempt to get a ticket for Roma vs Livorno. Now I have to hope that you can get them on the day from somewhere.

As was expected with the way things were going, my evening eating ventures didn’t work out too swell. Me and a lad from Australia (an Aussie in a hostel, fancy that) went looking for some cheap grub but with all the tourists about there aren’t too many places that fit the bill and you have to pay just to sit down in most of them. Eventually we found a little bistro doing spinach, ricotta and meat ravioli at a decent price (about €6 I think). What came was a tiny portion of pasta in a bit of cheese sauce and drowned in peas, I’m not a big peas fan. Not very filling or satisfying at all really.

So I got a slice of pizza on the way back and I even managed to bugger that up, what I pointed look like a meaty mother. It was actually meaty looking tomatoes, now I’m not keen on pees but I positively despise tomatoes that aren’t in a paste or liquid format. Mingin’. One of those days eh.

This hostel will be comfortable enough but I don’t really like it. It’s one of those that you can see that it’s more about the bottom line than a good hostel experience. Fair enough they are businesses but I’ve seen enough of them to know that they can be successful and offer a nice service too.

What I really feel like doing now is getting on a scooter and tearing round Rome on it. And with the help of these fellas that is just what I intend to do sometime soon. They do a 3 hour tour of Rome on classic scooters (some even from the 50s) but at €120 it’s well out of my price range. You can rent a PX though and I will try and do this for Tuesday, then I can get round all the sights quicker and have a good time doing it. It’s also quite pricey at €60 for 24 hours but I’d love to do it. I just hope I can get one on the day as they don’t have many and I’m not riding one of those ‘orrible automatics.

One good thing about this hostel though, I saw the below on one of the walls. It’s the very same picture I once used for a custom t-shirt I had made.

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Trouble magnet

23/10/2009

There was a right storm last night. I went to sleep at 1 in the morning and there was thunder and lightning and then when I woke up at 5 it was still going.

I checked in to my new hostel this morning without any trouble. It seems not bad as well, very similar in setup to the other one.

So now I’m just hanging about waiting for my bus to Pompeii in 45 minutes. I doubt I’ll get to go up to Mount Vesuvius though as it’s another shocker on the weather front here in Naples, you weren’t allowed up when it was like this yesterday.

I think it should be about €10 to get into the Ponpeii site but a girl from my last hostel went yesterday and she stumbled in via the exit by accident so got in for free. I shall be attempting to stumble in via the exit on purpose.

Pompeii is without doubt worth visiting, it’s unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been. The site is really really big, I spent aobut 3 and a half hours walking round it and there was still plenty I missed. I’d just had enough by then though and the rain was very heavy once more.

Of course I picked up my obligatory fridge magnet outside the grounds. I got one for €3 after laughing at a vendor who wanted €5. The daft thing was that while I was looking he actually said in all seriousness “€5, not bad price huh”. €5 is the most expensive magnet I’ve seen on all my travels since the start of April. I’ve seen a lot of motherflippin’ fridge magnets in that time too. Then he said “Better quality than the rest though” at which point I went to the adjacent stall and bought the very same magnet for €3. I made a point of mentioning this to him as I walked past, well someone needed to give the chap a wee economics lesson.

When I get back to Napoli (I’m on a train now) I’ll try and suss out the trains/buses for Rome tomorrow (it’s a quiet little town in the middle) while I’m at the station. Then a mammoth plate of pasta is needed from somewhere, I’ve not had lunch as everything round Pompeii was rip-off tourist prices, like €5 for a tiny panini.

So there are 3 options for the train and not any as far as I can tell on the bus front. €45ish, €19.50 and €10.50 are the choices on offer with it very roughly being that the most expensive taking 1 hour, the middle 2 and the cheapest 3. I’ll likely go for the regional one at €9.50 as for the sake of an hour or two it’s well worth the saving.

Amazingly I struggled to find a restaurant serving pasta and I didn’t fancy another pizza. So I stopped into one of the many bakeries about and picked up a couple of these soft rolls with a little bit of cheese in them and loads of diced ham cubes. Very tasty, very cheap and very filling.

I’ve started to enjoy the ridiculous manner in which you have to cross the road round these parts. Half the time it’s just a blind leap of faith but it’s not without an element of skill attached to it. Modern art at it’s best.

This evening I conducted my first ever technical support case involiving a Apple Mac, successfully ‘n all. I sorted the wireless internet TCP/IP settings out for some lad in my dorm. I feel a bit dirty now.

Napoli is definitely a city I will return to one day as for one I’m very much enamoured with the city, but there’s also plenty I’ve not been able to see. Things that come to mind are Mount Vesuvius, the catacombs and a mafia hit.

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Going to the mattresses

22/10/2009

No sooner have I come up with a new travel itinerary than I’ve changed it again, don’t worry I’m not going to post it once more though and the modifications are only subtle. After advice from 2 mates and a sibling, I’ve knocked a night off Venice and am just doing 2 there now and won’t stay in San Marino either (I was already thinking about doing this anyway). The 2 extra nights will both be spent in Florence making it 4 there in total, which seems a lot but I will use it as a base for 2 day trips; San Marino and then Pontedera (where the Piaggio museum is) with Pisa in the same day.

I’ve also ascertained that Roma vs Livorno on Sunday is the only Serie A game that fits with my route and dates. I’ve sent a few email enquiries about getting tickets, Livorno are a small side so hopefully I will be alright. I’ve booked my Rome hostel for 4 nights, that took quite a while as the good decent priced ones are already booked up. The place I’ve got looks reasonable though.

One thing that is a bit of a pain is that this hostel in Naples is fully booked tomorrow night so I’ll have to change hostels in the morning (I’ve just booked one they’ve vouched for) so I’ll have to be up and about early (I’m not very good at that) to give myself time for Mount Vesuvius (I keep wanting to saying Vesuvio, it’s Artie Bucco’s fault) and Pompeii, which is supposed to be massive.

Man, I’ve got a really sore back. I’m not sure if it’s down to sleeping on the ferry floor, lugging my bag around all day yesterday, or a combination of the 2. I’ll have to be careful though, if any rival button men out on the street spot my disadvatage, they might well try and use it to theirs.

Being in Italy has made me think of this film, I’m nearly blubbering already. Great movie.

Reet, let’s be havin’ ya Napoli.

Ahh, maybe not. It’s raining very heavily, I’ll give it a little while and see if it eases off.

This is very very frustrating, I want to go out and see stuff but like in Pogoricia (though I wasn’t really bothered then) it’s torrential. If you go out out for a minute you will be saturated never mind walking round for hours. Bored, bored, bored.

Eventually there was nothing to do but brave it, a bit risky with just uno pair of jeans available to me. I did get caught in a few nasty downpours but while still being rainy, it wasn’t too bad later in the afternoon. I’d bought an umbrella by this time as well, a distinctly unmasculine one with flower motifs all over it. I just thought it was navy blue until I opened it. Real coolio.

The first place I visited was Quartietri Spagnoli which is supposed to be okay to walk about in the day of you’re discreet but better avoided at night. I loved it, countless winding uphill narrow streets with the natives talking ridiculously loud, scooters constantly nipping at your heels and laundry dangling everywhere. It had bags of character.

Then I walked down one of the main shopping streets over to the Spaccanapoli area in the heart of the old town. There’s loads of grand old churches round there and it’s a very intriguing place to knock about.

There was one shop called Amodio that unfortunately appeared to be the only one closed, I saw some beltin’ good quality and cheaply priced Vespa souvenirs in the window. So close yet so far readers, I could have bawled like a little rugrat I could.

Another street had a whole load of music (instruments I mean, not CDs and your ye olde vinyl) shops on it, maybe 20 or so. I’m never sure how they can all compete when it’s like that.

Next up was a visit to the Duomo. I found the interior to be stunning, the only building I’ve been more amazed by in my life is the Sagrada Familia. I find it incomprehendable how humans can create such things, the sheer level of craftmanship and dedication that must be required to create such intiricate detail on that large a scale is completely staggering. I remember seeing a documentary years ago on San Gennaro and how passionite are lot of Neapolitans are about the legend, which is why I really wanted to see the Cathedral and the crypt within it for myself.

I’m now just killing 90 minutes in Caffe Delle Muse as there’s a pizzeria I really want to go to which is not open to 19:00. I asked the bloke in the furniture shop opposite what time it opened by pointing at my watch and then at the restaurant, he responded with “sette”. To be fair to myself I did ask if he spoke English (in Italian) or French (as my basic French is just about good enough to ask what time somewhere opens) first.

This cafe is a basic but nice little gaff, I’ve been here for an hour now and everyone else who’s been in and out has been a local which I like. It’s only €1.20 for a Peroni which gets a thumbs up from me, especially as they are €2 in the hostel. My golden rule of hostelling is that they should always have the cheapest beer in a 15 mile radius.

So I was waiting outside the restaurant (Gino Sorbillo) for it to open when I bumped into an American couple (well one is German, but he sounds American) who were part of a handful of people who’d been in the airplane style seating area with me on the ferry from Greece, I’d spoken to them very briefly after we’d got off the ferry. Quite the coincidence. So I got talking to them and we shared a table. Then there was an Aussie (what else!) girl from my room in the hostel by herself so she ate with us too, I’d say that was a big coincidence as well but the hostel recommend the place as being the best pizza house in Naloli to their guests so it wasn’t really.

It’s hard to say if it was the best pizza I’ve ever had but it was certainly well up there. Massive and really good value at a bit over €4. It must be a good place as the locals were queuing to get in when we left.

On the way back we had a glimpse of the shadier side of Naples. I’m not sure entirely what happened but some woman was screaming like a demon (really) and then a long haired man was sprinting and went flying into a car (which had luckily braked nearly completely) and a dog which I think was his was darting about somewhere amongst all this too. Then a nasty looking bloke who had been chasing the other guy gave him a beating for 20 seconds or so until a few other people convinced him to stop. I think the first guy might have tried to rob the demon screamer lady’s bag but I’m far from sure. Madness.

Completely unrelated to anything but I watched this before. Ali Benarbia is one of the finest footballers I’ve ever seen (and I don’t care what level it was at, genius is genius). I think he won French footballer of the year twice and still no one had heard of him, he should have been a world star.

Am now just back at the hostel now and spending the age it takes to do this ruddy blog, it will be infinitely easier when I get a netbook and don’t have to do it on a phone. You should notice a huge reduction in typos and spelling errors too!

I like the staff here. Very friendly and animated in a way that only Italians can be. Luca is a character. Apparently I’ve restored his faith in Englishmen after a bad experience with a bloke from Leeds being a bit of a drunken plonker when they were out.

In fact I really like Napoli in general (and I expect that will extend to all of Italy, though I get the feeling Naples is a different beast). Despite it’s loudness, erraticness and all the grime, it’s a very pretty place underneath. There’s a lot of beautiful architecture. It’s definetely one of my favourite cities so far.

Search of the day – ‘it buggers the mother of his pot’.

PS For some reason this post from when I was in Turkey/Bulgaria never made it to the site properly. Have a look if the fancy takes you, it’s only a liccle ‘n.

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