Italy
Italy - multiple visits
Yes multiple visits indeed but strangely we have never spent a night there. Always our visits to Italy have been `day trips`! My first was by road when my school exchange visit French family drove along the Mediterranean coast from Monaco to Grimaldi, just over the border and the only thing I really remember was some exotic pasta dish called ravioli which I had never seen before. How life has changed, how much smaller the world is now and how readily we have managed to assimilate world foods into UK daily life since then. Second `day trip` was when skiing in the south of Austria just north of the Brenner pass and south of Innsbruck. Having observed many Italians commuting up on the train to work in the resorts we decided to go in the opposite direction to the small German speaking Italian alpine town of Bolzano. Clearly this area had changed hands over the centuries and the Italians still had military stationed there (with guns) addressing sporadic `resistance` incursions. All a bit of a shock. But we came back with a bottle of Marsala fortified wine and enjoyed it enough to add to our shopping lists from time to time ever since.
Apart from road and rail day trips all our other Italian experiences have been flying in and then on cruise ships . . . . Rome, Venice, Messina/Taormina, Naples (yuk), Venice, Stromboli, Ancona, Livorno/Florence. But even so we`ve been able to sample multiple Italian delights. Florence is stunning. Whether it`s the massive domed cathedral or the almost unique Ponte Vecchio with it`s buildings and shops across - just like Pulteney Bridge in Bath, UK. We found Florence as good to visit as Naples was bad. In fact I would say that Naples is vile. Totally lacking in any sort of civic pride. The saying goes . . . "See Naples and die". Well that`s probably because you are likely to die of filth and pollution. There were piles of rubbish and decaying food everywhere we walked around Naples until we decided that we didn`t want to waste any more time there and walked back to a coffee shop at the dock. Some of it appeared to be composting as it had been there in the street so long. Fortunately after Naples our boat sailed southwards towards Messina on the top right corner of Sicily and right past the Stromboli island/volcano and around daybreak where those of us who had chosen to set our alarms were able to not only glimpse the volcano erupting but I managed to snatch a single grainy shot of the flames - which you will see in the picture album below.
Messina itself is just a port but was the jumping off point for a visit to the delightful town of Taormina with it`s pedestrianised roads and and the end of the town the Greek Amphitheatre See pic between the red Ferrari and the black coffee. And then there is Venice. What can you say that has not been said before. Just stunning - and smelly at the height of the summer tourist season. Oh and expensive, of course. But still it`s a must on everyone`s bucket list and rightly so. Don`t mention that Birmingham has more canals than Venice though - they tend to get a bit huffy! Sadly it is gradually sinking into the lagoon that it was built in and suffers from storm surges leading to major flooding at times, particularly during the winter months. And it also suffers from being submerged in tourists. St Marks Square is almost impassable when there is a tourist glut so plan your visit carefully to avoid the main peak times
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Browse through the picture galleries below relating to this page and you will get a much better idea than just reading my words! Each page has it`s own set of relevant images - where possible taken by us.