This morning I left Rome on a 9.45am for a 2 hour train trip to Naples. There I had to tackle the train station to find a ticket for the next train to Sorrento. After lining up for a while in the ticket line, I was told I was in the wrong place, and luckily another girl had just been told the same thing so I ended up following her and her new husband to the correct ticket office. The couple had just married on the weekend and were on their honeymoon. When the wife was purchasing their tickets, the husband told me, through gritted teeth, that he had told his wife to pack lightly. He was carrying 4 big suitcases and having a hard time battling to carry them through the station and onto crowded trains. Poor guy. She didn't seem to have a worry in the world.
The train took around an hour to Sorrento but it was a quick ride as I stood in what seemed to be the travellers section of the train, with 3 American couples. Once in Sorrento, I had to take a 40 min bus ride to Positano. Whilst buying my bus ticket, I heard the broadest Aussie accent behind me, it turned out to be a guy from Perth and his wife. About the sixth person from Perth ive met in Italy which is unusual as its usual Sydney siders or Melournites I meet.
I had been warned by a couple of people that the bus ride to Positano would be a sickening one because of the winding hills and steep narrow roads. I had no idea how sickening it would be, and I had started off holding the hand grip on the seat in front of me while using my second hand to balance my luggage. I ended up gripping the seat tight with both hands, and by the end of the trip my knuckles were white. If you can imagine a huge crowded tourist bus, hurtling down a road with oncoming traffic of vespas, trucks and cars taking up three quarters of the road, whilst turning a sharp corner that is on a cliff face and drops hundreds of metres into the open sea and other tourists gasping with fright behind you, this was my hell.
It soon ended when we reached Positano, and I truely believe i've found heaven without dying. Positano is villas spattered all over a massive cliff face that is situated directly over the Mediterranean sea. My hostel is high upon the cliff with a gorgeous terrace that we sat at for dinner and beers, overlooking the Med. As I got off the hair raising bus, I met a Aussie girl Karen who is travelling solo and staying at the same hostel, so I think we have adopted each other for the next few days.
We checked in to one of the best hostels i've stayed at with a 27 year old Italian owner, Chrissiana, who is truely Italian and loves to talk. The hostel has marble floors and stairs that lead up to the rooms, with the terrace out the front overlooking the sea. After checking in we walked down to the centre of town, which was an experience in itself. There is only one road in Positano that seems to be on a 90degree angle. We took the stairs down through the villas, which is faster than following the road down, and ambled through shops, past the most delicious patisserie that displayed the most delicious looking Italian desserts, past restaurants and down to the ocean. We forgot our bathers and didnt swim, but wont forget them next time. We found the most refreshing homemade lemon sorbet in a cup, sold by an old guy on the street, the best drink for a stifling hot Italian day.
Then there was the walk back up the hill. My goodness! It took around half an hour to walk back up the stairs, and I was the colour of a beetroot and in a lot of pain once we made it to the top. I will do one walk up and down per day to work off at least a little of the food I haven't been able to stop eating in the last month, but will take the bus if there are any more trips in the day.
Chrissiana made us a typical Italian dish for dinner which was a divine shrimp risotto. By this time Karen the Aussie, and I, had met another Aussie Kathleen, an English guy Andy, and an older Aussie couple John and Margaret. We all ate risotto together on the terrace then walked around the corner for dessert of gelato with the locals.
I had booked to stay Friday night here as well and was then planning to go back to Naples to meet Ruth and Rebel but im pretty sure I will just spend the rest of my time in Positano, until I have to go back to Rome to start my trek back to Oz.
This is heaven!!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Italy - Thursday 24 May
Heading south today, via train. About a 4 hour train ride to Positano staying at www.brikette.com
More soon.
More soon.
Rome - Wednesday 23 May
Today I toured some of Roma with the two Aussie girls I met the previous night, Ruth and Rebel. Our hostel was a 5 minute walk to the Colosseum so we started with a tour of that. It was surrounded by tourists and Italians dressed up as Gladiators, trying to get tourists to pay for a photo with them. Its summer here and the temperature has been around 30c each day, glorious!
The Colosseum
Stands as the enduring symbol of the Eternal City, a hollowed out ghost of travertine marbel that once held as many as between 40,000 and 70,000 crazed spectators and now dwarfs every other ruin in Rome. Within 100 days of its AD 80 opening, some 5000 wild beasts perished in the bloody arena, and the slaughter went on for 3 more centuries. The wooden floor underneath the sand once covered a labyrinth of brick cells, ramps, and elevators used to tranport animals from cages to arena level. They used to make some people fight in the arena without weapons if they were due punishment. Spectators were seated according to social status, the most important including senators and aristocrats were seated at the ground level and the plebs at the highest level. The Colosseum was open to the public with free entry, and there was a fight with each festival or party. There were about 170 of these each year, so obviously the Colosseum got a lot of use.
The Palatine Hill
We took a tour of the hill which was so relaxing, and we could see some of the best panoramic views of Rome from there. The Palatine was where the first walls of Rome were built and was the most fashionable residential quarter where aristocrats and statesmen, including Marc Antony, built there homes. Emperors capitalised on the hills prestige and built gargantuan quarters. By the end of the first century, the imperial residence covered the entire hill, whose Latin name, Palatine, became synonymous with the palace. Much of it is now in ruins. There is a fresh water supply running through the hill, and we filled our water bottles with freezing cold fresh water. Also lovely orange trees everywhere.
Next stop was to buy the most delicious gelato which was so big it took at least 20 minutes to finish. We also got away from the touristy areas and found a traditional Italian restaurant for lunch of veal cutlet and spinach with olive oil and fresh lemon. Yum!
Trevi Fountain
Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the fountain is ensured a speedy return to Italy, one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome, and three coins you will marry that person you fall in love with. I wont tell you how many I threw in!
We shopped like tourists, then stopped at a traditional delicattesan on the way home to purchase the most delicious olives, cheeses, cured sausage, limoncello and Italian beer. Later we were invited to a pub crawl but soon left as the others were a lot younger. We found a crowded pub to watch the football game, then I left for much needed sleep after having only 5 hours the previous night due to so much noise outside the hostel window, and I expect the excitement of being in Rome.
The Colosseum
Stands as the enduring symbol of the Eternal City, a hollowed out ghost of travertine marbel that once held as many as between 40,000 and 70,000 crazed spectators and now dwarfs every other ruin in Rome. Within 100 days of its AD 80 opening, some 5000 wild beasts perished in the bloody arena, and the slaughter went on for 3 more centuries. The wooden floor underneath the sand once covered a labyrinth of brick cells, ramps, and elevators used to tranport animals from cages to arena level. They used to make some people fight in the arena without weapons if they were due punishment. Spectators were seated according to social status, the most important including senators and aristocrats were seated at the ground level and the plebs at the highest level. The Colosseum was open to the public with free entry, and there was a fight with each festival or party. There were about 170 of these each year, so obviously the Colosseum got a lot of use.
The Palatine Hill
We took a tour of the hill which was so relaxing, and we could see some of the best panoramic views of Rome from there. The Palatine was where the first walls of Rome were built and was the most fashionable residential quarter where aristocrats and statesmen, including Marc Antony, built there homes. Emperors capitalised on the hills prestige and built gargantuan quarters. By the end of the first century, the imperial residence covered the entire hill, whose Latin name, Palatine, became synonymous with the palace. Much of it is now in ruins. There is a fresh water supply running through the hill, and we filled our water bottles with freezing cold fresh water. Also lovely orange trees everywhere.
Next stop was to buy the most delicious gelato which was so big it took at least 20 minutes to finish. We also got away from the touristy areas and found a traditional Italian restaurant for lunch of veal cutlet and spinach with olive oil and fresh lemon. Yum!
Trevi Fountain
Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the fountain is ensured a speedy return to Italy, one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome, and three coins you will marry that person you fall in love with. I wont tell you how many I threw in!
We shopped like tourists, then stopped at a traditional delicattesan on the way home to purchase the most delicious olives, cheeses, cured sausage, limoncello and Italian beer. Later we were invited to a pub crawl but soon left as the others were a lot younger. We found a crowded pub to watch the football game, then I left for much needed sleep after having only 5 hours the previous night due to so much noise outside the hostel window, and I expect the excitement of being in Rome.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Rome, Italy - Tuesday 22 May
We spent until 1pm walking around Helsinki, packing our bags and lunching until the taxi arrived to take us to the airport. We all took flights in different directions but of course my flight to Rome was delayed by almost two hours due to an air strike in Italy. It meant I arrived in Rome in the dark, but all was fine and without hassle.
I sat next to an Italian businessman on the flight, who gave me some great touristy tips, and also gave me directions of where to find real Italian pizza where the Italians eat (not the tourists) and a seafood restaurant. I took the Metro to the city from the airport and followed my directions to find the hostel. What an interesting place - full of character and travellers with interesting stories. One of the owners was giving all the guests shots of some kind of rum, with a chaser of peach juice which sounds terrible but was actually delicious. After a couple of those and sharing my bottle of red with some of the guests, it was off to bed. They tried to put me in a room of 5 guys, but luckily after explaining I had booked a girls only room, they understood and quickly found me another room.
Amongst others, I met two Aussie girls (one from Perth) who I will be sightseeing with today. Everyone is heading to the Vatican as the Pope is making an appearance today.
Ps. My phone finally works should you need to text.
I sat next to an Italian businessman on the flight, who gave me some great touristy tips, and also gave me directions of where to find real Italian pizza where the Italians eat (not the tourists) and a seafood restaurant. I took the Metro to the city from the airport and followed my directions to find the hostel. What an interesting place - full of character and travellers with interesting stories. One of the owners was giving all the guests shots of some kind of rum, with a chaser of peach juice which sounds terrible but was actually delicious. After a couple of those and sharing my bottle of red with some of the guests, it was off to bed. They tried to put me in a room of 5 guys, but luckily after explaining I had booked a girls only room, they understood and quickly found me another room.
Amongst others, I met two Aussie girls (one from Perth) who I will be sightseeing with today. Everyone is heading to the Vatican as the Pope is making an appearance today.
Ps. My phone finally works should you need to text.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Finland - Monday 21 May
We arrived in Helsinki, Finland last night around 7pm, to bright blue skies. The sun doesnt go down until close to midnight here, the same as in St Petersburg.
Our hostel is a new theme, where there is no reception. You book your room over the internet, and are provided with a pin number that allows you into the building, then your room. Its a small, Ikea designed room, only one month old but the concept works. It wouldnt work in a non-english speaking country, but seeing most people seem to speak at least 3 or 4 languages in Finland, finding our way around isnt a problem.
Helsinki seems to be a lovely city, extremely clean, uncluttered and ordered. Unfortunately its a university city, and apart from shopping, there isnt a great deal to do. We found this out in our research before leaving home, so decided to take a ferry across to Tallin (capital of Estonia). It took 1.5 hours each way, and we spent a lovely sunny day getting lost in the Old Town, on cobbled streets and back alley ways, stumbling across some great cafes and bars. There were a lot of touristy areas full of Brits on Brigade or Stag weekends, so we steered clear of them. The town was old and the architecture reminiscent of many mediterraen village towns.
We had a relaxing afternoon, took the ferry back to Helsinki, and are having a celebratory dinner of reindeer tonight for our last night together. Tomorrow we split up and go our own ways - me to Italy.
Our hostel is a new theme, where there is no reception. You book your room over the internet, and are provided with a pin number that allows you into the building, then your room. Its a small, Ikea designed room, only one month old but the concept works. It wouldnt work in a non-english speaking country, but seeing most people seem to speak at least 3 or 4 languages in Finland, finding our way around isnt a problem.
Helsinki seems to be a lovely city, extremely clean, uncluttered and ordered. Unfortunately its a university city, and apart from shopping, there isnt a great deal to do. We found this out in our research before leaving home, so decided to take a ferry across to Tallin (capital of Estonia). It took 1.5 hours each way, and we spent a lovely sunny day getting lost in the Old Town, on cobbled streets and back alley ways, stumbling across some great cafes and bars. There were a lot of touristy areas full of Brits on Brigade or Stag weekends, so we steered clear of them. The town was old and the architecture reminiscent of many mediterraen village towns.
We had a relaxing afternoon, took the ferry back to Helsinki, and are having a celebratory dinner of reindeer tonight for our last night together. Tomorrow we split up and go our own ways - me to Italy.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
St Petersburg - Friday 18 May
On departing our train we decided that with 4 huge backpacks, daypacks and numerous bags of market purchases, we needed a cab rather than tackling the metro. After bargaining a big burling Russian down to a very reasonable price, he pimped out one of his drivers who walked us a few minutes away. The four of us looked hillarious walking like snails in a line, with our backpack homes on our backs. We were passing nice, big shiny new cars, Hummers and such, so we were all wondering when we were going to get to sit in our nice big cab. You can imagine our surprise when the driver walked straight over to some old, beaten up car that looked like something Mr Bean would drive, and definitely wouldn't fit 4 girls, 4 backpacks, daypacks and the rest. Well it did! The girls put their stuff in the boot and it took the driver about 7 attempts to get it closed, I was stuffed in the front seat with an makeshift airbag that was my back pack...and we were off. I had the job of making small talk with the taxi driver who barely spoke English (turns out this is usually my job) and within 20 minutes we pulled up at our hostel.
We had showers, stowed our bags and then we were off to realise what St Pete's had to offer. So far, Russia has totally impressed all of us and Moscow and St Petersburg have been our favourite cities. I would love to return some day to experience it in the winter under blankets of snow.
Today we walked around the city that is often called the 'Venice of the North' as it sprawls across the delta of the River Neva, crisscrossed by river channels and canals. We walked for hours and found the beauty in this grand city. St Petersburg is Russia's second largest city and is located about 700kms northwest of Moscow. It is Peter the Great's famous city and was capital of the Russian empire for 200 years before the capital city was taken back to Moscow for the second time in 1918.
We saw the amazing Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood which is a St Basil's Cathedral look alike, but possibly more impressive, although seems a little out of place amongst the Baroque and Classical splendour of St Pete's. But who's to question that, it's all deliciously fantastic scenery. We walked to the Summer Garden and sat for a while taking in all the beauty, then walked around looking at other sites and buildings.
We met up with a couple that had been on tour with us - English Jim and Usha - and ate lunch of salmon caviar pancakes. Delicious!
Later in the afternoon, we bought tickets to the ballet - Swan Lake. After a day of trudging the streets in our thongs (thongs = shoes for those non-Australians reading this) we raced home to change quickly for the ballet, as we were running late. We ran a comb through our hair and changed tops, but didn't get the time to change shoes, so ended up attending the ballet in rubber thongs. If you didn't look at our feet, we were elegant enough for the ballet. Except for when we were climbing the elegant stair case of the theatre and one of my thongs fell off to expose very dirty feet from the days walking. Luckily everyone kept ascending the stairs in haste, but i'm sure there were some sidewards glances that I missed.
We found our $60 seats, that weren't the best as a bit of the stage was out of view. The upper balcony of the theatre wasn't fully booked so as soon as the lights dimmed for the first act, all 6 of us were off to better seats - the $100 ones, which gave us a fantastic view. I'm not sure if I can detail the emotion I felt watching Swan Lake, other than to say it was one of the most beautiful events I have ever experienced, and to not only be watching such a famous ballet, but to be watching it in Russia had a profound effect on the soul. It was truely amazing. I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I clapped until my hands were sore, and I will never forget how fantastic it felt to be at the ballet in Russia.
We had showers, stowed our bags and then we were off to realise what St Pete's had to offer. So far, Russia has totally impressed all of us and Moscow and St Petersburg have been our favourite cities. I would love to return some day to experience it in the winter under blankets of snow.
Today we walked around the city that is often called the 'Venice of the North' as it sprawls across the delta of the River Neva, crisscrossed by river channels and canals. We walked for hours and found the beauty in this grand city. St Petersburg is Russia's second largest city and is located about 700kms northwest of Moscow. It is Peter the Great's famous city and was capital of the Russian empire for 200 years before the capital city was taken back to Moscow for the second time in 1918.
We saw the amazing Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood which is a St Basil's Cathedral look alike, but possibly more impressive, although seems a little out of place amongst the Baroque and Classical splendour of St Pete's. But who's to question that, it's all deliciously fantastic scenery. We walked to the Summer Garden and sat for a while taking in all the beauty, then walked around looking at other sites and buildings.
We met up with a couple that had been on tour with us - English Jim and Usha - and ate lunch of salmon caviar pancakes. Delicious!
Later in the afternoon, we bought tickets to the ballet - Swan Lake. After a day of trudging the streets in our thongs (thongs = shoes for those non-Australians reading this) we raced home to change quickly for the ballet, as we were running late. We ran a comb through our hair and changed tops, but didn't get the time to change shoes, so ended up attending the ballet in rubber thongs. If you didn't look at our feet, we were elegant enough for the ballet. Except for when we were climbing the elegant stair case of the theatre and one of my thongs fell off to expose very dirty feet from the days walking. Luckily everyone kept ascending the stairs in haste, but i'm sure there were some sidewards glances that I missed.
We found our $60 seats, that weren't the best as a bit of the stage was out of view. The upper balcony of the theatre wasn't fully booked so as soon as the lights dimmed for the first act, all 6 of us were off to better seats - the $100 ones, which gave us a fantastic view. I'm not sure if I can detail the emotion I felt watching Swan Lake, other than to say it was one of the most beautiful events I have ever experienced, and to not only be watching such a famous ballet, but to be watching it in Russia had a profound effect on the soul. It was truely amazing. I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I clapped until my hands were sore, and I will never forget how fantastic it felt to be at the ballet in Russia.
Moscow - Thursday 17 May
Today was the most uneventful day of the trip, probably due to last nights celebrations. Three of us took the 25 minute walk from the hostel to the Red Square to use the internet and find food. As we were drained of all energy, we decided to take the Metro back to the hostel, which was a very bad move. We ended up lost in Moscow for over two hours. As the Metro is so badly signed, and what signage they do have is of course in Russian, and no english speaking people to help us, we got on and off the train so many times that in the end we decided to catch a cab back. We trudged out to the rain to hail a cab (again, any car is potentially a cab) but after 30 minutes we gave up. Unfortunately we were in a wealthy part of town and no-one was stopping for us.
Back to the Metro, and i'm not sure how, probably sheer willpower, we ended up finding our way. Dom and Kt were a little worried at this stage, as we'd been gone so long.
Midnight - we boarded our last train of the trip, destination St Petersburg, Russia. As soon as we boarded we knew we were on a much classier train than the previous two we had exerienced. No dodgy Mongolians getting us to stow there loot, the berths were clean and there was room to move. Although this didn't mean too much to us as we slept the 8 hour trip, and woke up when we arrived in St Pete's the next morning at 8am.
Back to the Metro, and i'm not sure how, probably sheer willpower, we ended up finding our way. Dom and Kt were a little worried at this stage, as we'd been gone so long.
Midnight - we boarded our last train of the trip, destination St Petersburg, Russia. As soon as we boarded we knew we were on a much classier train than the previous two we had exerienced. No dodgy Mongolians getting us to stow there loot, the berths were clean and there was room to move. Although this didn't mean too much to us as we slept the 8 hour trip, and woke up when we arrived in St Pete's the next morning at 8am.
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