All Roads Lead to Rome

....That is if you can survive the crazy Italian drivers!! Honestly, the worst we have come across so far!

When one lane becomes three...

Heading south from Tuscany, our first stop was Cassino to see the famous abbey on Montecassino, and where both of our grandfathers fought in WWII.

Montecassino abbey is one of the most stunning that I have had the pleasure of going inside. It is set atop a big hill that overlooks the Liri valley. During WWII it was occupied by the Nazis and the allies fought a series of battles to eventually capture what was considered a valuable strategic vantage point, between January - May 1944. The battle(s) for Montecassino cost 75,000 soldiers their lives - 55,000 allies & 20,000 Germans. It also left the abbey and surrounding town in absolute ruins, although interestingly it was fourth time in its history that the abbey had been destroyed and rebuilt. Thankfully, the artwork from inside the abbey was moved to safety before the battle and was eventually returned to the site where it remains today. They also remodelled the abbey to near original design using old drawings and paintings as well as utilising marble fragments in beautiful mosaics.

The view over Cassino

The Montecassino Abbey

Pictures of the destruction during WWII

The Commonwealth War Cemetery at Cassino. There were many unidentified graves here.

After Cassino we headed for the famed Amalfi coast on the south west coast of Italy, basing ourselves in Sorrento for three nights and then moving on to the town of Amalfi for a further three nights. Sorrento is famous for its lemons (nearly the size of your face!) and boy did we enjoy some of the end products (namely, zesty lemon cream gelato and of course Limoncello). We stayed in a really nice hilltop Villa overlooking the sea - the views were absolutely stunning and the steep climb up the hill from town helped us to justify our daily gelato habit! 

From our base in Sorrento we decided to take the train to the ancient ruins of the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Both are now archeological sites where the preserved remains of the towns have been uncovered after they were completely buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. We went to Herculaneum first, which was the smaller of the two towns (with less area excavated due to the sheer volume of material that it is buried beneath), but also the most haunting. The town was based on the ancient seashore about 20 minutes from modern day Naples, and was buried beneath 25m of pyroclastic material (hot ash). Due to the nature of the pryoclastic flows that buried the town, many buildings, including organic material such as wooden door frames, were excellently preserved, and have been excavated by archaeologists to give us a glimpse of what life was like in Roman times in a well-to-do city. The most haunting part of the site was the old town docks, where only a few years ago archaeologists discovered over 300 human skeletons, mainly of women and children, who tried to shelter from the eruption. Unfortunately the docks afforded no protection and they were all killed instantly by a cloud of hot ash and gas reaching 500 degrees Celsius. Despite an instant death, the positions of the skeletons (which remain in situ) clearly show the terror and anguish experienced in the moments prior. A harrowing sight. 

Top left: An old bar with inset pots for selling food; Top right: view over the excavated part of Herculaneum, far below the modern town of Ercolano (seen in the background). Left centre: an old fresco once outside a shop indicating the price of wine!

The ancient sea shore and excavated city - you can clearly see just how deeply it had been buried!

The frame of an old bed survived

Pompeii was a much larger city than Herculaneum and so too was the archeological site. It was like stepping back in time, and was really interesting to see how the Romans lived. We saw the well preserved remains of bathhouses, Nobel houses and even a brothel! The roads were also well preserved, complete with drainage systems and you could even see grooves in the stones from horse and cart traffic! Another famous feature of Pompeill are the several plaster casts that were made in the early 1900s where plaster was poured into cavities left behind where people had been vaporised by the eruption, leaving behind the exact impression of their position at the moment of their death. Creepy stuff. The amphitheater was also interesting to see, although not as large as the Colosseum, it's nearly 500 years older and has remained almost perfectly intact!

Clockwise from top: Old Roman Forum with recent sculpture; body cast; amphitheater; graphic frescoes (read, menu) in the Roman brothel!

Grooves from cart traffic!

The following day we decided to do something a little bit different and try our hand at making pasta at a cooking class in Sorrento! Our Villa kindly organised this for us in town, and somehow it ended up just being the two of us! We started off by enjoying some prosseco & then got to work making pasta, which we then turned into delicious Basil, Ricotta, Mozarella and Parmesan Ravioli, later cooked and served with Tomato and garlic sauce. Now that we've made  pasta and realised that it is really pretty simple, we will definitely try it again! We then made a tiramisu, a layered dessert with a mascarpone & rum cream poured over lady finger sponge biscuits soaked in espresso..... It was really heavy, but really good. To top it off, Ricardo, our friendly chef and cooking mentor, produced what must be one of the largest bottles of Limoncello in existence! It was homemade with Sorrento lemons of course, and it was fair to say that it packed a punch! We sat down and enjoyed our creation in the restaurant, enjoying ourselves too much to remember to take a picture of the finished product! It was good, I can assure you (and not just because we made it! Haha).

The next day we left Sorrento for the town of Amalfi. The reputation of the roads and the drivers in Amalfi had us a little nervous about experiencing it first hand. Well, it turns out that it has that reputation for a reason! The cliff side roads are very narrow and busy, and every single car seems to have scrapes and dents. God only knows how the bus drivers manage it, perhaps it is because their passengers are all praying that they make it out alive! 

Our accommodation was located in the hills above the town of Amalfi, and thankfully we had a reserved parking spot, or so we thought. We drove down the one lane road only to find that there was no way we could physically fit our van into the park that had been reserved for us, and more over, that there wasn't anywhere to turn around! Some rather careful reversing back down the road for several hundred meters between concrete walls and parked cars ensued. We were glad to find a park, folded the wing mirrors in and left the van there hoping that getting back out wouldn't be too troublesome in a few days time!

Narrow roads up to our accommodation at Pogerola!

View from our apartment 

Pictures from around Amalfi, including the beautiful Duomo (and someone having to wear a paper cape inside the Basillica!)

We just missed the annual rowing regatta, but did get to see the big parade where they we're introducing the teams from across Italy.

While in Amalfi we did the spectacular Path of the Gods walk from Agerola to Positano, although it seems we ended up missing the end of the track and taking an alternative route into Positano via 1700 steps down to the road! Including the 900 steps down to Amalfi from our accommodation that morning, we were grateful to reach the beach for a well earned swim. Our exhaustion must have also clouded our judgement as we also paid a horrendous amount for a sun lounger for the afternoon. Daylight robbery I tell you! Sometimes I'm amazed at what tourists are suckered into paying for (and we aren't immune!).

Path of the Gods

Positano

On the 13th June after 60 days on the road, 7,563km driven, €993 in gas, and 42 nights sleeping in the back, we said goodbye to our van (called Crush Proof). It wasn't a particularly ceremonious send off, but Shaun did get to ride on top of our luggage on the bed in the back while the guy from the depot dropped us at the train station!

Bye van!

The 15 minute walk from Roma Termini station to our accommodation in Rome quickly made us realise that we had far too much gear with us, and we must have looked rather sweaty and tired when we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was run by nuns and appeared to double as some kind of convent (looking like a what I imagine a hostel from the 1970's to look like). I think it needed Whoopy Goldberg to liven the place up a bit!

We were finally in Rome. As our friend Mitch described in his recent blog post, the place is like an open air museum! Although it is also incredible to think that over 2000 years of history of the city is all buried beneath our feet!

Aside from sorting through our things to lighten our packs, sending some home and leaving some for charity, we explored the Vatican Museums, St Peters Basillica, did some shopping, and did a walking tour with an archaeologist visiting the Colosseum, Roman forum, and Pantheon. I really enjoyed the walking tour, seeing all the layers of ruins and learning a bit about ancient Roman life and he history of Rome, as well as soaking up some of the great city atmosphere. The Vatican didn't impress me quite as much as I had thought it might, but was indeed beautiful and an important sight to see nonetheless. Overall, Rome seems like a really cool city, so long as you can avoid the tourist traps!

Colosseum

Out and about in Rome

Vatican

Trevi Fountain surrounded by hundreds of tourists!

St Peters Basillica

Pantheon

Top: Arch of Constantine and carving on another arch depicting the emperors return from battle in a chariot.

Bottom: Roman Forum and the supposed place of Julius Caesar's funeral pyre/tomb. 

We are now in Split, Croatia, and about to board a yacht with seven friends for the next week, to sail to Dubrovnik. It's a hard life!!

Under the Tuscan Rain Clouds

Rain seems to be a central theme of my blog posts lately, however I won't dwell on it too much; while it has tested our patience, and our raincoats, it hasn't dampened our spirits.

Shaun loves the rain

Anyway, having spent eight days enjoying the splendour of Tuscany, I can certainly recommend it for lovers of food, art and wine. Check, check, and check! 

We spent four nights in Florence and then four nights in Siena, a base to explore the old villages dotted around the countryside.

On the way to Florence we stopped for a quick visit to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a tower, and it was most certainly leaning, but the heat and hoards of tourists and hawkers left us uninspired to stick around and explore any further. Not the first, and probably not the last time I have felt this way about famous sights/tourist attractions. Not to be taken for arrogance or indifference, just personal preference.

I digress.

After a short visit to the picturesque city of Lucca, we carried on to our campsite in Fiesole, a small village in the hills above Florence (with incredible views over the city). It was a bit of an adventure getting there, as ever the helpful contraption, our GPS aka Barbara, decided to take us on a shortcut down some back roads. Well, let me tell you that I can see why they all drive small vehicles in Italy! It got a little hairy where half way up a steep hill was a tight bend around the corner of a building and a stone wall that I was fairly sure a horse and carriage would have struggled with. We made it, albeit glad that the cheap and cheerful paint job on our van makes it hard to spot the small scrape marks above the right rear wheel! Oops!

Lucca

Lucca

Admiring ceramics in Lucca

View over Florence from the camp

Florence is simply a beautiful city, rich in history and art (and crowds of tourists). For me, apart from wandering the maze of cobbled streets (a line that I probably use far too often), it was nice to give  a few historical names a bit more context. We visited a number of sites and also took a walking tour. Here are a few interesting things that we learned:

The Medici family was responsible for some of the most stunning areas of Florence. They were a powerful banking family during the cities time as capital of Italy. They were so rich and powerful they built a family tomb with a dome large enough to fit the family tombs as well as that of Christ (which is historically located in Jerusalem). They actually tried to purchase and move the tomb of Christ from Israel to Italy!. They reigned for over 300 years but due to inbreeding and disease the whole bloodline has been wiped out!

The Duomo that houses the Medici family tomb, and was intended for the tomb of Christ.

Michaelangelo's David stands at 17' tall and was carved out of an unwanted slab of marble. Originally the marble was deemed too damaged by porous holes, and no one wanted to work with the material. Michaelangelo offered to carve the statue for the Medici family for a fee (he was in his early 20s at the time) and he managed to do a pretty good job considering it is often referred to as the most famous sculpture in the western world! Also interesting is that the Medici family had taken him under their wing as a young boy (14) and raised him in the Palazzo Vecchio and other state houses after noticing his talent for art and sculpture at a very young age.

Michaelangelo's David

Big hands?...

The Il Duomo is famous for being the 4th largest cathedral in the world, it's Dome was designed by famous architect Filippo  Brunelleschi and has stood for over 500 years!

Some scary devil story going on here...

The Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio and Pitti Palace are all famous buildings in Florence interconnected by a passageway running from the centre of town and across the Arno river. It was installed so the Medici family could easily move between buildings and avoid assasins and enemies during their near 300 year reign of power.

Ponte Vecchio

Passageway from Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace

Palazzio Vecchio

View from Piazza Michelangelo

On to Siena and into the heart of Tuscany. Of course this was not before we jammed the duvet in the side door of the van, wedging it steadfast in a not-quite shut position, and Shaun spent the evening trying to free it. One mangled duvet later, we'd thankfully managed to avioid call out to road side assistance...

On the way to Siena we stopped at a small medieval town called San Gimignano (said "San jimmy-nyah-no"). It is affectionately known as the "Medieval Manhattan" due to its numerous towers. Again, think small walled city atop a hill with church, bell tower, and maze of cobbled streets. However, the simple description doesn't quite do the atmosphere of the place (and other similar places) a fitting justice. I still find it remarkable to be walking along streets that have been walked over for nearly 1000 years, and visiting buildings that have, in one form or another, existed in that spot for equally as long. 

San Gimignano and Monteriggioni are located along Via Francigena, and old pilgrim road that once connected Canterbury, England, with Rome. Apparently it was a very dangerous road to travel, as it was not constructed as a main road between important places, but more a series of connecting tracks covering a great distance over difficult terrain which was notoriously full of bandits!

San Gimignano

After getting thoroughly saturated in an unanticipated downpour, we made our way to Siena. Siena is another interesting town, and was certainly a great place to base ourselves for exploring more of Tuscany. 

Siena is famous for its Horse race, The Palio, in which local districts compete in a race around the main plaza, Piazza de Campo, bareback!. It is held twice a year on July 2nd and August 16th. In the province of Siena it's regarded as the most important sporting event of all, even more popular than football!. We visited the plaza and it is immense, as is the Cathedral which is very impressive with its black & white striped exterior and interior.

Piazza de Campo

View over the Duomo

Siena Duomo

Siena Duomo, rain clouds aren't all bad

We did two tours while we were in Siena, and also took a short visit to the fortified town of Monteriggioni. One of the tours was a day trip to visit the towns of Montalcino, Pienza and Montepluciano, including wine tasting. Despite the transport being a tour bus, we actually spent most of the day exploring the towns on our own accord, following the cursory introduction and history lesson, which suited us just fine. The wine tasting was a hoot - it was on a vineyard that gives all its profits to students, and we were hosted by an 86 year old man, who our tour leader warned us had the 'vitality of a 26 year old'. We soon figured out that this was because he enjoyed chatting up all the young ladies that come through on the tours! Five wines, a shot of grappa and light snacks of local prosciutto, pecorino cheese and biscotti made for a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon!

Our hilarious old host, giving away wine in a prize draw.

Montalcino is famous for its wine, Brunello de Montalcino (which is delicious by the way!). Pienza is a very small village which is a Unesco world heritage site due to it being the birthplace of Pope Pius II. It has stunning views over the Valley D'Orcia which is also Unesco listed and is also famous for certain scenes in Gladiator (which Shaun enjoyed seeing!). Monteculpiano is also famous for its wine (Nobile de Monteculpiano) and its position on the top of a rather large hill overlooking vast Tuscan landscapes, a real leg killer and stomach churner after too many wines.

Pienza

Pienza

Watching the rain roll in over the Valley D'Orcia

Found some new wheels in Monteculpiano!

My kind of wine glass!

Monteriggioni

Tuscan countryside near Monteriggioni 

The other tour we did was actually an organised meal in a Tuscan Villa on a country vineyard. The evening started with a short visit to the small town of Castellina in Chianti, where we shared prosseco with two others on the tour, before we were taken to the vineyard. On arrival we were welcomed with more wine and an abundant antipasto platter, set outside on a terrace  where fortuitously the rain clouds had lifted to reveal a gorgeous sunset against the beautiful Tuscan countryside. Perhaps we'd been primed by the prosseco, but it was shaping up to be everything we imagined a Tuscan feast to be, and it was perfect! We then enjoyed four courses of Tuscan cuisine, including a vegetable soup, pasta, grilled meat, followed by panacotta. The Chianti Classico was flowing, and no one was ready to leave when the evening drew to a close. An evening I won't forget in a hurry!

Tuscan Villa where we enjoyed dinner

All in all, we were sad to be leaving Tuscany, but excited to see what the south of Italy would have in store for us, and whether I could eat any more pasta before having to buy bigger trousers...

Ciao,

Catherine & Shaun