Hither and yon (and spaghetti)

The Pantheon dome

Tuesday saw us wandering around Rome seeing bits and pieces. Pretty good bits and pieces, but not such big things as the previous days. We found a Bernini sculpture that was smaller than we had thought it was going to be, the Spanish Steps which were very steppy but not overly amazing, and then the Trevi fountain which was a very, very good fountain. The best bit there was eating ice-cream and watching men pinch coins out of the drains. But then we made it to the Pantheon. That was impressive. Such an incredible space - they copied the dome everywhere including for St Peter's Basilica. The renaissance folks considered it to be the perfect proportions, Raphael loved it so much he had himself buried there.

 

In between all these we found a pasta place that I had read about. Each day they just sell one or maybe two pasta dishes, for 4 euros, with a cup of wine. There's only seats for about 6 people, mostly the shop is just a queue that stretches into the street. We were lucky enough to get a sort of thick pea soup sauce on thick spaghetti. It was pretty good, but not as good as we make at home, which is a bit of a problem with a number of the meals we have at restaurants. But I was happy to have it cos it was clearly very authentic, hand made pasta that was very popular with the locals. And it was cheap. And we got wine.

Basilica of St Francis (excuse the trick photography)

 

Now it's late Wednesday afternoon and we're on the train back to Rome after a day trip to Assisi. It means we get to pass through really very pretty Umbrian countryside. Lots of hill towns with buildings all crammed together to keep safe and warm, with the late afternoon sun making them glow soft and orange. Very nice indeed. As was Assisi. It's up on a hill too, overlooking plains and the new town. We got to wander through and down and along narrow medieval lanes and alleys, getting cold noses (probably due to the snow that was on the hills above us). As per usual there were beautiful churches and amazing stonework. What gets me is how did they know how to build all these things? Who was the first person to say "let's just build a massive building out of bricks, I reckon it will stay up"? Either someone very clever or someone who had no sense of "it won't work". The story of Saint Francis is pretty good - he was the son of a rich man, had lots of money and benefits, and then chucked it all in (literally, evidently, just taking all his clothes off in the middle of town and forgoing everything he had) and went and lived in a hut below town, living in poverty and chastity and generally being a bit of a hero for lots of like minded religious folk who flocked to join him. And the Franciscans as they were now known later went on to found such towns as San Francisco and Los Angeles. So that's quite well done. When Mr Francis died (not a saint yet) they started building a big church to give the pilgrims who turned up somewhere to worship and they did a super job because it is a very, very good church, with beautiful paintings by Giotto, Cimabue and others. Have a good read about it here. So all in all we have had an excellent couple of days.

The view from Assisi

Sneaky photo of Giotto's restored frescoes

 

In beer news we popped in to a home brew / micro brewery beer shop and bought a couple of proper italian beers. An American style IPA - hoppy and bitter and fruity, which was excellent, and a porter that was more like a black IPA that was also delicious. So I can now report that italian beer is very good, although I get the feeling it's still early days for the micro brewery industry.

 

And that's all I have to say.

 

Just a bit more about Rome

Each day we get up about 8 am except for tomorrow when we have to catch the train to Assisi at 7.58. Then we go and have breakfast, (when we book the hotels we look for 2 things 1; under 50 € and 2; they provide breakfast). The hotel we are in at the moment is in a building with lots of other hotels. They are not really hotels more collections of rooms, ours is at the top of four flights of marble steps- which is always something to look forward to at the end of a long day walking. Anyway they provided breakfast and it is quite good really. All you can eat /drink, coffee, juice, croissant, bread rolls, a boiled egg, yucky italian toast things that sound like you are eating gravel, and yogurt. So we eat as much as we can and then walk up the 3 flights of stairs we have previously walked down to prepare for our day. This morning is quite fun because the toilet seems to have blocked up phewwwwww!!!!! It is stinky.

Once we have made our lunch preparations - salami and cheese in glad wrap ready for the rolls we will buy once we are out - juice into the empty water bottle, extra water and fruit we are ready to start on our daily excursion.

Day I: Was the most amazing day ever, as Paul said in the previous blog. I was awestruck by the beauty and grandeur the timelessness and the truely poignant concept that all the greats of art were actually in the same room as me, once upon a time. I didn't want to leave the Sistine chapel it was so beautiful and safe. So when we got to go back for the second time and most of the people had gone that was definitely a gift from somewhere.

Then we left the Vatican museums and walked back to St Peters Basilica which previously has been packed and it was almost empty! Crazy! Where did all those people go? The line to the basilica that previously snaked its way around the square was almost non existant. We got into the Basilica in no time only to come face to face with the Pieta, as soon as I had recovered from the shock of the enormity of the whole place. The Pieta is beautiful and again timeless and for once an art work that is better in life than it is in the books. Mary so fresh and overcome with grief as she softly held Jesus lifeless but still warm body, even if you don't believe the story the beauty of this work is wonderful.

Are we there yet?

Cripes it's huge!

And this was all for free! Without lines! And we could just keep on looking as long as we wanted. I normally last about half and hour in a gallery we spent hours and hours looking and walking and looking AMAZING!

We forgot to get bread for our salami and cheese so did this all on a banana and some fruit juice. On the way home we got some bread and made rolls in the middle of Campo de fiore market while all the rich people sat around drinking colourful drinks in the warm. I think we were happier though.

Back home by 5 exhausted lay on the bed and ..... That is nothing, not, what you might think. Then prepare dinner salad and chicken the same as the night before yum . Sleep........

 

Day 2: Was a very different day same morning down 3 flights up 3 flights make lunch, out we go. Remember to get bread rolls. Off to the Forum and the Colosseum. We had found Rick Steves audio tour the day before and put it onto my phone so this made our visit so much better just having a bit of an idea what was going on.

We saw these things on the way

 

The tomb of the lost soldier

 

Trajans column

 

Columns, domes and sculptures everywhere

It is all pretty interesting really and all the things you learn about makes a little more sense. I am still not sure about Romulus and Remus they must have existed but were they raised by a wolf? We saw where they had lived though. So walking and walking and then we had our rolls in the Farenese gardens over looking Rome - in the rain. It has been raining for days now. You can always tell this if I have a green jacket on. Rain green no rain black. We finally made it to the Colosseum, again just an amazing building. How on earth did they get those huge great big blocks up the top?

I took millions of photo's of Paul looking like gladiator but I threw those away and kept these ones.

 

 

 

So that was pretty well our second day we came home again exhausted - there are a lot of stairs in Rome. We walked up the 4 flights lay on the bed ..... Made chicken salad! Yum and tonight we had this desert all for €1.31

Gigantic strawberries and chocolate and cream.

Yay, Today it didn't rain. same morning routine. But we added the laundromat downstairs and washed all of our clothes which will be great. There is only so much washing you can do in a bathroom basin. It didn't rain today so no green jacket. I will let Paul tell you about today. X

 

The Big Boys

Sunday morning we hit the jackpot.

We made a last minute discovery that the Vatican museums were free on the last Sunday of the month (which it was) so we headed off to see how mad it could be. The crowds coming out of the metro were huge, like going to a massive footy game, streets full of people, police, cars, stalls. We made it to St Peter's square which was about half full with huge queues to get in somewhere, we had no idea what was where or quite what was what. So we thought we'd head around to the museums and see if the queue there was manageable to see the Sistine Chapel and all the other good stuff.

Our first glimpse of St Peter's square madness

And there was virtually no-one there... And it was free.

Turns out that Pope fellow was doing a bit of a speech in the square so everyone else went to see him. We saw that on the television later on. So we missed that which was a bit of a pity but the pay off was an amazing trip to one of the most incredible art spectaculars I could imagine. The amount of art in the Vatican is unbelievable. Every centimetre, every space, every surface is decorated. Painted, sculpted, plastered, adorned, chiselled, mosaic-ed, painted some more, covered, layered, and generally just brilliantly coloured and textured. Phenomenal.

One of the Vatican hallways

 

And the artists - Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Carravagio, Matisse, Chagall, Bacon, Titan, et al - just an absolute who's who of the greats. And obviously the highlight was the Sistine Chapel, although the Raphael rooms gave it a good push.

Jo admiring a Carravagio

Paul admiring, um....

And once we had popped out the end of our visit we thought "hey, let's go again", so we dashed back up the stairs just before they closed the entry and had most of the rooms to ourselves which was just boggling. It's one thing being in a room fully heaving with paint, it's quite another to have the room to yourselves, and have the light and sound all perfect.

Raphael - quite a good painter

My secret Sistine Chapel photo - not supposed to.

So that was an unforgettable experience. The colours, the sheer volume of work, sharing the same space as those great artists worked and walked, the enormity of it was incredible.

So then it was back around the corner to St Peter's Basilica. Now that is one huge church. And again just a ridiculous amount of adornment. The architecture of these spaces is simply incredible. How they could design it all, let alone build it, without modern gear is beyond me.

Michelangelo's dome

Mike made this. Aged 23. (!!!)

Inside the Basilica

 

So it was a great day. Even if we couldn't find the beer cafe I was looking for afterwards. We went to sleep very happy indeed.

 

Under the snow covered volcano.

Sorry, we wrote this days ago but forgot to post it. Silly us. We went from Matera to Naples by bus on Wednesday I think, and spent three nights there, we've since moved on to Rome - more on that later. So here is our belated Naples post.

 

It is quite strange to see the volcano sitting there so quietly and serenely. And to walk around the tall skinny streets of Naples and then go to Pompeii. What a horrific but amazingly fortunate situation. To think that an entire city can just come to a complete halt forever but to remain virtually intact is quite bizarre and ghoulishly interesting. We walked most of the site and although most of it is just paved streets and ruined houses there are parts that are more interesting and you can actually imagine how the houses might have looked. They were much grander than any Neo Italiano designs we see in Australia but I can see where they are coming from now. The streets were quite amazing as are all the streets we have been walking on for the last 2 weeks. How do they make so many cobbled streets? We haven't seen any Tarmac in cities for ages - so much work cutting, carrying, laying, and everything fits so perfectly.

The wear and tear on the streets had us questioning how on earth did they drive on the streets without buckling their wheels or breaking ankles walking on them. Notice they three big lumps up the street? What were they for? It took us most of the way around Pompeii to work it out.

 

 

This place is a bodega and if you were going to die possibly one of the better places to be on the day. The huge great big ceramic holes in the bench would have been full of wine (hic).

Yes that is me looking horrified. Paul has just told me this is the new milling machine he has bought for our bread making, the oven is in the background and it seems the wood is a very long way away.

Well there are mosaics and there are crazy mosaics and this is a crazy one. Certainly not the smallest pieces we have seen but this floor was quite large and the white pieces quite small. Someone certainly would have been seeing black and white dots after a days work on this.

What did we learn at Pompeii? It was a fantastic place in its time. It is quite poignant to think that all of these people remain alive through their death. Pompeii lives on.

This has taken me over an hour to write and in that time I have drunk one quarter of my first espresso. I am not sure I will manage the rest.

Oh the bumps they are for people to cross the street on without getting into the mud, water, rubbish. An old fashioned zebra crossing.

 

Buongiorno Italia

It's been a while, we know. But we have our reasons, like poor wi-fi, tiredness, and um, that sort of stuff. So the ferry from Greece was good, the fact that it left at 9pm rather than 5pm was not. It meant we arrived in Brindisi after 3am and had to walk 2km in the dark and cold through a deserted industrial zone and then wake up the hotel owner to get let in. So yeah, pretty tuckered out the next day for the train ride to Matera where we also arrived late in the day and couldn't find where we wanted to stay so had to stay somewhere expensive cos it was the only place open. It was nice though and we got our sleep sorted, so it worked out well. Matera is famous for the Sassi - an area of cave houses and old churches. It's an incredible rabbit warren of streets and buildings. Read about what unesco has to say about it here. It's staggering what people can build.

Matera

Matera alleys

My James Dean impersonation

So Matera was great, and we found the hotel we wanted for the second night. We ate beautiful smoked mozzarella, delicious salami and cured meats, fabulous bread and excellent pasta. Welcome to Italy. The bread at the local bakery was just gorgeous. Chewy, crusty, flavoury. And cheap. Then it was onward to Naples by bus. We'd read that it is a pretty crazy town and it is. It's full on busy, and sort of grimy and old and crowded. But it is full of life and interesting things. We've eaten pizza at the home of pizza and its good. Very good. And the food in the supermarket is just incredible - the sort of supermarket you dream about. So many breads and cheeses and meats. I haven't uploaded any photos from here yet but it's been rainy so there aren't many anyway. I'll try and put some on in the morning. Tomorrow we're off to Rome for a week. It will be good to stay put for a while, the moving from town to town is the hardest bit - finding the hotel and stuff. Hope all is well at your place.

 

Adio Greece

Some last minute observations about Greece -

Greeks love concrete, track suits and smoking. And talking on the phone on buses. They love frappes (called freddos in case you're thinking of getting one - I'm had my first and second one this afternoon two weeks too late). The standard of architecture has plummeted over the past two thousand years. Smoking. They still have loads of marble so unfortunately all the new buildings will be here for quite a while. The public transport timetables seem to change daily. And smoking.

Our favourite things -

Half litres jugs of wine for 3 euros. All the pita bread and meat you can eat. Lettuce salad. The amount of stuff you get for free with drinks. Beautiful, amazing old buildings, walls, paths, stairs nearly everywhere you go. How good people are at English. Little old men with walking sticks and hats, little old ladies with baskets and scarves.

Thanks Greece, it's been fun. And yes I feel alright again thank you.

 

It has been so much fun. Except for today when the ferry is 2 hours late- make that 3 ...

Things I really loved about Greece:

The people friendly and accommodating.

Things are hard here you can see that but life is going on as I did for a time far greater than our two little countries.

Beauty rises above the garbage and the piles if concrete.

Breakfast of yogurt and coffee and figs(yum)

Greece is a lovely country you should all come and see it.

Goodbye Greece and thanks for having us to stay.

 

In the snow at Metsovo! (And a cautionary tale)

We finally found the bus station in Kalambaka/Kalampaka who knows how to really say it. Then we just hung about in the square me writing post cards which was a bit of a waste because as I was writing the post office was closing and will be shut all weekend so I won't be able to send theme from Greece anyway. So to all those lucky recipients wait for a Greek P/C from Italy. Before we got on the bus we walked up another hill to a church and had a lovely panorama view of the town and Paul got some water from a lovely rustic fountain.

Up they go laughing.

So again a bit of waiting, waiting and the finally the bus came and we were away up up up into the hills with beautiful hillside villages and big pine / fir trees I am not sure which, but they looked like proper christmas trees and were very pretty particularly when covered with snow. (I made sure I was prepared for this trip and stocked up on travel sickness pills) Finally we could see lots of snow. It was pretty funny to see little old ladies getting off in the middle of nowhere with their leeks and nettles and wild greens ( these look like the killer weeds we have been trying to get out of our lawns?(Paul's wishful thinking) so we are very exited to think we might be able to eat them- this might require a little research beforehand.

Snow!

Anyway the bus finally stopped near a sign pointing to Metsovo. we knew this because we are now getting much better at reading Greek. A few people including ourselves got off. And all the others got into waiting cars or taxis. There was not a house in sight, where were we? No idea. But we decided to follow the road and after a kilometre we saw a village. just as well it wasn't was night time and we took the wrong way or we might have been travel statistics. So on we walked into town Paul consulting the ipad map which had no idea where we were -thanks apple it was helpful. Just as I looked up and saw the sign of the hotel in front of us Manuel from faulty towers came out of the door to say we were in the right place and swept us inside with all the professionalism of a thirty year in the job doorman. Inside the hotel was massive and decorated with local textiles wood in all different states carved, notched, panelled . Mrs Faulty came out short and round and dark not blonde and tall and said they had up graded us. Woohoo! Out room was fantastic in a rustic way- flokati rugs all over the place and lots of doors for different little rooms and a huge bed. If I was a cat I would stay here forever.

So now it is about 7 pm and we decide to go out for a quick walk before dinner which we did. We came back a had a before dinner beer and as we were enjoying it Paul mentioned he didn't feel that good. I didn't take much notice as travelling often bring little niggles as we know. We actually got dressed for dinner - yes prettied ourselves up a bit and down we went. the menu was interesting wild boar, pig in plums and specialities of the area but none today. Paul again stated he didn't feel well. By this stage he actually didn't look that great so I took notice.

We ordered local soup , sausages , meatballs in leek and retsina and a lettuce salad- take one minon lettuce slice it across the leaves so the threads are long , add chopped spring onions , season with a good amount of salt lemon and olive oil and you have a pretty nice salad unlike the soup which was not all that successful i actually think it was made out of whey and it possibly was as cheese making is big business in Metsovo. We have just eaten the salad and pushed the soup around the bowl and Paul just about fell face first into the sausages he ordered and turned a good shade of green. at this stage I really took notice and said maybe he should go back up stairs. I will stay in all my finery and wade through my pile of enormous meatballs and slimy leeks alone, which I did. I had his dinner packed up for him it cost (8 euros) just in case he felt a bit better soon and I took the bottle of retsina and headed back to the room to find Paul curled up and shivering on the bed, needless to say no dinner for him tonight.

He spent the rest of the night driving the porcelain tractor( I say this because the bathroom must not have been remodelled since about 1920 sometime and the flush was one of the old pull chains that make the water come out as if you are opening the gates on the Hume weir and the toilet bowls was one that has fantastic acoustics when anything enters it. Over all it was a bit of a sleepless night for us both. As you may wonder why I am doing all the writing today . Well we have had hours to kill either walking or sitting in cafes to stay warm- that's where I wrote most of this as Paul looked ahead vaguely, trying not to fall asleep or now as we are finally on the bus to Ioannina- he is asleep now and has taken my travel pills and I didn't so this might be interesting.

We have finally arrived in Ioannaina without too much problem and then walked about 4 klms to the hotel which was meant to be 1 klm away from the bus station. But the room is warm and we can wash all our dirty clothes and dry them on the heaters. Harry Potter is on tonight in English hooray!

And ...

We already have dinner so we don't need to go out. yum sausages and cold chips, boiled eggs from breakfast and bread and carrots from yesterday all washed down with ouzo and last nights retsina.

 

Oh! and for anyone who has read this far remember how Paul filled up the water bottle? Yes that was it, I only had one sip he drank the lot....

 

Sorry for typos and spelling but the cursor is driving me mad and predictive text steals words. Xxx

 

 

 

Holy moly

So around 1300 some blokes decided to build a monastery on top of a big rock. I reckon they could have found easier spots but anyway they went ahead and started building and sure enough more blokes turned up to build after more and then some ladies joined in the fun and before they knew it there were 24 monasteries all perched on top of huge monoliths. Pretty sure the health and safety department was unaware of it all. We spent all day walking up from the village and all around. It was a bit rainy but it all added to the charm.

The church inside the largest one was probably the most beautiful church I've ever been in - frescoes, carvings, the light. Amazing. And they hid all the old works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle and all those old guys from the Turks so all those manuscripts and old religious writings survived.

So yeah, super amazing. Absolutely incredible how they built any of it.

 

Nafplio

Our slightly shambolic entry to Ancient Corinth was matched by our exit, I'm embarrassed to say. First they did not take cards, and they had to ring around the village to find an ATM machine so we could pay them, then it transpired that there was no bus out on a Sunday so the owner's husband offered to drive us the 10km or so to the main bus terminal so we could catch the bus to Nafplio, which was very nice of him. Then to top it all off as he drove away I realised I still had the room key in my pocket. They must have thought we were completely useless, which would explain why he said good luck so intently once he had come back to get the key...

The view from Acrocorinth

Incredible 2km long walls

The castle above the town

 

Nafplio is all about narrow streets, hill top castles, clear seas, restaurants, bars and shopping. We went swimming in the fairly chilly but really very nice Aegean Sea, eaten octopus and fried fishes, wandered the alleys and climbed up hills, and trekked to nearby bays and explored tiny churches.

The obligatory view from a hill castle

A super meal up in the hills

Fishing boats

On our wanderings we saw this on the beach. We laughed for about half an hour.... Turns out that "Vergina" is a town where Alexander the Great's father and son are both buried. And it's probably not pronounced the way I think it is. Still funny though.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Right now we are on a long bus journey north to Kalambaka to see the monasteries in the sky. It's the first rainy day so it's a good day to be on a bus looking out the window at fields of solar panels, snowy mountains in the distance, lots of olive trees and lots of hills. Looking forward to seeing if the north is very different to the south and perhaps, if we're lucky, getting into the snow.