Bracciano, Italy

We have visited a few different Departments in France, but have never been down on the Mediterranean Coast, so we though that we would head over to Monaco, crossing the French-Italian border in the Maritime Alps before beginning our time in Italy.

So we overnighted at Cuneo, after having driven through Asti (home of Asti Spumante) and Alba and then headed towards the tunnel at Tende which is at 1300m in the Alps. Poor old Oscar struggled a bit with all the upwards-twisting roads but we made it to the tunnel… to discover that it was closed for work and would remain closed for another week!

Mutter… Mutter… Grumble!

So we decided that Monaco wasn’t really worth all that much of an effort – when you look at a map, the alternative routes involved several 100s of kilometres of detour. We decided that suddenly, the coast was looking very nice and headed to Savona. We had been warned to avoid Genoa as it is just a big port city but on reading tourist info, poor old Savona didn’t rate much of a mention.

However, we are happy to state that, whilst it wasn’t a particularly pretty town to visit, it was a nice town to explore and the people we met there couldn’t have been more helpful. We found a campsite across the road from the “beach”, called “Camping Charly” and stayed there for 3 nights. Historically, Savona is called the city of the Popes because two popes came from Savona and one pope was imprisoned there. Interestingly, the two popes who came from Savona were very closely connected with the Sistine Chapel – one had it built (Pope Sixtus IV) and the other one tasked Michelangelo with painting it! Pope Sixtus IV had a small version of the Sistine built in the Cathedral in Savona as a Mausoleum for his parents!

We have come to the decision that, when travelling in Europe, especially in countries with beaches, Australians have a huge disadvantage – even the worst beach in Australia is generally miles better than beaches encountered in Europe. Yes, I am happy to admit that there are probably a few exceptions to that rule, but so far in Italy, we haven’t encountered them! The beaches in Italy are generally divided into Beach Clubs where you have to pay to access the facilities. In fact, it can be quite difficult to find a beach that is classified as a “free” beach.

Savona was also the city where we encountered the meal that will always set a high benchmark for an Italian lunch. In a little café, near the port, we had lunch for 10 Euros each – Primo Piatti & Secondo Piatti, Coffee and a drink. So, Nick had Spaghetti Ragu (what we call Bolognese) and I had Pesto Pasta. For second course, we both had Chicken with vegetables, I had a ¼ litre of wine and Nick had a Coke Zero, with nice Italian coffee at the end. We rolled home after that lunch!! I might just mention here that the Pesto in Savona is the authentic Pesto made with Ligurian Basil – Liguria is the province that Savona is in.

Our second port of call was La Spezia, as the gateway to La Cinque Terra. These are 5 villages which, in olden days, could only be accessed by boat. We had planned on travelling by ferry to the villages, but sadly, on our excursion day, the weather was too rough and the ferry was cancelled, so a quick detour to the train station and then it was off to the furthest village – Monterosso. Sadly, we were also travelling with several hundred other tourists who all had the same idea. We walked along to seafront to see Il Giganto which is the remains of a very large statue of Atlas, then up to the Cistercian monastery which was up a very steep climb from the village (walking up lots of steps – oh, my aching knees!), explored the local cemetery and then headed to the station to go to our next village, which was Vernazza. This village is one of two that has very colourful houses around the harbour and where we stopped for lunch. The third village for the day was Riomaggiore which, we discovered, had the train station at the bottom and you had to walk uphill if you wanted to see the village! We also encountered a small group of Carabinieri and Polizia Municipale who were measuring the awnings of the stores to make that that they weren’t sticking out too far.

From La Spezia, it was off to Pisa to look at the wonky tower. At the top of Nick’s wish list was an intention to climb to the top of the Tower, but my knees were strongly advising against any such exertion, so instead I walked through the Duomo which is right next door to the Wonky Tower.

From Pisa, we overnighted at Lucca, which had a really comfortable Stellplatz-style campground and it was in easy walking distance to the city. The city is a walled-city and the wall is still intact. In fact, the “green space” for the city is the top of the wall and the space just outside the wall which used to be made up of defensive moats, etc. Lucca is also the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini – he was a prolific composer and wrote an incredible number of Operas such as Turandot, Madame Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro, Tosca and La Boheme, just to name a few. The apartment where he was born and lived, is still in an old building with a number of other residents and the museum is on the top floor of the building. It contains a vast array of memorabilia of Puccini’s work and his life.

After Lucca, we were planning on spending a few days in Florence however, that didn’t eventuate. Sadly, Florence will always be a reminder of how difficult it can be to live in close contact with a person with no respite! We made it into Florence, to discover that on this particular Sunday, there was a 5km and 10km “marathon” sponsored by one of the local radio stations. And the road that we needed to drive up to get to the Stellplatz was closed until mid-afternoon for the race. We found somewhere to park for a couple of hours before heading off to look for the accommodation – to discover that it was closed for the middle of the day siesta! One of the reasons that we had picked it was that it was not far out of the city – in fact, it was just across the river and about 50m from a viewing point which was very popular with tourists and full of buses and cars and so, there was nowhere to stop and make a plan. In fact, that pretty much applies to all of Florence – nowhere to stop and make a plan. Nick managed to find another campground, but the ***** (our GPS) wanted to take us through the heart of the main tourist part of town. I knew that things weren’t going well when I looked ahead to see the Ponte Vecchio about 25m directly in front of us.

After some angry words, we found our way away from there, found another campground which turned at to be out of town some way, and in the hills! In fact, I’m still not too sure how Oscar managed to get up some of those roads. I just wanted out of Florence and was not interested in exploring or seeing anything! So, after one night in Florence, we headed to Siena.

On a side note here – we read in the news this week that the road just near where we were collapsed into the river! So, when or if we go back to Florence, they will have scaffolding up around the approach to the Ponte Vecchio!

Siena is another old town on a hillside. We entered from near the train station and encountered 7 escalators up to one of the gates of the city – thank goodness for the escalators as I don’t think my knees could have handled the climb! We then ambled our way downhill – Siena seems to be a long but narrow city and about two-thirds of the way down, there is a Campo, a square that isn’t square, in fact it is semi-circular and totally surrounded by tall buildings. Ok, so they were only 2 or 3 floors high, but that is tall for an old building.

Siena seems to be famous for two things – a horse race that is held is the Campo once a year and a tradition of Guilds with their own flags which are paraded through the city twice a year. It is also a town where there are some really pretty ceramic work done with pottery. It also has a Duomo – doesn’t every Italian city have one?? Another thing that we have noticed about Italian churches (especially in the North), is that they tend to be striped! The effect is achieved with bricks, but we have seen striped churches in Savona, Montirosso, Siena, Pisa – just to name a few locations.

Whilst walking though the streets of Siena, we visited a shop where they have a medieval well in the back room of the shop. The shopkeeper kindly invited us in to have a look at it. He explained that the shop used to be part of a castle within the city walls and because it had its own water supply, the owners were very rich.

We have now been in Italy for 10 days and it is time to head down to Rome. That will be the subject of the next blog entry. Ciao!