ITALY!!

Italy was another of the growing series of countries in which we had spent time across separate occasions. First of all, we entered from the North, dashing across the Austrian border to the mountainous Dolomites region of Italy (staying at Cortina D'Ampezzo).

When the weather turned sour in Cortina, we shifted the schedule ahead to take in Venice early, and then returned to Cortina for two nights so that we could accomplish our aim of walking along the famed hiking trails the Via Ferrata. Following this phase were our adventures through Slovenia and Croatia, the tales of which you'll no doubt have familiarised yourself with above.

Sailing from Dubrovnik to Bari (the 'Achilles heel' of the Italian 'boot' concept), we made our way quickly over to the Amalfi Coast. Then it was to Rome (via Pompeii), to Florence and over to Cinque Terre for a couple of nights before departing for France.

Italy was for me an amazingly evocative place - there was so incredibly much to see and do, and such a great deal of content matter to take in that I couldn't help but feel as though I'd been swept into a cyclone.

Our first port of call, Cortina D'Ampezzo, was a beautiful little town tucked away in the midst of the Dolomites National Park, land which used to be owned by Austria but which was re-distributed post-WW1. It is known now for its high fashion visitors, especially during ski season.

However, clearly the best of this fashionability was not saved for winter only, as we discovered on assessing the fact that everyone there (other than us of course) was wearing high end designer clothing brands, including children. It was quite amazing to see them strut around with their walking poles and gear for hiking while trying to maintain a high-fashion look, marked particularly with white see-through pants, linen shirts and designer sunglasses.

The rain set in heavily (essentially non-stop) on our first two nights' stay, so we did not get an opportunity to undertake the walks we had planned to do originally. Taking a time-conscious outlook, we drove early to beautiful Venice, which certainly exceeded my expectations and memories of visiting the place years back. To me, Venice was a city which had always seemed overrated, a place which for some reason had gained fame for no doubt smelly and tainted waterways, and which was sinking slowly into oblivion.

Although the crowds were at peak thickness in Venice (particularly across the narrow pedestrian bridges, where tourists were perched like expectant seagulls waiting for photograph opportunities instead of chips), the nature of the city is such that you can lose yourself quite quickly and easily down the beautiful winding back alleyways.

What we got was something completely different to my expectations. As described again and again you could feel the romance of the city, which turned out to be a truly special and charming network of surprisingly clean and blue coloured canals. We explored all of the major tourist sights, and took the water taxi across to Lido, a beach side area on the 'mainland'. Upon returning from Lido, the sunset across the centre of Venice was simply breathtaking, and set me off like a piece of foil would a magpie, if that magpie was a keen photographer.

Ripping ourselves away from Venice to return to Cortina, we still had unfinished business to conquer; namely, walking the Via Ferrata trails, or 'Iron Ways'. I knew I had arrived back in Cortina immediately when I spied a female cyclist out on the road with see-through white bike pants, a white g-string and a tanned butt. It was certainly eye-catching if not vomit-inducing.

The 'Iron Way' trails we sought so eagerly were originally blazed by the Austrian and Italian armies during WW1, with astonishingly significant amounts of rock being excavated and moved to form full underground tunnel networks, to build perfectly camouflaged fortresses and decoys. Today, you get to walk the paths built by these armies, who used to use ropes and harnesses to clip onto iron cables and staples set into the rocky hillsides.

Armed with helmets and harnesses of our own, the weather cleared on our return journey to allow us up to the 3,000m mark of Mt. Cristallo to explore the tunnels and fortresses set up all those years ago. The walk, which took us 6 hours, guided us around the pathways and down to 1,200m, before the arguably most difficult part of the walk; a 6km, 600m ascent to the final destination (a chairlift back down to the bottom). The very final part of this was a walk up what must have been a blue rated ski slope, which was so steep that I was almost delirious by the end of it.

This possibly explains my untempered eagerness to get to the more relaxing confines of Slovenia and Croatia, and certainly explained why my legs ached considerably for several days afterwards.

After Croatia and Italy, we instantly knew that we had returned as we entered the ferry (a boat perhaps a little smaller than the Spirit of Tasmania, but certainly larger than the HMAS Shithouse). The boat trip over turned out to be a curious example of Italian culture. As we first of all took a couple of seats by a window I observed hoards of Italians consuming their brought-on-board lunches. I also couldn't help but observe that we were the only two people aged under 40 and the only ones who were not Italian.

Then, all of a sudden it was announced in Italian that the buffet had opened. I never saw a room clear as quickly, as they essentially clambered over each other like sheep dogs over sheep to get first go at what was on offer. But the effects of this were significant, and formed the impetus of a rocky journey ahead.

As the dust and shredded clothing from the group of cyclonic Italians began to clear in the direction of the buffet, another rival gang moved in to take their seats, headed up by an old grey-headed man in a black polo shirt. All of a sudden, arguments broke out like spot fires until a fully raged brawl was taking place over seating, with spittle flying, bags being thrown off seats and dramatic 'sit-down' protests and arm crossing taking place. I thought the gentleman with the black polo shirt would explode or suffer some form of internal overheating, as his face swelled and became blood-red.

Eventually, the invading seat marauders were overthrown, and the 'goodies' won the battle, as they all caught wind of trouble, dumped their salad bar appointments and swept back like waves of armed forces to reinforce their positions. To this point, the boat hadn't even left the dock at Dubrovnik. Nicola and I sat blatantly staring with our mouths hanging open.

But then the boat DID begin to move, and thus we entered phase two of the journey. As we sailed out of the heads at Dubrovnik, we hit some rather large waves (especially for Mediterranean standards) and it all very quickly turned to shit. Within 10 minutes, the floor of the entire ship was coated with clammy, vomiting old Italian people, clutching their rosaries and singing 'Ave Maria'. Nicola and I must have looked like clothing store mannequins sitting in our corner of the boat simply shocked, eating chips and ice creams while they were physically ill like a poorly conducted and composed orchestra.

It turned out that we were the only two people left untouched by the no doubt harrowing movement of the boat, and we were left considering how we would survive the remaining 8 hours on a boat full of sick people. We took walks to assess the damage, and on one such sojourn I stepped over countless bodies to get to the top deck. The restaurant looked like a war hospital, and as I passed by a flattened boat security guard, his radio crackled eerily with static as it would in a movie which detailed the effects of a deadly killer virus with no known survivors.

Needless to say, the buffet didn't open at 9:30pm as promised, and we couldn't help but feel a little pissed off as we stepped over the seemingly lifeless carcasses which were strewn across the floor back to our seat.

The delay in travel had us arriving hungry and bleary eyed at a rather impolite time of midnight and thirty. It meant that accommodation options were limited, so true to my nature I found myself resolving to drive as close to our final destination (Minori on the Amalfi Coast) as possible that evening. The consequences of this were stark - a night was to be spent at a roadside stop, sitting upright in our seats as in medieval times, although we weren't warding off the devil, but simply too stuffed to be bothered unloading the car to get to the mattress in the back.

The crick in my neck had me looking slightly left for a few hours next morn, however an Italian coffee and an achievable destination set me straight as it were. We were soon in the breathtakingly picturesque little village of Minori, which is known for its lemon groves, wine making, beaches and traditional Italian community feel.

Our campsite was simply a terrace within a large lemon grove, cleared of its previous inhabitants (trees) to allow at most 5 tents to be pitched. We had the entire campsite to ourselves, and the views of the small bay into which Minori was set were amazing. The only catch? The 377 steps necessary to alight when accessing the campsite from the town centre.

I soon realised that I have a strange internal compulsion to count steps as I climb them. I can even hold perfectly well-maintained conversations (and did) while counting the steps. It goes alongside my avid habit of using a bug smear or stone chip on the windscreen and crossing my eyes to make its' duplication loop around light poles on freeways when travelling as a passenger in the car as one of my least explainable quirks.

Anyway, the town, the campsite and the surrounding area was one of the most beautiful places I've been. As we descended the steps (at around the 128 step mark), we looked over some steeply built winding walls to see an old mother and daughter grinding tomatoes for Pomodoro Sauce, as sounds of Italian opera singers floated across the air like dandelion seeds. The vivid blue waters of the Mediterranean flashed sharply from the horizon, and momentarily distracted us from our descent.

The meal we were cooked by the campsite owners was amazing, and used the lemons, basil and tomatoes grown in their own gardens, along with homemade pasta and bread. I left Minori with an enormous sense of relaxation and awe that such a beautiful village could remain so untarnished by tourists and visitors in the context of what we'd seen before.

But Rome called us, and when Rome calls, you'd better answer the phone. Pompeii served as a fascinating cultural sidetrack for us on the way to Rome, with its ancient volcanic ash-preserved ruins both incredibly well maintained and thought-provoking. Seeing casts of the bodies found when excavations began still crouched in positions praying and cowering from smoke ensured a solemn and empathetic tone was present.

But like the old, ancient show-off that it is, Rome was our destination for that evening and was to be so for the following three. Our campsite was an easy train ride into the city, which proved just as well for we sought to do some hardcore, action-packed, foot-wearing, camera-carrying sight seeing. Within the space of our time we saw St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum, the Colosseum, the Catacombs, the Roman Forum (ruins of ancient Rome), the Pantheon and several smaller churches. Added to this was the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers.

Rome I could only describe as a human, cultural and religious washing machine. It is such a high-paced, loud, busy, crowded, ancient, culturally rich and beautifully artistic hotchpotch that we were left feeling utterly and completely exhausted after each day. But the thing about Rome was that it was utterly addictive. Getting the opportunity to see Caravaggio paintings hung for all to see up close in a small church near the Pantheon (Chiesa de Saint Luigi de Francesi) presented an amazing opportunity, and the entire city buzzes with an energy we've not felt elsewhere.

We then had three nights left, which we allocated to the beautiful Florence (one night) and Levanto (near Cinque Terre in the North - two nights).

Florence was another place which surprised me - I assumed it to be another vacuous tourist trap, flaunting cheaply its art galleries and museums. But what I found was a more laid back and less ancient version of Rome, with the crowds more focused on drifting in and out rather than installing themselves for a long stay. The Uffizi Gallery which is located just next to the square where Michelangelo's David was originally set was one of the best galleries we'd been to.

Cinque Terre, therefore, was where all the crowds had decided to settle. This place turned out to be easily the most overrated place I have ever been. Essentially, the concept of Cinque Terre is that there are five small towns tucked romantically away in small separate valleys which plunge into the restless Mediterranean. The brochures and guidebooks swear to provide a stunning footpath joining the five towns, as well as a scenic train service which can be caught between any of the towns.

But what we found was without exaggeration thousands of Australian, German and American tourists with previously unused walking poles and hiking boots packed onto a train. From there, it was all about standing within 20cm of the person in front of you as you 'walked' (at the pace of the overweight 64 year old American woman in front of you) along the 'hiking trail' (read: asphalted footpath). And the 'nice little remote towns' were nothing more than villages crammed with backpacker hostels (with more Australians) and tourist shops.

I was not impressed, and was continually wondering why it was that this place was so talked up, so hyped and so bloody packed full of people. It was especially disappointing to contrast our recent visit to Minori, and the wonderfully peaceful experience we had surrounded by stunning coastline. I would not recommend Cinque Terre to anyone, unless they only had a few days to explore Italy and perhaps enjoyed buying 'I heart Cinque Terre' t-shirts.

I leave you with a quote from a brochure we received on Cinque Terre:

"The sea lives on even without the sun; when the waves rise the gulf fills with dozens of surf boards, while from the promenade a curious, fascinated crowd follows the acrobatics of the young virtuosi of the sport, undisputed leading actors in this 'Californian' show that has no walk-on parts". What an utter load of shit. If i were to try to pen a critique of this statement I simply would not know where to begin.

The people…

Potentially the most striking element next to the 'sights' of Italy is the nature of its' people. What a bunch of crazy, emotional and unpredictable people the Italians are.

It is as such almost impossible to sum up Italians in just a few words. I instead will rely on some observations of commonalities and tendencies which I was able to grab like frantically dispersed feathers in the air:

1. Italian men love power equipment. This doesn't mean it's all about power saws and angle grinders, but I suppose hair dryers do count as power equipment. And it makes sense now why Italian men at home all use garden blowers, as a morning of our time in Venice was spent with the dulcet tones of two leaf blowers and a chainsaw. Italian men, it appears, hate leaves.
2. Italians are not known for their high levels of common sense and educational grounding. They tend to be too worried about looking good and wearing the right clothes to truly apply themselves, and we developed a theory that the truly smart Italians had to turn to organised crime to gain in a society which ultimately would not reward academic smarts. Grunting and blank stares were often encountered, and there was a specific mouth-hanging-open-to-catch-flies pose which adorned the face of many
3. For Italians, emotion rules far above practicality and logic. It would seem that an Italian would rather burn their entire vegetable patch to the ground than allow their neighbour to sneak a tomato or two. The drama queen like performance on board the boat to Bari featured exaggerated sit-downs and crossing of arms, accompanied with a pout which would make a 4 year old girl blush. Pride comes before all else, and emotion is just simmering beneath the surface if the need arises.
4. They are incredibly self-involved. We saw countless examples of Italian women looking at themselves in our car window and doing their hair. The frenzied trampling which took place when the buffet on board the ferry to Bari was announced was epic, and was another tilt in the 'me first, stuff you all' direction of note.

What does this all amount to? An absolute emotional and social observational drain, which left my head spinning. They are loud, larger than life, emotional and proud, and will give you each of these elements within the space of a minute.

Key activities…

• Climbing hills in Cortina D'Ampezzo, in the Dolomites National Park
• Drifting through the water-grid that is Venice
• Camping in the lemon groves of beautiful and relaxing Minori
• Visiting the ancient site of Pompeii, the victim of the Mt. Vesuvius devastation of AD79
• Encountering Rome, with its hot dusty streets and endless attractions
• Spending time in Florence, taking in more 'culcha' by visiting the Uffizi Gallery (home of countless Caravaggio, Da Vinci and Michelangelo pieces amongst others)
• Battling the soul breaking crowds of Cinque Terre

Highlights…

• Minori was such a typically 'Italian' place - it is just what you expect of a country known for its small twisting villages and seaside, and was a relaxing haven in an otherwise high fidelity nation.
• Venice surprised me - it was an example of how a place can be packed with tourists while still retaining an atmosphere of something truly special.
• Rome - was and still is the centre of civilisation in the area, and it shows.
• Saying a 'goodbye' to the pillows we had purchased for a miserly £6 each from Ikea. To this point they had become indistinguishable from a loaf of slept on 4 week old white toast bread (minus the mould perhaps). Oh but they were flat, compacted and as hard as buggery. We left them by a bin in our Rome campsite, and within 4 minutes one of them had disappeared. No doubt someone was an avid collector of useless haberdashery.

Lowlights…

• At some point earlier in our journey we must have purchased some carrots. It took a few days of 35 degree Italian heat for us to realise that the carrots no longer retained their original form, and were now in fact fermented carrot paste. Putting aside MasterChef dreams of how this paste could well revolutionise dinner parties, once we had detected the offending 'carrot bag', it followed the same path as the above-mentioned pillows. But not without leaving us with a potentially permanent reminder of its transformation by way of a stain on our recently fish sauce free mattress.
• The intensity of Italy really got to us both and genuinely made us tired and keen for some relaxation in France. It even got to my normally steadfast travelling partner who was overheard ranting 'I hate you turmeric' to an uncooperative jar of said spice which refused to be sealed shut. I pretended not to hear, but made a silent resolve to get moving as quickly as possible.
• Cinque Terre has just won itself a place in my black book, along with many others who I have not time to name at the present time.
• Italian radio is truly terrible. Every single potential bandwidth is used (without fail), and is filled with utter crap. People shouting, speaking and being in your face is one thing when you're out in the open, but in the confines of your own car, you feel a little hard done by when your radio serves more of this up to you. It's particularly disappointing when we needed to find (and resultantly could not find) just ONE vacant radio station to be able to tune in my iTrip and be saved by my own music.

In summary...

In all, we spent 15 nights in Italy, and spread our time beautifully between countryside, coastal areas and cities. Italy simply oozes culture, arts and history, and is a remarkable example of how well national icons can be preserved - it's something to be commended.

But the thing with Italy is that it tires the traveller out. It sounds funny to be exhausted by just experiencing a place, but the sights, sounds and personalities you encounter in such a short space of time proved to be ultimately overwhelming. I don't think it's a place that I could live for any significant amount of time.

As we crossed the border to France, my eyes were noted to have slight swelling and dark rings around them, and my brain ached slightly as the last Italian near the border overtook me at 140km/h before cutting in front of me and slowing down at random. I'd already just fought to protect my space in line at the roadside stop food outlet.

It kind of summed the place up - absolutely nuts. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

I would liken it to:

Having an involuntary lobotomy, where your brain is removed completely for the space of time you're visiting and put into a blender. Added to your brain is some ancient and amazingly well-preserved history and a splash of beautifully picturesque coastline. Then add a good serving of alps and fantastic hiking, a dollop of the world's most amazing art. And before you start blending, add in the fact that every Italian you meet is slightly crazy in his or her own unique way.

Then blend the crap out of it for 15 nights (in my case). Then return the mixture to your head and sew it all back up. That's getting to how I felt upon crossing the border to France.