Week 20
The drive to Florence was extremely windy and quite narrow considering we were on the A1. We arrived at camping Michelangelo in Florence at about 11am. At the campground we were treated to a great view of Florence especially the old town (although camping was 33 euro per night, aka rip off). We quickly had some lunch and got some well over due washing done, then hit the pavement toward old town. Firstly we went to Piazza Michelangelo where you get possibly the best view of any city we have seen in our travels. In Piazza Michelangelo there is of course a statue of David, and a clear view of the cathedral of Saint Maria del Foire, Basilica Santa Croce and Maria Novella, the river Arno which has the Ponte Vecchio bridge. We made our way down hill and crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge which was lined with jewellery shops. We then walked past the Uffizi museum toward Piazza della Signora, which was pretty cool as it had whole lot sculptures (including a replica of David) around the Piazza. We then went to the Cathedral of Maria della Foire and had a look inside, it was amazing, the third biggest after St Peters and St Pauls. After this we went to Santa Croce Cathedral and had a tasty gelato. We then headed back to the campground and took some great night shots of Florence along the way. That night we planned for the next day with the Academia gallery at the top of the list to see Michelangelo’s David, then a city tour followed by a visit to the Uffizi museum.
We woke nice and early to beat the queues at the Academia gallery, which we did there was no queue and few people inside. We strolled around and took in all the artwork and sculptures by all the big names. We sat down and admired Michelangelo’s David for a while before watching a documentary on him. By 1130 we were gallery(ed) out, we decided to head for lunch. I had a nice duck ragu and James had a pizza of course. We started to head toward the meeting point for the city tour with a spot of purse and bag shopping along the way. I managed to score a nice little leather bag and purse for 50 euro (bargain). We found the meeting point outside the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella but to our disappointment the clown taking the tour didn’t show up on time. We waited half an hour then left. At this stage we couldn’t build up energy for another museum, so we decided to flag the most talked about and most popular museum in Florence, the Uffizi museum. Nevermind maybe we’ll do it when we’re 70. On the upside we headed toward Piazza Pitti and saw the palace that was rather grand. Along the way we found the best flavoured gelato (Choc-orange) -the cheapest we have found in Italy. It was so good we went back for a second helping 2 minutes later. We were done with Florence by this point and are starting to notice we don’t have stamina we did 3 months ago. So back to the van for some dinner and skype home.
Parting ways with Florence we packed up and drove onto a place called San Romano, where we were basing ourselves for a visit to Pisa. We parked up and then walked a 3km walk to the train station, arriving in Pisa that afternoon. With Pisa being quite small it only took a couple of hours to see the sights, the leaning tower (of course) and the surrounding cathedral and baptistery. It was cool to see the leaning tower (it really is on quite an impressive angle). We were lucky enough to get a really nice sunny day and managed to take all our funny photos there before sampling some tasty gelato nearby. We sat in the sunshine and gazed over the to the tower of Pisa, which was when James decided he would go for round two of gelato. We made our way back to the train station, picking up some bread on the way so we could enjoy some bruschetta with our prosecco to wrap up the evening.
We woke to another sunny day in Tuscany, driving on to Siena and found a nice campground. On arrival I had to make a phone call back to London about a potential job for when I return. This was all going well until I had a snake slither past me (I was only wearing jandels too!), freaky! After this excitement we had a quick lunch before walking through Siena old town, which had a marvellous city wall around it. We strolled through the narrow streets and spotted some unique points to their grand old buildings; they would have plastered heads of famous people sticking out of the sides of the walls, just under the rooftops. Quite strange to look up at, as they were looking down at you! We walked to Piazza Del Campo, which was a strangely curved amphitheatre shaped square (which we are guessing is for the horse race they hold here every year). We spotted a sign offering huge slices of pizza, so tempted I decided to have a piece, James preferring a gelato! It’s highly probable we will make a gelato purchase at every third store at this rate! We then walked onto the beautifully ornately decorated Siena Cathedral (Duomo di Siena), which had pink marble on the front, and a zebra striped appearance on the tower and pillars inside, with black and white marble. Quite stunning and strange to see, probably my favourite cathedral to date given how unique it was. By this stage it was starting to get a bit cold so we took our finally shots and headed back to the campground to warm up in the van.
Today we headed to San Gimignano by bus to give James a break from driving. On arrival we were greeted by city walls, which we walked through to what is called Medieval Manhattan. It was lovely strolling the streets, taking photos of the old buildings and towers. We made a local purchase of some Wild Boar and Truffle salami, which was really tasty but stunk our bag out all day! We were also pleased to stumble across the 2006/07 and 2008/09 Gelato Champion’s shop. Obviously we had to try it. James played it safe with mango, passionfruit and a second one of mint and crème caramel whereas I was more adventurous with raspberry and rosemary and pink grapefruit and sparkling wine. Although not my favourite flavours, they did taste, as you would expect them to, exactly like the flavours. We spent the last hour walking outside the wall where we managed to get some pretty pictures of the Tuscan countryside before catching a bus back to Siena where we settled in at the campground.
We left early from Siena to drive to Ravenna, where we were lucky enough to have been offered a full B and B experience, including personal tour guide in my Italian friend Matteo and his family (Matteo was over from London for the weekend). We arrived right on midday and Matteo and his mother greeted us, we offered a customary and highly recommended bottle of wine from Tuscany and then they showed us around the home before we meet his sister and father and sat down for lunch together. And what a fantastic lunch it was. Our first course was cuttlefish with peas in a tomato-based sauce with white and brown rice (which was almost black in colour). We had never tried cuttlefish and found it to be really tasty, a cross between squid and a firm fish. The second course was sea bream, marinated anchovies, peppers stuffed with an olive and anchovies and a salmon, prawn, tomato and cannellini bean salad. All so delicious, and served with a glass of white wine. We both went back for seconds on these courses it was so yum! We then had homemade preserved peaches and finally chocolate-orange cake with a Chantilly cream and some sweet dessert wine. It was such a treat to be sharing a meal with my friend’s family as I have always dreamt of “doing like the locals do” in Italy.
After lunch, Matteo gave us each a bike (and after a detour to collect his bike from his grandmother’s flat) and we rode into town where we did a guided tour around the Old town on foot. Matteo showed us through Dante’s Mausoleum, the Basilica of San Vitale, home to one of the many churches with beautifully detailed and UNESCO listed Mosaics, the Neonian Baptistry, again with beautiful mosaics and we even went through the chocolate festival filled with creative displays and lots of chocolate shaped tools and instruments to purchase.
That evening Matteo took us out to the Regional wine festival that was being held that weekend in their local sports stadium. It was also a chance for Matteo to introduce us to some of his friends from high school. For 14 euro each, we got a wine glass, a platter of food that included sausage from Bologna, pizza, bread and local cheese and all the wine sampling you could fit in between then and closing time. It was such a bargain of a deal. Our excitement soon turned to apprehension when we realised that we were highly likely to be the only people there speaking English and wondered how we would even be able to ask for a sample! However Matteo was fantastic and helped us along until we had enough wine in us to pluck up the courage ourselves! And to be fair we only had to admit defeat once as the gentleman was trying to ask us/tell us something!
We spent the evening meeting and greeting Matteo’s friends (who seemed to enjoy practicing their English on us), wine sampling some delicious wines including the local red wine, Sangiovese and exploring and tasting samples from the gourmet foods section, including the very potent cherry wine (I swear it was a liqueur!), a delicious mandarin gelato (the best flavour yet) and staring in amazement at how costly fresh truffles were to buy! We also got our chance to try the local snack of Pidina, a type of pita filled with Italian ham and soft cheese which was also delicious. Exhausted after a day of touring, we drove back, had a snack of more of the delicious chocolate cake and Chantilly cream and hit the hay.
We woke by 10am (it was so nice to sleep in a normal bed!) and had some breakfast before driving back into town to see the Bascillica of Saint Apollinare Nuovo and the mausoleum of Teodorico. It was a huge shame we had to get going towards Milan and could not stay for lunch but Matteo’s mum was fantastic, providing us with a sample of everything she had prepared for lunch. We decided to quickly eat before getting on the road and enjoyed it all; a pastry filled with cheese, asparagus and Italian ham, a local version of chicory wrapped in prosciutto and a soup with local pasta (made from egg, breadcrumbs and parmesan). It was all really delicious. We said our fond farewells to Matteo and his lovely parent’s after a fabulous stay that did not disappoint (it completely exceeded all of our expectations) and promised to meet again, in Italy or in London. Matteo’s mum provided us with more pidina, mandarins and a bottle of local red wine for the road too, which was so generous of them. I would love to visit again and hope we cross paths with his family again in the future. It was a great experience for both of us and one we will never forget.
We drove on to Milan that afternoon and arrived in good time taking the motorway all the way. We checked into the campground and after confirming a location in town, meet up with friends, Kirk and Eli, who were visiting for the weekend. We strolled the longest fashion street in Milan before admiring the Duomo (Cathedral) and the boys stopping at McDonalds to attempt the Happy Meal Challenge together. The goal of the challenge (as attempted unsuccessfully in Turkey and Greece) is to eat a Happy Meal in under 1 minute. Both boys came so close, but again no cigar (just chunks of bread in their glasses of coke!). Gross! We then went to dinner, having a delicious pizza and red wine before heading back to the campground.
Week 21
The next day we jumped online to book the Milan city tour (which included the Last Supper). It was frustrating to find out that doing this tour was the only way we could actually go and see the Last Supper, as tickets are sold out two months in advance (so tour company’s buy them in bulk). At a rip off price of 60 euro each, we booked the morning tour for the next day before heading back into Milan to meet up with Kirk and Eli. We walked up to the top of the Duomo, which showed how impressive the statues and decorative pillars really were up close. We then did a spot of shopping (rather unsuccessfully) and had lunch together before farewelling Kirk and Eli and James and I heading back to the campground for the night.
We made it just in the nick of time for the start of the morning city tour (rush hour traffic we had not planned for!) and were the last ones on the bus in fact. The tour took us to the Scala Theatre where we got to look inside the museum and theatre itself, where all the big names of Opera had performed and which we knew nothing about. It was very interesting but we likened the theatre to any of the lovely theatre buildings in London really. We then walked through the oldest shopping mall in the world, which is also home to one of the two seven stared Hotel’s (a cost of 11,000 euro/night to stay at-NOT including breakfast) and onto the Duomo where we looked around inside. We then drove onto the castle where Leonardo Da Vinci lived for 17 years and is now a museum. Unfortunately we did not have time to go inside the museum that is home to Da Vinci’s first fresco painting he completed after the Last Supper and also a Michelangelo sculpture. After this we drove onto the Cenacolo Vinciano at Piaza Santa Maria Dell Grazei to see the Last Supper. Security was tight, with three automatically controlled doors to get inside. Each group of no more than 25 people at a time are allowed 15 minutes before you are ushered out. The security measures were said to help protect the painting. It was an impressive mural and the tour guide explained the meaning of the painting to us all including the history of the building, which was bombed in WW2 and used as a barn by Napoleon’s army. It was even a prision at one stage. There was definite evidence of deterioration, which we learnt was due to the style of the painting but it was definitely well worth the tour to see it. It was pretty awesome to be standing in front of the Last Supper, much more impressive than the Mona Lisa or the statue of David we think.
We finished the tour and headed directly back to the van, driving on to Italian Riviera. We had initially found a campground close to Cinque Terre online, but despite saying it was open, to our shock (it was 5pm at night) it was closed. Thankfully we had a back up option, but this meant driving through the windy coastal roads, with massive one-way tunnels. It meant huge delays but we arrived in Rapello at 7pm pleased to see the gate open. Exhausted it was dinner and then bed.
The next day we raced to the train station and caught the next train to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is made up of five separate coastal villages, all in succession, which are mostly cut off to road traffic and have beautiful rustic buildings, built high by the waterfront. We arrived in the bottom village Riomaggiore only to discover the walking tracks were all closed for winter and that there was a train strike that day from 2pm to 6pm. It meant we only had time to visit this place (which was beautiful) and one other, we chose Vernazza. We enjoyed strolling the streets, taking photos and tried some pizza and yummy gelato; fig and ricotta was delicious. Then it was time to head back before the strike. Unfortunately we were delayed by one hour getting back so all in all we were very disappointed that we were not aware of the strike as we could have seen all of the villages any other day. Seeing we got back early we managed to find the esplanade in Rapello and strolled the streets before heading back to the van, taking home some yummy profiteroles filled with custard cream.
Despite plans to move on, we both agreed the Italian Riviera was well worth exploring some more, and the weather was so sunny and warm too so after a morning of errands we caught a train to Genoa and explored their old town, home to many impressive buildings. We then toured through their aquarium; Europe’s second largest, enjoying the dolphin show and seeing all sorts of cool and weird creatures, the alligator were my favourite and James liked the Jellyfish display the best. It was a nice relaxing day out.
We drove out of Rapello and drove through to France, settling at a campground between Nice, Cannes and Monarco. Unfortunately I had a bad head cold so I spent the rest of the day lying down while James watched movies. We agreed to catch a train to Monaco the next day, both hoping I would feel better tomorrow.
