This will be the last of my Italian blogs. I’ve been back over a month now – and as is the way with most holidays, the memories have started to recede already. It’s a bit sad really. I look back at some of my photos and wonder, was I really there?
I would go again in a heartbeat though– if someone could tell me a sure-fire way to avoid the ghastliness of long distance flying. I was still reeling two weeks later from that last Eastward leg, but more about that later.
Anyway, I learned a lot from this trip – not only about Italy and travelling alone, but also about myself.
1) I learned that I was not easily intimidated and was prepared to ‘have a go’ at most things.
I felt very safe in Italy and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to other solo female travellers.
I may have acquired some survival Italian, but honestly, all I could have gotten by very easily with just Hello, Goodbye, Excuse me, Please and Thankyou – and a smile.
Only part of my time away was spent on my own though. The other part was with two organised tours. The longer, privately organised tour was with Father Joe and Michela and I’ve already talked about that, and the two-day trip to Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri was booked through a big travel company.
I think that the smaller, more customised groups are the way to go if you ever have a choice. The food will be better and the trip less … umm commercially driven. The Pompeii/ Sorrento trip, while having wonderful scenery, included two factory tours – one for cameo jewellery and the other for marquetry that were too opportunistic for my taste.
Travelling on your own can be a two edged sword however. If you travel on your own, you can do things on the spur of the moment far more readily than if you have to persuade your travelling companion/s to come along too. It’s fair to say that there were several things that I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d been with others. My climb to the top of the cupola of Il Duomo springs to mind, as does my pleasant hour or two spent wandering through the Florence leather markets, where I lingered where I chose and stopped for food when I fancied.
But on the other hand, when I witnessed a fireworks display over Vesuvius at midnight from my Sorrento hotel balcony, I would have loved to have been able to share that experience with a travelling companion.
2) I learned that digital photography fundamentally changes the holiday experience.
In the old days of proper film driven cameras, taking holiday snaps was very uncertain. You had to wait for the prints to come back from the chemist shop – then discovering that perhaps your exposure was off, or that your hand wobbled at a critical moment , or wondering where the Hell you’d taken that particular shot, or why you needed 15 shots of the same castle ruin (True story – Dover Castle 1984).
No, modern digital photography changes all of that.
With digital cameras, you can adjust and edit as you go. It's a case of ‘Nah no good, Ditch that. Yep keep this one.’
You can even show off your shots while they’re still in your camera, edit them waiting for a train (as I did in Corniglia),and later, quickly upload them to the net so you can share them with friends and family back home, so long as you can find an internet café.
One downside is that digital cameras can be energy hungry. On my first day in Venice, I discovered that my filming the bells chiming in San Marco square totally sucked my one and only battery dry within a minute or two. I resolved to limit myself to still photography from that point on and bought a new battery for emergencies. It sure came in handy. I had a tendency to run low on power while in inaccessible places. As you can imagine, needing a fresh battery on the top of a cathedral roof is not something you want to do without a fully charged spare in your pocket.
I also learned that I have a heavy right hand when it comes to grabbing a quick shot. I had SO many wonky horizons, it wasn’t funny. But thanks to a wonderful little computer programme called Rotation Pilot, I was able to salvage some very dodgy photos and ended up with mostly usable shots.
3) I learned to thank my lucky stars.
Australia is a fantastically lucky country. I was shocked at how many beggars there were on the streets. We'd been advised to walk past, but it made me uncomfortable for many reasons.
I had several near catastrophes – where things could have gone horribly wrong for me – but thankfully did not.
In that category were:
a) almost missing the train from Rome to Florence. (note to self – go by the train number, NOT the destination.).
b) stepping off a kerb into Roman traffic and looking right (instead of left) and feeling the whoosh of air on my stomach as a car whizzed past me with only millimetres to spare.
On the clumsy ‘You -won’t-do-that-again’ category we had:
a) gashing my thumb tip with a razor in my toiletry bag while reaching for my makeup while hurrying to get ready for the opera at La Scala. Picture me - All dressed up in my best duds and with a sonking great bandaid on my finger. Uh - so not the way I wished to be seen that night.
b) And worse, I slipped over while stepping into a bath and was lucky not to do anything worse than bruise my ‘groinical’ region (which was still quite spectacularly colourful weeks later- but you'll have to take my word for that.)
4) I learned to appreciate the joys of the unexpected along the way.
I discovered that the more I anticipated a sight or event, the more likely I was to be disappointed by it. Conversely I found the greatest pleasures in the most unexpected things, such as: the fabulous Bronzino exhibition, the smell of freshly grated nutmeg during my pasta cookery class, and the taste of grapefruit gelato.
I had no expectations of Capri and many for Pompeii. Guess which turned out to be the better day for me?
I’d waited forty years to see Pompeii and unfortunately I think I lucked out on the tour guide, who somehow made the tour more about her – and not the poor folk whose lives we were examining. She neither captured my imagination nor stirred my soul – and I dearly wanted to be moved by the history of the place.
The truth was I was ready to leave well before our time was up; the heat and the boring tour did me in.
But the next day on Capri - with the fabulous Marco as our guide - was a pleasure from start to finish, because I went with absolutely no expectations. Even though we were not able to visit the Blue Grotto due to choppy weather conditions, we had a wonderful day. I was entranced by the views of the Bay of Naples from the chairlift at Anacapri, swept away by the smells that wafted up from the forest floor, as we skimmed the treetops with our feet, and was captivated by the bright blue of the water - so different from the inky blue black of Ligurian coast – or anywhere else for that matter.
5) I learned that it is a small, small world.
This is deadset true. It was our last day in Rome and I was walking across St Peter’s Square after leaving the Sistine chapel, when I spotted a familiar face queuing for the Vatican Post Office. It was a senior RN from work!
We were amazed at the coincidence. Neither of us knew each other well, certainly not well enough to know that the other was travelling, But there we were –10, 000 miles from home and literally passing within metres of each other. Freaky huh?
Folk were generally intrigued that I was from Tasmania – and my little Tassie Tiger cap was a hit until I lost it in a Rome restaurant. :( I was bemused and amused that some of Fr. Joe’s US tour group didn’t believe that the Tasmanian Devil really existed - not that he looks much like the cartoon character though - and took great pleasure in showing them actual photos of the creature. I didn't dare start about the fact that the Tasmanian Devil and the Tasmanian Tiger are not the same. Oh nooo. Way too complicated
I did meet one Italian at least who actually been to Tasmanial. Our cooking teacher in Florence had an offsider called Marco – and he’d visited Tasmania and sailed in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race some years before. I’ve told him he must stop by next time he’s Downunder.
6) I learned you REALLY need to keep your sense of humour front and centre when you’re in transit.
I think it helps if you can go with the flow. There is no point stressing out about things that are outside your control – such as public transport in all its forms and long waits spent queueing for tickets or even gelati – even if the pay off with the latter is oh-so-worth it.
That being said I was frustrated that I’d missed the train from Corniglia to Manarola by the length of a platform - and then found that the next train wouldn't be coming for another hour and a half (instead of the expected 10 minutes). Now since this particular railway platform was 300 steps below the town – and had a passably pretty view overlooking the Ligurian Sea and, I decided to sit tight. I figured that there were plenty of worse places I could be stuck.
I wish I could say that I brushed off the long eastward bound flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney as easily as that wait in Corniglia. I’d done fine with the westward flights. But this one was gruelling with a capital GRU.
What I might do next time is arrange an overnight stopover somewhere in Asia to let my body clock adjust – or maybe I should simply get a hold of some drugs to knock me out.
I have one particularly vivid memory of that horrendous flight. We entered Australian airspace over the NW coast of Western Australia in the middle of the night – two am of thereabouts – and the personal entertainment console on the headrest in front of me was keeping me up to date, telling me things like:
a) how fast we were travelling (not fast enough),
b) how cold it was outside ( bloody freezing). But it was hot and stuffy inside.
c) where we were relative to Mecca (WTF – oh wait, this is a Middle Eastern airline) and
d) how many hours to our destination (sob… Five. More. Freaking. Hours!)
I was close to despair, being unable to
a) escape the dry and stale atmosphere,
b) unpuff my ankles or de-vein my red eyes,
c) maintain my fluids without gulping down three or four of the piddly little drinks at a time, IF an attendant was passing by.
d) stretch my legs without having to clamber over my seat mates,
e) ease my backside or unwedge my knees from the back of the seat in front of me.
Right at that moment, I was convinced that this flight would never end – and then I had two domestic flights to look forward to. I would have wept, but I was so dry I don’t think my eyelids could make tears any more.
My long journey home had started at 9.30 am on Tuesday, with me lugging my suitcase ON MY BACK down three flights of a skinny circular staircase (rope handrail if you please) in a house high in Vernazza, then by train to Milan, bus to the Airport, then planes times two, bus in Sydney, two domestic planes and finally – unwilling to wait for a shuttle bus, a cab from the airport to my front door at 2 pm on Thursday.
I have NEVER been so glad to see my house as when I opened the door after 40 something hours of solid travelling.
And what greeted me?
Nick saying with genuine surprise ‘Oh you’re back today!’ and a very strong mildewy smell hitting me between the eyes right at the front door. How could he have not noticed this? The first thing I did was track down the week-old damp towel hiding in the laundry and shoved it into the washing machine. Ughhh
Not surprisingly – even though I was desperately tired, I was not about to sit down. I prowled around the house for hours, feeling vaguely unsettled.
7) Lastly I learned ( well reminded, really ) that Jetlag is a funny thing.
I’d truly be fine one minute, then be suddenly overcome with a wave of fatigue mid- morning or mid afternoon – and then I’d be wide awake at midnight- and again at four am.
My sleep patterns took some time to recover. I was waking at 4 am all through that first week, usually waking feeling very disoriented
The first night I woke, utterly convinced that I’d been left behind somewhere on some form of public transport. It took me several minutes of heart-pounding panic before I worked out I was in my own bedroom and that the inky blackness and lack of engine or people noises were actually OK.
A few more WTFery moments.
1 )The opera I saw at La Scala used the ‘old switching identities’ plot device, not once but twice. One of the mixed-up pairs was a lady and her maid. Pretty standard fare for opera really - except that in this production the lady was black – and her ‘doppelganger’ maid was not! I guess that folk in ‘opera land’ are either colour-blind or not very observant. Lol.
I have to confess I am not a huge fan of opera. The plots are SO slow and the characters seem to repeat themselves an awful lot. There was one duet towards the end of the play where the characters told us they were feeling confused - over and over again - for at least ten minutes. It was all I could do not to yell. ‘All right We get it. Just get on with it, will ya!’ But you’ll be pleased to know that I maintained my ladylike decorum.
2) I’d never seen a three-way beer/wine spigot before.. Beer came out of the central spigot, white wine came from the spigot on the left and red from the right. That was pretty darn nifty I thought.
3) None of the hotel rooms had tea or coffee making facilities. As great as Italian coffee is, there were some times when I just wanted something hot and wet to drink in my room. Instant would have been fine ( but is probably anathema to the Italians)
4) While queuing at the check- in counter to return to Oz, there, was a lady ahead of me who was sent away with a suitcase that weighed about 35 kg ( 77lb) She was only a little thing too. I don’t know how she even carried it. Unless she was able to divest herself of about a third of her load, she was going to be facing a massive excess baggage bill.
5) I was disconcerted to find that video cameras were mounted on the underside of our aircraft, presumably so that the passengers could all watch the landing - and admire the pilot’s skill –or simply watch the ground rushing up to meet us. Uh … no thanks. Looking out the window will do me just fine. I might even keep my eyes shut during the landing thankyou.
Well, that is about it for this blog. I adored my trip even with the harrowing return flight. It was worth it to be visiting new places, eating new foods and seeing some of the world's richest history, art and architecture first hand.
I want to visit Europe again, if not next year, then certainly the year after. I’m currently very taken with the idea of a leisurely European river cruise. Up the Rhine, down the Seine or along the Danube anyone?
