Pisa and the Tower

Our last stop in Italy was Pisa. All we saw there was the tower. By that stage we were totally touristed out. The narrow, twisty streets no longer beckoned invitingly. The river did not call out to be followed. Streets lined with market stalls held no allure. We were footsore and tired. And HOT! After we arrived at the Pisa train station, we tramped through the streets with heavy packs and chafed feet. We flopped onto the beds when we got to the bungalow at the campsite. (Twin beds again – do no campsites in Europe cater for couples?) And it was hard to motivate ourselves to get up and walk to the tower. Thank goodness it wasn’t far – less than a kilometre from our bungalow.

It was well worth the walk in the heat, though. The tower is lovely. Even taking away the curiosity of the lean, it is a most impressive building. N and I agreed that it was the prettiest building we had seen in Italy. It is clean and shiny white. The detail is fantastic. You approach the tower across the Piazza de Miracoli (Square of Miracles) which is surrounded by an inviting green lawn. (We had to test it out and lay all over it for a while. Definitely softer than the campsite grounds we have experienced up till now.) The tower hides away behind a Cathedral, which is a beautiful building in its own right.

You notice the tower’s strange lean as it peeks out from behind the wall of the Cathedral. 

The lean becomes a whole lot more pronounced when you get closer and see it standing alone, but next to the straight wall of the Cathedral. 

The tower is a feast of columns. The columns are topped by fantastic details. The one that most caught our fancy was a group of strange monkey type figures. Monkeys? Demons? We weren't quite sure. Here's a picture - you decide.

Cats of Italy

This post is for Elaine, to cheer her up a bit because she's sick. And tired. A bit sick and tired. And also, she really is sick.

This blog is a collection of pictures of the cats that I have encountered in my travels thus far. There were some lost opportunities - the cat on the fence post, escaping the dewy grass; the scaredy cat in Gravina who fled as soon as he saw me and couple of cats that have sailed past me, winking, before I could get the camera out. But there were some cats that I did manage to stalk successfully and so Elaine, these are for you...

The cat in the Sorrento campsite, who spent his days on a leash. The most well behaved cat I have ever seen. Most cats I know would have gone ballistic:

The Sorrento campsite kitty, lying peacefully on the grass while tethered to a tree:

The cat from Matera having a standoff with N:

A most baleful look from the Matera cat (he's still looking at N):

The second cat from Matera was too cool to look around at either of us:

The cat from Camping Roma - playing under a tree with leaves and his own paws:

The most dignified, upper crust cat from Villa d'Este in Tivoli, surveying his fish pond:

My favourite. The cat from the Temple of Sybil in Tivoli. Guardian cat?

Sorrento Scenery

Ok, there have been a few requests for more photos. And so this is going to be a post with not much writing, just a couple of photos. (Beside which, I am thinking I should post something quickly so that the post filled with naked boobs is not the first thing people see when they visit.) Bear in mind please, that photos go a little bit fuzzy when they’re compressed. But my internet connection is too slow to cope with uploading 4 meg pictures.

These pictures are all taken in Sorrento – a very pretty place indeed. Thanks to Julia for suggesting that we swing past here. We’ve ended up staying a week.

Vesuvius across the bay, taken from the campsite beach:

Coastal road out of Sorrento:

Sorrento main road:

Vesuvius acros the bay, taken from the town:

Sorrento beachfront:

Sorrento Harbour:

View of Sorrento from the coastal road:

My favourite view of Sorrento:

 
Tomorrow morning we will be heading off to Pompei again. This time we will be staying at Camping Zeus and are hoping it’s less of a rat hole than Camping Pompei. Here’s hoping too, that it does not rain tomorrow. Today I got rained on as I walked into town to buy myself the cutest book in the whole world. I am about to start reading "Firmin" by Sam Savage, about a literary rat. I have sneaked a few previews and am now torn between starting immediately (the hell with delayed gratification) and not wanting to start because then I am closer to the end. I think it is going to be a book I love. Anyway, I got rained on in my Firmin quest and had to console myself with ice cream. 2 flavours – Fior Di Latte (incredibly rich and creamy vanilla on steroids flavour) and pear (subtle flavours of pear that danced on my tongue….) So yes – tomorrow is back to Pompei city for a trip to the ruins. I am preparing myself to be awed and humbled and a whole lot of other things. I think walking through a destroyed and yet immaculately preserved city might prove to be a rather intense experience. Kind of like the Holocaust museum (not that I’ve been there but it is on my list of places to see.)

Naked People!

Me swimming in the Med sea. Yes, the water really is this blue.

For those of you who don’t want to see photos of boobs, read no further.

I promised a friend of mine, who shall go unnamed (Pieter) that I would post a picture of any hot young topless creatures that I found on the beach. Well, she wasn’t on the beach, she was on the boat that was hanging out just off our beach. But she was topless, so here you go oh, nameless one. Piccies especially for you!!!

Hot, topless lady:

Topless lady and sun cream:

Topless lady cleaning the boat. Made me laugh - I know a few people who would kill to have a maid like this:

Just to make things fair, I am going to post a picture for the girls too. There will be no double standards on this blog.
Feast your eyes, ladies, on the fine specimen of man that I was lucky enough to camp next to…

N very kindly also contributed to this collection of dodgy photos by taking a picture (with my camera – thank you so much, sweetie – while he was supposed to capturing me frolicking in the beautiful blue waters of the Med) of the view down his own shorts. You could hardly see anything, so he thought it was incredibly funny and laughed when I threatened to blog it. Once I’d lightened the photo and upped the contrast a little, however, the photo was no longer the dark, indistinct smudge he had created, but a rather unmistakable view of .. Well, anyway, let’s just leave it there. Save to say that he made me delete it and you will not be seeing item number 3 in my series of dodgy pics... 

I Am So Hungry!!!

I am obsessing. All I can think of is decent grub.

The song in my head right now, going around and around and around, is the song from Oliver. “Food, glorious food…. Sausage and mustard….. jelly and custard….”
Eating out is expensive here and the food is not what I was hoping for. I don’t know if the Italians are really just dainty little eaters who swallow bare morsels at a time, or if they’re into ripping off the tourists. The portions I have seen in restaurants do not match up to a good, South African sized plate. (Other travelers have mentioned the same thing to me, so maybe the restaurants just see tourists coming…) The one meal where we ate out in Rome was awful. I have had much better gnocci at Primi Piatti. And it was 1/4 of the advertised size. The sauce was watered down tomatoey stuff, with about 2 pieces of mince in it. A far cry from the “meat ragout” on the menu. N’s pizza was just as appalling. 3 pieces of very fatty salami type meat does not count as lavish toppings in anyone’s book.
We braved a restaurant once more, in Statte. And it was not too bad. Both of the pizzas were fine, but nothing to write home about. We left there satisfied, both in the tummy sense and in the “nice not to be ripped off because we’re tourists” sense.
Apart from those two occasions, and the pizza by the slice experiences in Rome (fantastic) and Naples (very average) we have been eating on the super cheap.
I have consumed ham and mozzarella rolls; mozzarella and salami rolls; mozzarella and salt rolls; ham rolls; bockwurst sausage (sold in bottles – quite a find at first but the novelty is wearing off rapidly); a carton of peas (desperate for veggies); bottles of asparagus (prompted by incipient scurvy – no N, cheese is not a vegetable….); tuna; sardines; sardines and crackers; tuna and crackers; dry crackers – oh the dreadful litany. I am traumatized just reading it again.
Tanya asked me (full of foodie excitement) to be sure to blog ALL ABOUT THE FOOD!!!
Well, sorry T. Doomed to disappointment.
My best stretch of meals has been quite recent. We found some hamburger patties in a super market and they weren’t excessively priced. 3.3 Euros for 4 patties. About R40. Twitching with excitement and drooling like starving slum dogs, we dashed home and fried them up in the campsite kitchen. Plonked between two slices of bread, they were absolutely delicious. It’s the first real meat in a meal that I have had for nearly 3 weeks. Those who know me well will understand the trauma of me being meatless. I am unable to decide which is worse – no meat with a meal or no red wine. Horrors. The next morning, I cooked up some French toast and slathered cherry jam over it all. Sublime. And then night before the hamburgers, I also bought myself a helping of chips from the camp site restaurant and drenched them with vinegar.
That, dear Tanya, I’m afraid to report, has been the gastronomical height of this trip so far. (Apart from the pizza in Rome, which perfection seems doomed never to be repeated. The Holy Grail of pizza…)

It’s very strange to me – the lack of variety in the little Italian food shops. The super markets are small and all seem to stock 905 the same stuff. I have a theory that the same single truck goes round the whole of Italy, stocking up every single shop from the same small selection of goodies. Fillings to put on sandwiches: nutella and jam. That’s it. Every shop the same two items. For the first time 2 days ago, N found honey and peanut butter. He paid about R50 for a tub of peanut butter and about the same for a pot of honey. Meanwhile, I sanctimoniously (more broke…) paid about R15 for the cheapest pot of jam in the shop. But it was cherry jam, and I really like it. Another find! I love it when the stuff I enjoy turns out to be the cheapest stuff on the shelf!
Hehe – on that note, my other big score was the expensive cherry juice that N bought himself. He failed to notice the bit in German, where it indicated “sour cherry” juice. N has the sweetest tooth on this planet. He did not like the cherry juice and donated a large portion of it to me. I did like it. I liked it a lot!
There is usually a huge range of cheeses for sale, a medium selection of cold meats (ham and salami and maybe some turkey/chicken) and then an entire row filled with packets of pasta. A full row. The pasta takes up more space than any other single item in the whole store. To go with the pasta, there is usually a large range of plain tomato paste.

Anyway, so much for any concerns about getting fat in Italy. So far there has not been a whole lot of pigging out on gastronomic delights. I was so looking forward to trying out a variety of exciting local dishes in every country I went to. Hold out for Spain, Mallorca and Croatia, T! I am hoping that the food there will be less expensive and more exotic.

My wishlist right now:
A man size, juicy, rare rump steak.
Chips to go with it, drenched in vinegar.
A BUCKET load of sushi. I covet a Friday evening of eat as much as you like at the Tokyo Sushi bar.
A delicious glass of South African shiraz. Ok – make that one a bucket load too.
Lindt chocolate balls. The box of assorted flavours.
An icy Coke. Real coke, not the stuff they serve here. It’s not the same.
A boerie roll, covered in tomato sauce and mustard.
A Steers burger.
Nandos.
Kentucky Streetwise 2.
A home cooked meal. Maybe T’s roast chicken, with roast potatoes and peas and butternut.
Thai green curry. A la Helen.
My own chicken stirfry, with oodles of chili.
An internet connection that does not constantly bomb out on me.

Things I could happily never see again:
Mozarella cheese on a roll. Or anywhere. (Except on those pizzas from Rome.)
Ham rolls.
Bread.
Tuna.
Sardines.
Bockwurst sausages in a jar.


N’s wishlist right now:
Condensed milk.
Florentino cookies.
A nice place to climb.
Good internet.
Heroes.

Typical Lunch - ham and mozarella roll:

Rain and Volcanoes

The last few days have been all about rain and volcanoes. It has rained for almost three days solid. One of those days we were at Camping Pompei (a rat hole if ever there was one) in a tent. Camping Pompei is a small campsite in the city of Pompei. It is filled largely with camper vanners and most of them seem a little trailer trashy. The man who showed us to our camp site (a patch of grass so tiny it hardly warranted the name) was a short, stumpy “Lord of the Rings”-esque dwarf with a permanent scowl. He showed us to our camp site and stumped off scowling. We pitched our tent and went on a gorgeous scenic drive down the Amalfi coast.

Scenic Amalfi Coast:

Note to anyone intending a gorgeous scenic drive down the Amalfi coast – don’t do it on a weekend. The roads are long, winding, hilly affairs that snake along cliff faces. The cliffs then fall hundreds of feet into the sea. There are little parking bays to pull into every time you want to do some gawping at the incredible view. Unfortunately, on a weekend the roads are also jam-packed with traffic. It took us forever to drive from Pompei down the coast to Sorrento and past Amalfi. The scooters are the worst kind of annoying. On sections of open road they cruise along slowly, two abreast, with the drivers and their female pillion passengers yakking across at each other. This effectively stops any car from getting past them. As soon as the traffic comes to a standstill, though, they whip into single file and zoot through the snarl up, only to reform as soon as they are out of the jam, and then they slow down the next set of cars. I am surprised scooter drivers in Italy don’t have a drastically short life span.

Islands off the Amalfi Coast:

These roads are also a cyclist’s wet dream. The Amalfi coast line is a lot like Chapman’s Peak, only bigger, better and more beautiful. Cyclists were out in their droves, all cruising along for an awesome weekend ride with the most stunning view. Something that interested me was that none of the seemed to wear helmets. Obviously they are pretty confident that no one is going to run them down. Of course, they do not have our taxis to contend with. Or the road rage. 

Rock Formations on the Amalfi Coast:

After our coastal crawl we continued on to Vesuvius, despite the misty stuff swirling warningly about the top of the mountain. The day got a lot cooler as we drove up towards the top car park. You get to drive quite a long way up the mountain. By the time you park (and pay your 6.5 Euros entrance fee) there is a relatively short walk left to the crater. We walked up in a chilly wind and wispy clouds. We didn’t mind too much, as there is no shelter on the path and on a hot, sunny day the walk up must be nightmarish. The path is bare except for dust, stones and shale. It’s a short but steepish walk, and the shale gives way slightly with every step you stake. We decided not to part with our precious Euros and declined the offer of a walking stick at the beginning of the path. Most other people took a stick but it’s really not necessary if you’re even vaguely young or fit. 

I thoroughly enjoyed being at the top. It was delightfully gloomy and atmospheric, what with the stark pumice rock and the swirling mist all about. However, the swirling mist did prevent us from looking down into the crater. We wondered up and down along the top until the cloud lifted for long enough to allow us a peek into the crater. It wasn’t as dramatic as we had expected. It’s just a big hole in a mountain. Not a sinister, black hole lined with jagged rock and gnarled lava formations. Just a pale, rocky, vegetated slope leading down to a sandy bottom. Not exactly fire and brimstone material. Of course, given the choice I’d rather look into a sandy pit than into a raging inferno with the power to blow the top off a mountain and bury some cities and a few thousand people. We plan to visit the Pompei ruins within the next week or so.

Undramatic Volcano Crater:

More Like A Volcano:

Slightly chilled, we pilfered a few pieces of pumice rock and then decided to depart. We scurried swiftly down the shaley path, finding it a whole lot more pleasant to descend. Feeling ever so faintly smug at having been there and done that, we dashed swiftly past the folk who were only then ascending – trudging and gasping for breath. We piled into the Panda (Fiat Panda rental car – we were most impressed with this little car and the fact that we could squeeze all of our backpacks and assorted nonsense into its boot) and, pausing only to get lost in Pompei city (de rigeur for any drive we do in an Italian city) we fled back to the sanctuary of our nice homely tent. We were so looking forward to being cosy and warm. The rain had turned our tiny patch of grass at Camping Pompei into a puddle. (Another black mark for Camping Pompei.) Thank goodness for the brand new North Face Tadpole tent. Its water proof capacities were well tested and we got through the night mostly dry. Unfortunately our sleep was somewhat disturbed by the rest of the inmates. Someone thought it would be a good idea to shout intermittently around 1:30 in the morning. Someone else then thought it would be a good idea to open both tent flaps and let in a pack of mosquitoes. After a few nasty stinging sensations I spent 30 or so grumpy minutes hunting down mosquitoes and shining the torch vengefully into the eyes of my “sleeping” tent mate, who was trying to pretend he didn’t know I was hunting instead of slumbering peacefully. After committing a couple of gruesome murders (sadly not one of my victims was a noisy neighbour) I retired back to my sleeping bag and willed myself to sleep.