Naples - The Birthplace of Pizza

The train ride from Florence took 9 hours with a 2 hour wait in Rome (which was killed by eating ice cream and having a beer). The train from Rome to Napoli didn't have aircon and it was really crowded. Luckily all the windows were open, so we got a nice cross breeze.

When we got off the train the air was a mix of the clean ocean breeze seized with the aroma of pizza.

We stayed at Hotel Zara located very close to the railway station, with all that that entails of Italian and African street vendors and streets full of garbage. We were not hazzled in any way, and it felt safe at daytime. We made sure to back at the hotel before it got dark though. Downtown Napoli, near the boats that take you to Capri and Ishcia, was however clean and well kept, with a nice promenade and some interesting historical buildings and museums. 

Naples is the third largest city in Italy after Rome and Milan, and has 960,000 inhabitants. Naples is one of the oldest continuously-inhabitatied cities in the world as it has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. It is, however, not a very exciting city, and most people only come here on their way to visit Pompei and Vesuvio. 

Naples is, however, the birthplace of the pizza. The term "pizza" first appeared in a Latin text in 997 AD, which claims that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop 'duodecim pizze' ['twelve pizzas'] every Christmas Day, and another twelve every Easter Sunday.  Of course, we had to have pizza for dinner, and La Brace was recommended by the hotel, and a good choice. 

The following day we walked around town, and hoped to find an Internet cafe as WiFi was not stable at our hotel, so we could look for a place to stay in Amalfi, but August 15th is the national holiday of Italy, so everything was closed. We decided to just to go Amalfi and hopefully find a place knowing full well that this is the peak holiday season for Italians.

It was 39 degrees, and we were dying for a swim in the ocean, so we walked one hour to 'the beach' - a concrete platform, but the water was heavenly. Andy saved a couple of sunglasses for a British girl, who had dropped them among the boulders. Hero of the day!

Dinner consisted of take-away pizza from Rossopomodore and a bottle of red wine at the Piazza Tieste e Treno.

Ciao Naples!

San Remo, The Italian Riviera

The highway drive from Priocca in Northern Italy to San Remo on the Italian Riviera took almost 4 hours, but is was beautiful as part of the way we were surrounded by 360 degrees view of the Alps and small villages perched on hill tops.

Andy has had some challenges with directions, so the 'Direction Fairy' finally decided to help him out! Note from Andy: This is flawed navigator humour, and the driver (Andy) who relies on the navigator for useful instructions, and not exits that are unexpectedly  closed 5 minutes before we arrive, or freeway signs that through some unexplained miracle have decided to walk across to the other side of a divided highway, can not be blamed for not listening to her anymore, and rationally electing to follow a truck with an arrow on it!!!!

The Tourist Information in San Remo found us a room at Hotel Centro, which is appropriately named.  Most Tourist Informations in Europe daily receives a list of availabilities from hostels, B&Bs and hotels, and thus can assist with finding accommodation on the spur of the moment. Great service.

San Remo is a city with 57,000 inhabitants on the Italian Riviera from the early Middle Ages. We enjoyed yet another swim in the ocean.

We spent some time researching and talking about where to go next, since we are not going to Egypt. We need some grounding, to stay put, cook our own meals and relax. August is the main holiday month in Italy, everything is very expensive, and there are loads of tourists everywhere.  We seriously considered renting an apartment in the province Puglia - the heel of Italy - for 2 weeks as there is less people, and then spend the first two weeks of September in Amalfi as the prices fall drastically after September 1st. No decision was made.

Sunset dinner on the beach,

and then a walk around the Old Town.

Next stop Florence!

Turin - A Magic City

Just in case you didn't know: the Italians drive like crazy and fast, so driving in a 1 million people town like Turin  is stressful:  the cars cut in without indication, scoters are weaving in and out between the cars, and pedestrians are coming from everywhere. But it all is a form of organized chaos. Everyone seems to anticipate what their crazy cousin is going to do! Very few accidents here!

The outskirts of Turin were dusty, slightly shabby, and somehowbold-fashioned. We followed the signs to Centro, and parked at the end of Corso Re Umberto. The city center, however, is beautiful; lots of piazzas, tree lined boulevards, river Po, arch walkways and historic buildings. Piazza Vittorio Veneto is especially beautiful.

Italy was born here, as the treaty unifying Italy under the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 was signed here at the Palazzo Carignano/Museo Nationale del Risorgimento Italiano.  We were told that when the palazzo was designed the  Prince told his son he could choose one feature on the building. And if you take a look at the 'framing' of each window you can see that the framing resembles the head piece of an American indian chief: the feathers on top of the window and the long row of feathers along his back (each side of the window) - the son had spent time in the US and was fascinated by the indians.

The place where Turin rises and its orientation is not chosen by chance; the first settling was influenced by magic-religious factors. Turin has a Roman plan, with the route that opened the four access doors on the four cardinal points, while the main street following the ascending line of the sun. The esoteric tradition considers Turin as one of the three vertices of the triangle of the white magic, together with Prague and Lione, but also as the top of another triangle, that is the black magic, that includes London and San Francisco. We can't forget that Turin is built on the 45° parallel, indicated by the obelisk that at the top has the astrolabe, situated in piazza Statuto (there is one identical at 11 kilometres away at the end of corso Francia). Turin rises at the confluence of two rivers, the Po and the Dora, that create a link of water around the town. The Po symbolizes the Sun, and therefore the masculine side, the Dora is the Moon and the feminine side. Source: aboutturin.com

Turin is also said to hold the entrance to the Underworld, so the devil is lurking! The San Lorenzo church, located on Piazza Reale, has some interesting windows in the dome.

Can't see the Devil?

We strolled around town takeing it all in, and went up the Mole Antonelliana tower to see the city from above.

We had a beer on a samll piazza on Via Di Stamapiori, which had this amazing piece of art on the facade - only visibile when the sun is shining on ii from a certain angle.

Turin was definitely a very pleasant surprise, as in Europe the city has always has a bad reputation being the home of FIAT, the car manufacturer, but the city center is absolutely beautiful. All of the Italians we spoke with prefer Turin to Milan. Absolutely recommendable for a long weekend.

Volunteering in Priocca, Piedmonte, Italy.

We had found Pino (our host) on Workaway, and he needed help preparing for the hazelnut harvest in late August. Pino lives just outside Priocca, which has around 2,000 inhabitants, in a big house and he has 4 ecological hazelnut plantations.

When we arrived and knocked on the door, the guy who opened it said 'Welcome, I am not Pino. Pino isn't home, but come in'. So we did, and as Pino wasn't  there, and the friends were busy preparing basil leaves for making pesto, we jumped right in a helped.

We had a wonderful dinner - the pasta with pesto was out of this world - on the terrace, and we felt so lucky going straight into a typical friends gathering on a Friday evening. It was our first experience of the real Italian culture, sure beats being couped up in a hotel room. We felt genuinely welcome by these warm friendly people, and with our introductory Italian language course taken in Vancouver, we could often understand the thread of the conversation or eureka, we understood what was being said!!

Pino is the guy looking at the camera.

Then the hard work started: We worked 3 hours in the morning until around noon, when it got too hot (35 degrees), and 2-3 hours after 16:30, when it cooled off till around 32 degrees picking all branches larger than 15 cm off the ground among the hazelnut trees as they would stick to the nets when the nuts were harvested, and would be a pain to get out of the nets.

or securing them with metal wire and pegs, so the nuts couldn't fall in between the next when they fell of the trees. 

 The cat was supervising Andy's work. Hard work!

A conventional plantation owner, would use a machine to 'vacuum' the area under the trees from branches, grass and leaves, another machine to harvest the nuts off the ground, and another one to blow air to separate the nuts from the 'cover'  - price around $50,000!

For a couple of days Pino had to do his work as wine inspector, so we were left to work alone, which we enjoyed very much. Every day we went to his ecological garden to pick tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, cucumber salad or herbs for lunch - what a treat. And after lunch a well-deserved siesta - it was way to hot to be outside, let alone working anyway1

And there was always time for a gelato in Canale.

A typical village image in Italy:

Most evenings we didn't start cooking until around 20:30 (read: we chopped, Pino cooked), and we had some amazing simple pasta dishes, salads, bread - and, of course, wine!

Pino was a great host; Saturday evening he took us to the Peach Festival in Canale, a larger village about 5 km away, and we tasted food from different areas of the village, listened to music and soaked in this local event. He made sure to tell us we were sleeping in the next morning, which was great because we didn't arrive home till 1:30am. Note: This was not due to Pino's driving skills. Torino 500 anyone, just hang on and pray to the God of your choosing!!

Another day after finishing work in the evening, Pino took us visit his friend Angelo, who owns the vinery Cascina Ca'Rossa; we tasted some vines, and he gave us a couple of bottles to take home for dinner - no complaints there! Angelo is somewhat famous in Italy, having won twice the award for best wine under ten euros, and guess what he is in the finals again this year!

Tuesday evening around 20:00 when Pino came home, he suggested we go to Turin to have pizza - we were all for that, and got ready right away. It took about one hour to get there, and we had some great pizza. Pino had lived in Turin for 10 years, so after dinner he gave us a guided tour, and what a surprise Turin was to me. The city has had a sad reputation as a 'car manufacturing city' (FIAT factories), and not worth visiting, but the city center is beautiful. The tour gave us some sense of direction, which was helpful, as we were taking the follow day off to go there on our own.

Volunteering Experiences

- In the future, we have to make sure we choose places which are accessible by public transportation, so we have the option of doing some hiking or sightseeing when we have time off.

- We do not want to spend 2.5 weeks in a tent on a futon ever again!!

- We will avoid hard manual labour as we are both reaching the age where all the little aches and pains of middlessence start to add up!

- It was a 'healthy' experience to live back to nature, as it reminded us of how many things we take for granted, e.g. hot water, running water, and kitchen aids.

- We missed having time to ourselves; it takes it's toll tiptoeing around other people's homes, sharing bath rooms, and having to be social all the time. 

- It was wonderful to meet so many interesting people, and we feel richer as they all touched us in different ways.

No more volunteering until mid-November in Nepal, which will be yet another very different experience!

Florence: The Cradle of the Renaissance.

This is the city on whose streets Michelangelo played as a child, and in whose studios the Italian Renaissance had started!

The train ride from San Remo to Florence took 7 hours by regional trains, which are the cheapest, but also the slowest. We seemed to stop in every little town on the way.  We enjoyed the Tuscan country side, and the gentle swaying motion and repeating clicking had a soothing effect on us. We took a quick trip down memory lane as the train from Genoa to La Spetzia went through Cinque Terre, which we visited 4 years ago.

We book most of our on-the-road accommodation through Booking.com as it is easy to navigate, has no cancellation fee unless it is a really last minute booking, and no payment upfront. When we arrived at Hotel Veneto, located 15 minutes walk from the train station, they had no water supply on a whole floor, so we were offered a room on the 3rd floor in another building just around the corner with a great view - lucky for us.  Notice El Duomo on the far left!

The ancient Roman colony of Florentia was founded in 59 BC. Between the 13th and 14th century, at the time of Dante and Boccaccio, when some of the iconic buildings like the Duomo (Cathedral)

and Vecchio Palazzo were built, the city enjoyed a fertile cultural period, and Florence confirmed its economic power in Europe, particilarly with the introduction of the the gold florin, the first truly international currency.

In the 15th century, at the height of the Renaissance, Florence achieved its greatest moment, thanks to the concentration of brilliant personalities like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Florence is called 'The Cradle of Renaissance', and since 1982 the historic center of Florence has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

At the Academia Gallery  we saw Michelangelo's famous statue ' David' as well as many religious paintings, sculptures and busts. David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504. It is made of marble and is 5.17 meters high.

It is amazing to watch the sun set over Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo, a balcony over the city, where there is a replica of the 'David' statue.

When the sun sets over the Arno, it overwhelms Florence with tides of color that makes all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams - Mark Twain

If you feel like a delicious local lunch or dinner in a less touristic area, we can recommend walking across Ponte Vecchio, which is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River. It still has shops build along it. Butchers initially occupied the shops, and now it is jewellers, art dealers and souvenir shops.

Continue up the road for about 100 metres and turn right into to Piazza Santo Spirito, where we had a delicious dinner at Gusta Osteria, and we were also recommended the Osteria Santo Spirito, but we didn't eat there.

The Leonardo da Vinci Museum featured drawings and replica of some of Leonardo's many inventions. Already in 1485 Leonardo invented a projected a tortoise shaped vehicle, reinforced with metal sheet, equipped with and internal sighting turret and cannons.

Leonardo also designed a revolving crane, a hydraulic saw (we saw one in operation in Switzerland), a parachute, and many other inventions.

We chose to ignore pangs of guilt as we would rather relax in a square and watch the world go by than trudge on sore feet through another breathtaking palace, museum or church.

You can buy a Florence card for Euro75 valid for 3 days and it gives you access to 50 museums, and urban busses and trams. We were not interested in that many museums, so we didn't do that, but then it is recommended to book tickets to the museums online before you arrive or go to the various ticket offices and book for the following day, as the line ups for people without tickets were LONG, and it is uncomfortable standing in line for hours in 35 degrees sunshine.

One day we rented bicycles and biked along the river to San Antonio about 7 km outside of Florence. It was nice to get away from the heat and all the tourists. The temperature that day was in the low 40's.

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Every afternoon we have treated ourselves to gelato, and nobody makes ice cream better than the Italians; the most expensive one was Euro 10, and it was worth every bite - we forgot to check the price before buying it! Always check the price first in high tourist areas, particularly near train stations!

We bought salad, tomatoes, cheese and tuna at a supermarket, and had dinner by the river, finishing off the evening by watching the sunset from the bridge with a glass of Chianti Classico. 

What a perfect way to say 'Ciao Florence'.