travel

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1. The French took roundabout landscaping to the next level.  Most roundabouts (particularly in the south) are mini garden/art works that incorporate both plant and art installations. I have photos here from Champagne, they were not the best examples but at least it shows a little of what they do.
2. 4 pm is the hottest part of the day. This is really the case for all of Europe in summer, but it is interesting to me as it is not like this at all in Australia!
3. Summer seems to be the season of the French “Fete”. Numerous towns were having fetes: such as hay festivals, strawberry festivals and the most popular of all, the medieval festival. We actually tried to stay in one town that had a fete in action as we drove through but alas, we could not get accommodation at the local caravan park. This particular town had a jousting match on boats happening as we drove through. Quite unique and most intriguing!
4. McDonalds in France often have a green background, instead of red. At first I incorrectly thought that maybe they were trying to be “different” but after discovering they had free wifi and a desire to try the “Royale with Cheese” (Pulp Fiction) we discovered that green Maccas are actually ones that are fully powered by renewable energy. The majority are of this kind.
5. The main crops in France (at least those I could identify) are: sunflowers, lavender, corn, vines, apricots, apples and hay.
6. It seems no matter the size of the town, they will have a boulangerie (bakery)!
7. Road side rest areas are common (and you are forwarned of their existence), unlike the majority of Europe.
8. Like the Italians, they love the arvo siesta.
9. France was the first country with any livestock of note – cattle. My google searching seems to indicate they are Charolais.
10. The majority of towns are carefully maintained with planter boxes of brightly coloured flowers, hanging pots of flowers from light posts, colourfully painted wooden shutters and artworks painted on the walls of homes and shops.

1. You can enjoy consistently excellent coffee wherever you go.
2. Pretty much all businesses shut down from lunchtime until often three in the afternoon. This includes petrol stations. It is possible to still buy petrol via machines during this time. All businesses shut on Sundays also.
3. Petrol is the most expensive we found anywhere in Europe.
4. It is not uncommon to see garbage piled up on the side of the road where roadside bins have obviously not been cleared for a long time. In general there is a lot of rubbish left on the streets.
5. Italy is the most graffitied country I have ever been in. For example, in Rome, it was common to see the entire exterior of trains covered from top to bottom in graffitied.6 There was little or no landscaping or parks. Buildings often looked poorly maintained.
6. However, where we travelled in the north in Liguria was a notable exception to this general observation and of those mentioned in 4 and 5.
7. There were substantially larger numbers of scooter and motorbike riders in Italy than any other European country we have travelled in this trip.
8. The signs on the road indicating the distance to other towns changed randomly from one sign to the next. The most hilarious and frankly perplexing example was when we saw two signs in the space of about 500 m where one indicated our destination was now roughly 100 km less than the sign 500 m up the road. These contradicting road distances happened enough times for us to start joking about it to each other when another example was identified.
9. Driving on Italian roads is downright scary a lot of the time. It is a regular occurrence to have an oncoming vehicle overtake a line of cars in front of them and to not allow for the fact that you are travelling in the opposite direction. The only way of avoiding an accident is to heavily apply the brakes or drive as best as possible on the shoulder of the road so that they may pass, at speed, between you and the other oncoming vehicles. Another variation on this theme is of course the people behind you overtaking in the same manner and you having to see them in your rear vision mirror in sufficient time as to brake and allow them past you before they collide with the oncoming traffic. Motorists driving at excessive speed, overtaking on blind corners, reversing down a main road towards your oncoming vehicle are all things we experienced.
10. Given point 9 it near beggars belief that we only saw one accident the whole time we were in Italy. Though I will say that the sounds of sirens was a daily event and usually several times a day. So somewhere nearby each day something untoward happened.

In summary, at least Italy has awesome coffee.

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“And the password for the day is women’s underwear!”

Perhaps this is not what you would expect a high school teacher to be saying to his students as he commences the day’s lesson, but then ancient history lessons with Mr Raeburn were never dull or usual. I always went to each class eager to hear that day’s stories told through Mr Raeburn’s interpretation. The ancient texts we read such as Suetonius were brought to life in his classes. The lives of the Roman Emperors were dramatised through his teachings into the most fascinating tales. My memory is somewhat hazy as to which Roman Emperor Mr Raeburn was pretending to be on the occasion of the women’s underwear shenanigans, but if memory serves me right it was Caligula.

We studied a number of the early Roman Emporers: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. If the ancient historians are to be believed they were indeed a colourful bunch! Their exploits were definitely sufficient to keep my history class thoroughly entertained. My fascination with ancient Rome has never left me and with this trip I finally got to walk through the ruins of where these legendary people of history walked before me. How wonderful!

We chose to fly into Rome and leave our little Eriba and Golf to have a sleepover in a campground not far from Genova. We were quite excited about the whole prospect of flying into Rome and staying at the Sheraton for the duration of our time there. It felt decidedly like a holiday within a holiday to us.

Driving around Europe leaving thousands of kilometres in our wake is a most excellent adventure. We have loved our cozy little home, somewhere to call our own for two whole months! No new beds or packing and unpacking of backpacks for us! Just us, our trusty little stead, the road ahead and the next destination. So this whole flying into Rome thing sounded quite exotic and decadent to us at the time. It was definitely out of character to the rest of our European summer trip.

Staying at the Sheraton was a nice little present to ourselves and I think a fitting way to spend our time in this grand city. We had a number of points accrued that allowed us to stay at the Sheraton for next to nothing. We had originally planned to spend four nights in a beautiful resort in Chang Rai, Thailand with our points but as fate would have it the tsunami evacuation and my accident put an end to that. Well, as it turns out, having somewhere a bit fancy to stay in Rome suited as very nicely, thank you!

To top it off when we arrived I was tinkering on the internet when Damien strolled over with the grin of a Cheshire cat on his face. “Guess what?”  he said, “We just got an upgrade and access to the Club Lounge!” Big grins ALL around 😀 Oh and they also gave us a complimentary bottle of Italian liqueor and chocolates. So all in all we were pretty happy with our digs on this occasion!

But enough of that and on to Rome!

I expected that I would be impressed with Rome but I had no idea how big an impact it would have on me. As we alighted from our bus from the hotel we were immediately greeted with the imposing white magnificence of the Museo Centrale Del Risorgimento (or at least we think it was that!). Welcome to Rome! Both Damien and I were unprepared for the grandeur of it all. What an introduction and it wasn’t even on our list of things to see!

As we had two and a half days in Rome we made a list of just a few places that were our “must sees” and stuck to our plan. We managed to fit in a few other things here and there but I am going to focus on just our highlights list.

Day 1

This was a ridiculously hot day. Searingly hot. In fact I would go as far to say it was the hottest day I have experienced this year anywhere, and this has been (with the exception of three weeks in Northern Europe) an endless summer for us. I don’t know if it was the relentless heat or not but the crowds did not seem as bad as I had feared. Before going on our trip to Europe in summer we were reasonably concerned about the crowds. Yet I am pleased to say that we really haven’t had any major concerns in this area.

Our first stop was the Roman Forum. This large area was apparently the civic and religious centre of ancient Rome. We purchased an audio headset and commenced our wander through the ruins. Some of the ruins were in better condition than others but taking the complex as a whole left an indelible impression on me. With a little bit of imagination I could conjure up an amazing picture of how impressive this ancient city once would have looked. What was somewhat disappointing however was that most of the ruins weren’t labelled and the audio wasn’t much help in pinpointing exactly which ruins it was referring to. Thus, we walked around quite a lot of the time guessing which building the audio was talking about.

The Curia, which was effectively their ancient parliament was still standing in all its glory. We went inside and received instant relief from the blazing heat outside. It was staggering how much cooler it was in there by comparison. It was also one of the few well labelled areas of the Forum. There was an impressive selection of ancient artefacts in there from frescoes to ornate glass bottles and dishes in a myriad of colours and designs to gorgeously delicate jewellery. Damien rightly commented on the frescoes saying that anywhere else you would think that they were replicas as they were in such great condition. But no, this was the real deal, just a couple of thousand years old is all!

Next we walked up to the Palatine which is directly adjacent to the Forum. This was apparently the district where the wealthy lived back in the day. We walked around to the site where Emperor Augustus’ home still stands. But alas, access to this is shut on Fridays so we couldn’t have a look through it. I have read that it was restored in 2008 and it contains excellent frescoes. I guess I will have to try and catch that should I return to Rome in the future.

Part of our reason for going to the Forum and Palatine first is that we had read that it is best to visit the Colosseum in the afternoon. Additionally, you can purchase a joint ticket for the Palatine and Colosseum at the gates to the Palatine. This is a cunning and most excellent move as you then just sail on into the Colosseum past the crowds lining up to buy their tickets at the gates of this gladiatorial slaughterhouse. Nice. High fives to us for our planning! Walking through the Colosseum was indeed a memorable and totally mind warping experience. Looking at the bowels where the animals and humans would wait to be hauled to the arena floor via pullies is amazing. Then you spin around and see the sheer size of the seating areas for the spectators. Then you try and imagine this whole thing with a floor and a roof of sails and then full of water (for the mock naval battles) and simply put, you’re bloody impressed! Excuse the pun.

Day one. You were magnificent. I believe the hype!

Day 2

Day two saw us in need of some further self congratulation due to our planning foresight. We had decided to purchase our tickets to the Vatican Museums on line prior to hitting Rome to avoid the queues of tourists who simply wait to buy them on the day. When we went to purchase the tickets we noticed that the Sunday we would be in Rome was the one day of the month that the Vatican allows visitors in for free. We reasoned that more people would try and go on the free day so we should definitely go on the day before and hopefully encounter less people.

We caught the train so we could arrive at the Vatican as soon as the museum was open to avoid crowds. Lucky for us, we just waltzed straight on in as there was no line for pre-purchased tickets. Gold. Not so for those who didn’t we noted. I really wanted to walk as fast as we could (without running!) to the Sistine Chapel so we could get there before it was packed with people. This seemed almost sacrilegious once we entered the Vatican though as we were both gob smacked at what we saw. I couldn’t believe we were burning through these halls at a ludicrious speed. As I blazed a path for Damien to duck, dodge and dive his way through the meandering horde I kept yelling over my shoulder that this was the right decision and that we could come back and take in all this amazing stuff upon our return. This is when being Carroll sized comes into its own as you can squeeze through the tinniest of passes and these little legs can get some speed on when they need to! I could tell by the look on Damien’s face that he wasn’t entirely convinced of the plan and I was yelling him my assurance in part to convince myself that not stopping to jawp and admire everything en route to the Sistine Chapel was the right thing to do.

Well, the proof of our high speed hike was in the result! When we arrived there were maybe thirty odd people in the Chapel! Success. We positioned ourselves on the side wall where there was seating and there we sat for about 40 minutes, our necks craned to the roof and we just admired this masterpiece of Michelangelo. And to think he viewed himself as a sculptor first and foremost! The most lovely part of all was that for a good 20 – 30 minutes of that time was spent without crowds and we had the opportunity to take in everything in almost complete silence and no jostling for space. After absorbing as much as we could from our seat we then spent another 20 minutes or so taking in the walls (which are painted by Michelangelo and several other masters such as Botticelli). By this time it was packed with people and not a pleasant experience nor how something so beautiful should be appreciated in my opinion. Several times the crowd was instructed to be quiet because the din was getting too loud for this chapel, which is afterall the Pope’s chapel and where the cardinals assemble to decide who should be the next man to hold this title. I find it hard to fathom that anyone could not be impressed with this Chapel. We did not opt to have a guide and I can definitely see merit in being part of a tour through the Vatican Museum for the additional information you would learn, but I found the detail provided in the audio tape we purchased to be fantastic and it added a lot to my experience as a whole.

As for the rest of the Vatican Museum all I can say is it is phenomenal. You could literally spend days in there looking at all the religious artefacts, ancient Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian collections and the list goes on. The sheer size and number priceless pieces of art is astounding and has to be seen to be comprehended. Even then, I don’t think I can fully understand the enormity of it. The rooms in which all these magnificent pieces are housed are in themselves so ornately beautiful that I can’t begin to think of the amount of power and wealth it takes to gather such a horde. Well, I guess I can, it takes religion to gather that. If one wants to, one can ponder those age old monologues about the tyranny of the church etc etc but seriously, when I was in the Vatican and I was trying to take it all in, the main thing I could focus on was how amazing it all was.

Then as if I hadn’t been wowed enough in one day, we then swung past the Pantheon. This building is just shy of 2000 years old. The outside of this astonishing building is impressive, for sure, but walking into its interior is when you marvel at the ingenuity and engineering mastery of ancient man. This building is the only one EVER built in the world to date of its size with an un-reinforced dome. So the Romans back in AD 120 engineered something that hasn’t bet topped since, and it’s still standing. Need I say more.

Day 3

We saved St Peters Basilica until the last day. To be honest I hadn’t given it much thought. I hadn’t pondered what it would look  like inside in the slightest. I had seen the outside the day we went to the Vatican Museum but that was it.

Like the previous days we got up to be there early. We caught the train in and were somewhat perturbed by the masses of people in the carriages with us, when the day before at the same time there were pretty much none. We were hoping like mad that they were all going to the Vatican Museum and not St Peters or we would have some serious lining up to do. We had barred going to St Peters the day before due to the lines in the afternoon, we had hoped that arriving early would circumvent this. Upon arrival at the Vatican our questions were answered. Everyone was lining up for the free day. Oh. My. God. Seriously, you would not want to do it unless you had to. The line must have been at least half a kilometre long. Not knowing if this would also translate into a similar line up outside St Peters we hot footed it to the Basilica.

I hallelujah was in order as everyone was clearly lining up for the museums and like the rest of our time in Rome and the Vatican we just walked on in. Well, not really, “just walked”, I think we actually stumbled in because we tripped over our jaws. Once again I was finding it hard to dig up sufficient superlatives to explain how I felt about what I was seeing. This was the Vaitcan piece de la resistence. If ever there was a shrine created to try and materially explain how much man wants to worship God than this is it. Or for the more cynical (some would say realist) out there, n’er was there a more decadent display of the immense power and wealth of the church in the creation of one building. Either way, it was truly magnificent. I think Damien summed it up best when he said, “I expected to be impressed but I didn’t expect to be stunned like a mullet”. Indeed. For Damien, visiting St Peters had an unexpected effect of moving him quite deeply as he reflected how much it would have meant to his father to have visited the Basilica. It’s simply that kind of a place.

In a post a while ago I said I would upload the last of my Pltivice Lakes photos to the photo gallery. I have managed to get them up today.

After numerous attempts at uploading the video of Damien and I in the cathedral in Verden, Germany I have finally given up. Unfortunately that will not be making it onto the blog anytime soon.

We are just in the process of packing up our caravan and car to leave Burgundy. We have had four wonderful days here. We scored an amazing spot in a campground that overlooks the vineyards and the town of Mersault. We have loved sitting back with a bottle of wine and some food from the local town each evening and watching the sun slowly go down. It has been our favourite campground so far!

Au revoir 🙂

In Hans Christian Anderson’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, a gullible Emperor is tricked into believing that a new suit woven by two weavers has threads so fine that they cannot be seen by anyone who is “too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality”. There is of course no thread or suit at all, but rather than appear ignorant the Emperor pretends he can see it and praises the new suit’s magnificence. Even when the Emperor stands in his “suit” (ie. naked) before his courtiers, no one is willing to admit they can’t see the fabric for fear of ridicule, or worse. When the Emperor parades his new clothes through town all the people pretend they can see them too, none of them wanting to be thought a fool. It is only when a young boy – too young to understand why it was necessary to lie – calls out “the Emperor is naked” that the townsfolk start to admit that the Emperor has no clothes. The Emperor finally realises he has been tricked, but he continues his procession through town rather than admit his gullibility.

This fable has been around since 1837, and it has become a standard metaphor for “anything that smacks of pretentiousness, pomposity, social hypocrisy, collective denial or hollow ostentatiousness” (Wikipedia). I recalled this childhood tale while driving through Tuscany on our first big sightseeing day in that area, as I couldn’t reconcile the famous region’s glowing global reputation with what I saw before me. Where were the endless vistas of misty hills, filled with vines and crops and olive groves? Where were the gorgeous and rustically run-down farmhouses framed by verdant fields? There were snippets of all these things, here and there, but they were interrupted all too often by some visual scar of modernity that abruptly shattered the view. It hit me with a rush, and on serious (and extensive) consideration I was forced to admit there is only one answer: Tuscany is not anywhere near as beautiful as it’s cracked up to be. The Emperor has no clothes.

I should clarify from the start that I am only critiquing the aesthetic appeal of Tuscany, not its food or wine or people. Like Kristen I found the food here excellent, the budget wines great value and the people very friendly. But its inability to meet up to expectations of appearance is a pretty big fail for a region that trades so heavily its idyllic reputation. The reality of Tuscany today is that significant parts of it are urban, especially the extensive conurbations around Florence and Pisa. And by urban I don’t mean pretty stone-built villages, I mean urban as in blocky, modern and unappealing. In the countryside many otherwise pleasant vistas are marred by high tension power lines, elevated expressways, train lines, factories or quarries, and the Italian tendency for putting enormous roundabouts at every major road intersection doesn’t help.

Tuscany has been romanticised in English literature since the 19^th century, and particularly in the early 20^th century by E.M. Forster and D.H. Lawrence. Forster’s A Room With A View was turned into a very popular movie in the 1980s, and as she’s mentioned previously it was that film that set Kristen’s heart towards visiting Tuscany when she first saw it in her teens. More recently there has been the book and film Under The Tuscan Sun, and numerous books have been written in recent decades about expatriates moving to the region to start a new life.

One of my favourites of this genre is The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Mate. I first read it more than a decade ago, and was captivated by his evocative descriptions of the land and its people that he discovered while searching for a Tuscan farmhouse and setting up a new life in Italy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I loved it so much that I’ve read it several times since when wanting to mentally escape to Italy, and I even brought it with me to read yet again on this year’s travels. I thought it would put me in the right frame of mind for our visit, and duly did read it a couple of months ago. Mate writes beautifully of the food, people, towns and countryside, and it’s easy to get swept away in his words.

And to be fair, we did see some beautiful parts of Tuscany on our big sweep of that first day. It’s clear that any enduring falsehood has to have some elements of truth about it to survive so long. From our campsite in the hills above Empoli we first headed south to the World Heritage Listed town of San Gimignano, and the hills immediately surrounding it are picture postcard perfection of the Tuscan dream. The town itself is delightful too, remaining charming and characterful despite being inundated by tourists. But the point is that it was only in the immediate surrounds of San Gimignano that the dream stayed alive. Literally a few hills away the vegetation turned to uninspiring scrub interspersed with occasional olive groves and farmhouses. We carried on to Volterra, an ancient town impressively positioned on a high hill with views to the horizon all around. But yet again the landscape nearby only had glimpses of prettiness, with ordinary scrubland being the norm. The roads we took around this area were marked on our map with green lines, supposedly indicating routes of particularly pleasing scenery, but for the most part we thought the views were simply green and not very scenic.

Our grand loop continued into Chianti, one of the most eulogised parts of Tuscany. While the towns were very nice the landscape was quite angular and again most views were fractured by roads, power lines or other blemishes. One of the main purposes of our trip that day, apart from seeing the area in the first place, was to scout out possible walking routes for the following days. We had purchased Lonely Planet’s guide to Hiking in Tuscany, and several of the most interesting routes were based around San Gimignano and Greve in Chianti. Our original intention was to spend up to a week in Tuscany with the main goal of spending most of those days walking through its beautiful vales. But the assessment of our scouting mission was frankly scathing: we didn’t think any of the walks were worth the effort, and though we ended up staying in Tuscany for about four days we spent most of that time hanging around the campsite deciding where else we could spend our precious days more enjoyably.

One of our main topics of conversation around that time was “why are we so different to everyone else?” Surely others must have been here and came to the same disappointing assessment as us? We considered whether we were simply being too harsh on the area, whether our extensive touring had jaded us to Tuscany’s charms because we’ve been to so many other beautiful areas of the world. But on reflection we decided the answer is “no”, it’s simply that Tuscany is not very beautiful! While there are pretty spots here and there, as noted above, it shouldn’t be so hard to find them in a region with this reputation. The fact is you have to travel through a lot of dross to get to the good bits, and that is not a feature of a desirable destination.

We gently voiced our opinions to some friends, and found surprisingly quick support for our point of view. Kristen’s brother Matt said he didn’t think much of Tuscany was very attractive, though he did highly rate pockets of the region such as Barga in the north (which we heartily agree with). Another friend was quite scathing in his review of Tuscany, and calling it “overrated” is a very polite way of phrasing his point of view. This support got us thinking, so I read more closely some of the texts I’d used prior to visiting Tuscany. I found a surprising degree of evidence supporting our negative assessment of the beauty of Tuscany, and from some surprising sources too.

Lonely Planet’s guide to hiking in Tuscany would, you would think, be full of glowing praise for the region. And while it is solidly positive about the area it does include the follow quotes:

Tuscany’s countryside is “less spectacular” than the cities of Florence and Siena … “the landscape here ranges from pretty pastoral to downright weird” … and that further south around San Gimignano the rolling hills of the region “could almost pass for rural France on a clear day, save for the Renaissance architecture and the odd stray Fiat 500” (p.193).

What’s that? Is it really saying that on a good day Tuscany just might look like rural France? Sounds like a glowing recommendation for Provence rather than an exhortation to explore Tuscany!

Even Ferenc Mate in The Hills of Tuscany tells an interesting tale, if you look closely enough. Much of the early section of the book is devoted to his search for the perfect Tuscan villa, and the numerous failed attempts he makes before finding The One. The reasons why some of the other properties aren’t up to scratch are illuminating (Chapter 7 is even entitled Houses of Horror):

A perfectly restored farmhouse in the foothills near Cortona fails because “less than a mile away, rfising from the bucolic Tuscan countryside, in the middle of that perfection, was a small hell in paradise. Poking its giant smokestack to the sky, with stainless steel bands that reflected the sun, was a giant fertiliser plant” (p.47)

Another house was passed because it had “a huge transmission tower bigger than Mr Eiffel’s right before its door” (p.60)

A third house was lovely, until from outside “there rose the steady roar of the hidden freeway below the hill” (p.61)

The fourth place was even better, with a beautiful house, fields and valley views. Until “the earth moved. The windows rattled and lamps jiggled and a jet sound shattered the air as if a bullet train were screaming under the garden at two hundred miles an hour. Which it was” (p.61)

His descriptions of the countryside are equally telling. While he and his wife eventually settle on what is apparently an especially beautiful part of Tuscany near Pienza (sadly we didn’t get to that area), he makes the following comments about some other parts of the region:

“The steep Chianti hills, much less soft and gentle than those near our cherished abbey, afforded only rarely the long, sea-of-hills vistas that we loved. Absent was that infinite, shimmering light that dissolves all matter before your eyes” (p.78)

Near Siena “the hills were mercilessly dry and empty here, then further south they steepened and there were only woods” (p.86)

In the Valdichiana valley “the olives, woods and vines gave way to vast fruit orchards and ploughed fields. Instead of hamlets there were enormous, blocky farmhouses made of brick” (p.45)

And these statements are from someone with an avowed love of Tuscany. It made me realise that the truth is out there, if you look hard enough. Perhaps if we came from an urbanised part of America, and hadn’t travelled much in the countryside anywhere, Tuscany’s flaws might be overlooked. But I don’t come from that sheltered upbringing, and so I agree entirely with Kristen view that Tuscany is trading on its romantic glories of the past that have little to do with today’s experience. On this trip we have travelled in summer through rural areas in Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and now France, and all of them offer more appealing countrysides than Tuscany. Especially France, which has been a longtime love of mine that I’d let fall from mind in recent years. Kristen summed it up best when she saw rural France for the first time last week:

“All this time I’d been imagining visiting Tuscany, when in fact what I was really dreaming of was Provence!”

It’s time to say it loud and clear: the Emperor has no clothes.