Italy - top five

B ed

Italy - top five

1. Best short break - Verona hands down! (ancient, beautiful setting, hopelessly romantic)
2. Best long w/e - close call between Firenze and Roma, but Rome ultimately wins - great sights, nightlife, food and such a relaxed city for a Capital.
3. Best spot for a summer vacation - Lake Garda (avoid the touristy spots and head for Torri del Benaco on the east bank - simply gorgous)
4. Best (well, worst) crime against fashion: it's a tie between orange jeans (usually worn by over-50 men going through mid-life crises) or ultra-short swimming trunks (one step away from a thong. One guy was wearing them around town, almost leading each stride with his crotch).
5. Most romantic spot - Ristorante Garden, Ravello (stunning views of Amalfi coast).

enjoy. B

Our Italian Summer

Day 36

S ed.

We hear that some of our readers have been wondering what happened since day 12, given we are now on day 36! Well, we have basically been enjoying ourselves, specifically; admiring great art and buildings, stunning scenery - and eating and drinking our own bodyweight in pasta, pizza, cream cakes, ice cream and copious amounts of wine..

We left you in Bologna, not it has to be said our favourite place, but it does almost win the prize for best ice cream, a highly coveted title given we have tried a lot in our time here, but more of that later...

We moved on to Firenze (Florence), arriving in the melting 38° heat and after a 45 minute detour trying to find the hotel (B is not allowed to lead on navigation any more) and a long shower, we headed out to explore the city, which we fell in love with.

The place is literally stuffed with beautiful buildings, art and sculpture everywhere you look - we'll never forget the first time the stunning Duomo popped into view as we strolled into the centre, pretty jaw-dropping it has to be said. We soaked it all up, taking in the Uffizi art gallery, the Bargello, the Accademia - where Michelangelo's superb 'David' stands - and took the secret passageways tour of the Palazzo Vecchio for good measure.

We also enjoyed the fab 'aperitivi' - pay slightly more for your usual drink at the bar between 6 and 9 and get access to the 'all you can eat' buffet! Oh, and the spectacular views across the Ponte Vecchio bridge of course - it wasn't all about the food..

After a fantastic, but exhausting, four days, we headed off to our next stop, San Gimignano, the first of our Tuscan hilltop towns. We stayed this time right in the small centre, in a beautful old hotel. San Gim was great for chilling and enjoying the views, and it also does take the hugely important title of best ice cream, although as the guy has won the Italian ice cream competition for the last twenty years or so, it's not that much of a surprise. Still, if you go, make sure you try the pistacchio!

After recharging our batteries, we headed for Siena, another beautiful Tuscan town, with a great central piazza and a fierce rivalry betwen different neighbourhoods, each with an animal to signify allegiance alongside colourful flags draped from every window. We were in the Porcupine district - make of that what you will - and would have loved to see the locals in force out for the 'Palio', the horse race around the square which takes place annually, which we just missed out on. Sadly, we had to put up with finding the Enoteca Italiana, a wine bar with every conceivable wine from Italy you could want in stock. You can see me enjoying rather too much on the photo! Still, the vino and potential lure of staying for the Palio just wasn't enough to keep us from my favourite stop on the tour so far, la bella Roma.

We arrived at about 5pm, and headed straight out to see the sights, starting with the Roman ruins and a glorious Colloseum at sunset, what a great introduction for B. It was as good as I remembered from my hen do, it was the third anniversary of that fab weekend and as we headed for the restaurant in Campo de Fiori we'd picked from the listings, we knew it was our kind of place, even more so as we rounded the corner and I realised it was the same place we had a great meal on the Saturday of my hen weekend! The food was just as good, the owner and waiters the same and it rounded off a great first night in the Capital.

During the next four days, we were in full tourist mode, visiting the ruins, Capitoline Hill, the Vatican, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, sunset from Juniculum hill in Trastevere, numerous beautiful churches and my favourite spot, the Trevi fountain, all the while eating and drinking like the locals, with B on a serious offal mission (Rome's speciality), taking in 'trippa' (tripe) like his grandma used to make him, creamy marrowbone (ossobuca cremolata) and even pasta with baby calf's intestines (pajata), which were nice, honestly, and certainly gained him a grudging respect from the waiters anyway, even if they didn't do much for his stomach condition..

All good things have to come to an end and as we waved a slightly sad goodbye to Rome, with our stomachs breathing a collective sigh of relief and headed for Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, we looked forward to our next visit.

The walk from Sorrento train station was harder than expected, given our ever growing bellies and the fact we hadn't bothered to double check the directions, the info point was shut (Sunday!) and the Rough Guide had the hotel somewhere in the sea on their small map! Still we made it eventually, welcomed by a huge, soppy dog and much-needed air con.

Sorrento was beautiful, with great pasta and pizza and as a base from which to explore the ruins of Pompeii, which almost made me want to have bothered doing Latin at school..truly breathtaking and a cause for huge amounts of photos, the best of which we'll post on Flickr shortly.

Our next stop was Salerno, just further on from the budget-busting Amalfi and Positano. What to say about the town itself? It was an affordable base to explore the coast and we did stay in a great youth hostel, more like a hotel, in an old monastery with great courtyard and bar, but the town itself was a real slice of Southern Italy. Pretty pikey it has to be said, with impenetrable local dialect, curious stares as we walked past, huge amounts of dog poo on the pavements and really quite terrifying driving! Despite all that, we enjoyed the boat trips out to the nicer parts of the coast, with unforgettable long lunches in both Amalfi and the most beautiful spot, Ravello, perched high above Amalfi on the cliffs with views to die for. It even made the (literal) fight with 50 hot, tired Salernitani to get on the bus back home worthwhile (B ed - S got verbally abused, sreamed at and pushed by a local fighting to get on the bus. Hailing from delightful Stockport, the local didn't know what hit her as a tirade of expletives flew out of S's fiercesome mouth. You can take the girl out of Stockport ...).

So, we write this from Roma, where we're stopping before catching the flight back to the UK for a few days before we head on to South Africa. It remains our favourite place, reminding us of what a truly fab time we've had in Italia. Despite the rudeness and bad driving, it remains a country full of beautiful cities, with great food, wine and people - a fantastic start to our big adventure.