Southern Italy (or, 'The Cheese Binge')

Our second week in Italy, we spent two nights in the southern town of Sorrento, renowned for its pretty cliff-top views of the Bay of Naples, and for its alarming lack of traffic lights.

We spent a day wandering the ruins of resurrected Pompeii, in the shadow of Vesuvius (which is, by the way, still very much active), hopping across the stepping stones in ancient streets that spent more than a millennium and a half suffocated beneath ten metres of ash. Remarkably, some of the frescoes inside the houses survived.

We had two fantastic meals in Sorrento: gnocchi alla Sorrentina at a cute little restaurant, and take-away pizza on the roof of our hotel, from which we could see the whole bay, as well as the volcano's bare slopes.

From Sorrento, we hopped aboard a train to Rome. I'd worried that I would find the Italian capital to be too flashy, too aggressive - maybe it was because we'd rolled in during the off-season, but I was pleased to find it relaxed, a confident seductress.

La famille Hartholt explores the Colosseum

Now, it was time for a history blitz. We roamed the battered Colosseum, its pock-marked shell covered in opportunistic plants. The underground chambers have been excavated and you can see right into the labyrinth of rooms and passages in which animals and people waited out the final moments of their lives.

We wandered the Palatine, where the red-brick remains of Roman palaces are scattered on the hill overlooking the Circus Maximus racetrack.

We spent a day between St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican museums, both of which are dripping with wealth beyond comprehension. St. Peter's, built on the site where Roman Emperor Nero had Saints Peter and Paul crucified around AD 67, is stunning. The pink marble walls are decorated with lavish amounts of gold leaf, stunning frescoes, and masterful sculptures. The place is so large, so enveloping, that the crowds weren't even a hindrance.

Me and St Peter's - for Gran!

The collections in the museums are also astounding. The Vatican owns heaps and heaps of priceless ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, paintings, Renaissance-era sculptures... and that's before you even discuss the frescoes by Renaissance masters like Michelangelo and Raphael, which are in themselves priceless. The sheer volume of the collection rivals the British Museum, and exploring it took the whole afternoon. Obviously the Sistine Chapel, where each new pope is elected, is the star of the show, where Michelangelo's frescoes of muscular men and women show the creation of the universe and of man, but I found Raphael's frescoes to be just as beautiful - maybe more so.

All that said, it's hard to know that a state run by a religious organization that preaches charity has untold masses of wealth hoarded within its walls. How many Greek statues would buy food for a starving village, or a whole country? There are some very poor people out there who need the wealth more than the Vatican needs to store it.

Our remaining days in Rome were spent walking the medieval centre, enjoying the fresh air at the delightfully green Villa Borghese, eating all of the pasta and pizza and cheese I could get my hands on, and of course, enjoying each other's company - because at the airport, we left John and Val for another six months. It was fantastic to spend the two weeks with you two - thank you for everything! We miss you!

And finally, leaving Rome for Malaysia, it was time to find some new adventures.

S.

Tuscany

Although I would love to write a pile of posts about our two weeks in Italy, I'm going to try to keep it to one for each week so that I can start getting caught up with myself.

We took a night ferry loaded with large, loud Italian families and jovial, guitar-strumming monks from Split, in Croatia to Ancona in Italy. Despite all our worry over the Schengen Area visas, the Italian border guard barely glanced at our passports. So maybe counting out exactly ninety days wasn't entirely necessary.

We met Dan's parents, Val and John, just up the coast in Rimini, spent a night there sharing stories and catching up, and set off the next morning for Tuscany.

Although it doesn't look all that far on the map, the drive through the mountains to Tuscany's rolling hills took all day. And as it was Sunday, all the shops were closed out in the country. (Who knew you could get so hungry in Italy?!) But finally, we made it to San Gimignano.


We were perched on the side of a valley of grape vines, lit bright in the late afternoon sun. A kilometre off, on the crown of the nearest hill, was the silhouette of a perfectly preserved medieval city, its skyline sprinkled with tall, square towers and ringed by thick stone walls. Although our apartment for the week was nearer to the walls, but it was worth a drive out to the main guesthouse for the view (and the pool and the wifi).

Over the course of the week, in addition to exploring the cobbled streets of San Gimignano, we went on day trips to Pisa where the leaning tower is much larger and at much more of an angle than I'd anticipated, to Cinque Terre, to Siena and to a small winery.

At Cinque Terre, we hiked along the number two trail, down the Via dell'Amoure (Lovers Lane) from Riomaggiore To Manarola, a pretty and very flat stroll along the cliff side and then Dan and I hiked the more rolling stretch from Corniglia to Vernazza, where we met back up with Val and John for drinks and foccacia. The views from the cliffs over the ocean are stunning, and the trail led us through olive groves and gardens that cling to the rocks, steeped in the salty breeze. Unfortunately, even in late September, the trails were busy. About half the walk, we were stuck in an ant trail behind meandering tour groups.

In Siena, the enormous cathedral took my breath away - and at this point, I've seen my share of European churches. The walls, inside and out, are striped white and deep green marble; the floor is rife with biblical depictions in carved marble; the hymnals in the library are two feet tall, their verses painted in vivid colours and gold leaf. Really, really beautiful.

We spent a morning at the Casa Emma, where big, sweet grapes grow up to become Chianti wine, the regional specialty. The tour was informative, and the tasting was a yummy breakfast (also informative. I love having wine explained because I can never decode it myself. Thank you to Carlos!)

And of course, we spent lots of time drinking wine by the guesthouse pool, looking down at the vineyards and up at the town, lots of time eating rich and hearty Tuscan food, and lots of time chatting and playing cards. Because that's what is best about Italy: wine, food and family.

S.

The Road Trip: Alps

We left our linguistic comfort zone behind as we crossed into Italy, heading immediately north along the border and then east, passing just over Milan. In the alpine foothills, we stopped to stock up on two super-greasy pizzas and three magnums of red wine (you cannot be too prepared), and then off we went towards the northern border and the dizzy, snowy heights of the Alps.

That night we drank the first magnum at our campsite perched on a cliff over top of a valley town in Northern Italy with a magnificent view of the nearby peaks. Amid the thick, muffled forest, it's certainly easy to imagine how strange noises could spawn fairy tales and how rumours could attain a legendary quality. Even now, many of the mountain passes close for the entire winter. Although tunnels make the alpine villages much more accessible than in years past, the weight of isolation is easy to feel.

The next morning we packed up and set off into the alps. We had aimed for the famous Stelvio pass in the northern reaches of Lombardia, but after a morning of creative route-making through past the stone houses of a tiny alpine town (what happens when the navigator is also the designated nutella sandwich maker) we found that even in mid-May, the pass was closed.

So we picked our way back west through a different pass, had a delicious pizza lunch at a family-run restaurant at 2000 m altitude, and crossed into Switzerland. We gazed, awestruck, at the Swiss section of the alps - the highest and most picturesquely snowy we'd seen, and then promptly crossed the border into Austria.

We stopped for the night in the Austrian town of Kufstein, a mere four km from the German border and the base for some excellent and accessible hiking. Kufstein is adorably kitchy, complete with a smallish white castle on a hilltop in the middle of town and a medieval section with lederhosen for sale and similarly themed murals on the street walls.

We rose early the next morning and took a chairlift high up between a set of peaks that sits nestled in the Kaiser range - specifically Wilderkaiser and Zahmerkaiser, climbed up a peak in the middle and then walked for hours along the valley that links them. During a dizzying descent full of tiny rock stairs, rebar handholds,  and steep cliffs we watched as a chamonix, the alpine mountain goat, charged down the mountain side, darting nimbly among the trees and rocks and deadly drops.

Leaving Kufstein, we spent four days wandering southern Germany. Although we decided it would be too complicated to see Munich with a car to deal with, we spent a sombre morning learning about Nazi atrocities at the Dachau concentration camp memorial, and then after an afternoon of driving, admired the fabulous exterior of King Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein castle. We camped near Stuttgart and spent a day in the car museums - Dan made it to both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, I only managed the first. Which was very informative and well-organized and even interesting, although by the end I was car'd out.

Our final two German days we spent in the Schwarzwald - the Black Forest, named for its black pines. We hiked around a mountaintop and down into the dense forest, and explored the student town of Freiburg, where the medieval centre is in tact (rare in German towns following the bombings in the war) and where I fell deeply in love with currywurst.

Currywurst! Writing in Amsterdam, I'm hesitant to even think about it because the thought makes me hungry. Currywurst is simple - a wurst, or German sausage, sliced up, smothered in bbq sauce and then sprinkled with curry powder. So simple and so delicious.

We drove from the Schwarzwald back into the Alps and back into Switzerland. Rather, through Switzerland. We drove past Interlaken and out to Jungfrau, but in the fog of a rainy day were unable to see past what I would approximate as 2000 m. We had a similar problem with Mont Blanc, once we crossed the French border. Although we could see the fingers of glaciers poking through the mist, that was all.

We were still two nights from Paris, but for our poor little Fiat, we were done the hard part. After a week of alpine adventures, the brakes were now almost done in and smelled awful on descents, but the champ of a car managed to get us safely back to France.

S.