So David and I decided that it would be fun to leave Lucy in Rome and go on a backpacking-hosteling adventure. Which has led us to Naples, our first stop. While David has been in a few hostels before this is my first time, and I love it! Having not previously reserved for the hostel, we arrived in Naples and walked to the first recommended spot in our LonelyPlanet Guide. That hostel was fully booked but they recommended another one for us, which lucky for us, had some beds available. We are now staying at Giovannis Hostel, where we have already met some amazing folks (particularly one german girl Carina, and two aussies, Emily and Justin). The hostel is run by an italian man and is helped by Valeria, who speaks perfect english and is hilarious. She gave us a great virtual tour of Naples and pointed out some really neat places to go visit - which were not mentioned in our guides. Yesterday we did a several hour walk around Naples, which is a crazy town!! Tiny roads, sooo many cars and motorbikes (insane drivers going SUPER fast), and not quite as touristy as say Rome or Cinque Terra. You actually get to catch glimpses of people "living" instead of hundreds of tourists... Today we went to Pompei. I hadnt imagined it being to big, but in retrospect it was an entire city that was covered in ash... Ok, lets backtrack a few weeks and see a few pictures...
So a long long way back is Les Calanques, southern france. Which was intended to be a few days of climbing which turned into one day - beautiful area, but slightly too polished rock for our liking. In the picture you see one of the main calanques - which is a bay - that we followed while walking to our climb (which turned out to be a 2 hour hike because David brought us on the sight seeing path as opposed to the direct path - we did get to see more views this way though!)
Before going to les Calanques we had done a road trip to Marseille. The picture below shows one of the two forts that used to protect the port of Marseille.
Now that I think of it... I am not sure I mentioned that I got rid of my hair in Aix en Provence?? It was just well itchy and too hot. So chop chop. See below for the results... (picture taken in Marseille...)
If you remember I did a slight detour to Corsica, where I sadly did not take very many pictures. However you can glimpse the sea and the mountains in the two pictures below. The first picture was taken off the docks before boarding the ferry and the second is the main beach in the town, both of which in Ile Rousse. I had originally taken the ferry from Nice to Bastia, then trained from Bastia to Calvi, took a bus to Calezanna (which is the start of the GR20), walked back to Calvi and took the train to Ile Rousse. All of which to end up in Nice again and take the train to Verona to meet up with David again.
After a night in Verona (NOrthern Italy), David and I left for Arco, north of Lago di Garda and the first day went to do a bit of slab climbing at a very close local crag. Notice that I am climbing with only one shoe as David - whos only duty was to bring the shoes and the quickdraws - left one of my shoes in the van (hopefully the picture isnt too small??). It was still good fun and my barefoot turned out to have quite a bit more friction than expected.
There was this statue on the way to the center of town in Arco, which seemed pretty huge at the time, but that appears to fit Davids size quite suprisingly... His beard sure is getting long! (He finally caved today and shaved! He now looks 10 years younger and not quite as wild...)
After Arco and a quick return to Verona, we headed off to Val di Mello (climbing - hiking area), and slept in the totally isolated little village of Sasso Remmeno. It was as we mentioned earlier a gathering of folks for Sarahs birthday... The first picture is the view from the campsite. Ahhh granite, the best rock ever :)
The first climb that we did in Val di Mello below following the waterfall directly on the right. Only 2 pitches with a very easy finish.
Of course couldnt leave without a group photo (top row Joel, Lua, Melissa ,David, Daniel, Heiko, Andrea, Paolo, Paolo, Farris. Bottom row Elena, Sarah, Me, Angela, Philippe (holding the EuroFreaks Tshirt), Taz)
Daniel, Angela and David enjoying some white wine after an intense climbing day :) Wine is just sooooooo cheap here its unbeliveable! Angela and Heiko live in Trento, close to Arco, so we are likely going to meet up with them later on on our trip. They both are also doing PHDs at the international University in Trento, in computer science... Tempting area for higher education, wouldnt you say?
After all this intense climbing, we left Val di Mello and booted down to the west coast of italy, past Milan. We drove all the way to Genova where we almost took the ferry to Corsica... but decided instead to stay in Italy... So we ended in Vernazza, which is the 4th town in a series of 5 towns of the coast of Italy, known as Cinque Terre. Probably the most english we have heard in this entire trip, yet despite the tourists, remains beautiful and charming.
They cultivate along the sides of the "mountains" (hills i guess). And its incredible how steep it gets! It reminds me of the cultivation of rice in levels that I once saw in Indonesia... 
They have these crazy tracks set up along the lenght of the hill so that a mini "train" can be loaded with the grapes and brought either to the top or the bottom... Now I bet you would get more of a thrill on those rides than any amusement park - assuming you would trust it enough to dare get up on it! You might notice it in the picture below, the white "dot" in the middle is the motor and the drivers seat...
The lemon trees were deliciously tempting and mostly out of reach...
After a few days relaxing in Cinque Terre, off to Rome with a quick stop in Pisa. Yes the tower is still sinking at about 1mm per year... :) Engineers...ppfff cant trust them! Speaking of which, after weeks of attempting to log onto my universitys website to confirm that I have indeed graduated, I finally managed to connect yesterday, and Yes, I am officially done!!! Wooohoo. My convocation was last Saturday, Congratulations to all Systems Design! :)) (I did celebrate: Davids cousin Andrea brought us, while in Rome, to the 40th birthday party of a friend of his. Suprisingly one of the wildest and biggest home parties i have attended, with Djs, lights, dance floor and what seemed like a never ending source of alcohol! We left the party sometime after 2 AM, Andrea, was still going strong, and came back around 6AM. Craziness!) Ok lets get back on track again...
Next stop Rome. Soo many things to see, what a fascinating town! Its an interesting mix of old and "new", ruins, churches, old traditional clothes...
Fancy gelato shops with tons of flavours of yummy goodness...
The colosseum... This side is better preserved than the other because for the longest time they used the stone from the no longer used colosseum to rebuild other buildings. Today it has been partially restored. Apparently the colosseum used to be mostly marble, but the marble was taken away in order to build fancy churches for the Pope. They replaced the marble with "simple rock"... I was really looking forward to seeing "gladiators" that you can take pictures with (well that other tourists can take pictures with). We mostly saw Roman Legionaires with a varying degree of sophisticated costumes... The most hilarious was one with a broom as his helmet.
Of course a visit to Rome would not be complete without visiting the Trevi fountain... I cossed a coin into the fountain to insure that I would "return to Rome" again...
Davids uncle Stefano brought us on a car ride around Rome which included the top of one of Romes 7 hills from which we had a marvellous panoramic view of the city. Can you spot the colosseum in the picture?
Now we move on to Naples... One of the churches here in the picture below... though the important part is all the stripped blue and white ribbons which currently hang on many streets. Naples has made it to Seria A, which is the best Football (Soccer) League in Italia! Woohoo.
Today a visit to Pompei, where we past this very tempting fresh lemonade and orange juice stand. They had lemons that were humongous!!! There is something fishy going on...
One of the many pompei pictures... this one is particularly nice because you can see Vesuvius in the background. We have decided not to go up on the crater, as we have heard not so exciting stories from some of the people at the hostel. We therefore made sure to have a good look from afar today. It is also quite expensive to go see it...
Ok, below is slightly creepy... This man appearantly died suffocated by the ash... Probably screaming or gasping for air as his mouth was open. The bodies they found in Pompei were filled with liquid cement to fill the cavities that were preserved in the ashes... Which is why we can now see them today.
Another not so appealing picture below, taking in Naples during our walk along the docks. It is a trippe and cow head and fish stand... Luckily, the cow head, in the middle of the picture, isnt too obvious... We do have a close up for any that are interested! :)
A picture with our new friends :) Josh, Carina, David, Emily and Justin. In the galleria, that has cafes and shops. Much more beautiful that our usual malls. They were originally built as such in front of the theatres. You would have a beautiful gallery for the people to walk through or wait in before going to see a play or opera...
Wow. Is everyone still following me??
Ill give you all a break for now... :)) The plan for tomorrow is to go to Baia, which is the lost atlantis of Italy. A town that got submerged in water! We will spend the afternoon in the palace and gardens north of town... After that, on Friday I think we are heading off to Greece! Corfu and Santorini are on the menu :)) As we are really enjoying hostelling, we decided why not keep going a little longer...
Cheers!
1 comment:
Hi guys. It seems you are having a wonderful trip, and meeting a lot of nice people. Have a great time in Greece! Ciao
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