| 10/3 (continued)... A couple of things we did in Florence were 2 walking tours from Lonley Planet's Italy and doing our laundry. One of Chuck's socks is missing in action! But there was one of someone else's old sock instead. Chuck thinks that young single guys should come to Florence since there are so many American coeds studying here (Art students???)... Since we're able to book a few nights accommodation in Rome (we still have no place to stay for Oct 5), we are heading there next; then we'll take an overnight train to Sicily. Maybe we'll just escape Italy and seek refuge in Switzerland. (I'm hoping to find a big, warm and fluffly St. Bernard.) Wish us luck! 10/4&5 - 4th day trip to Pisa, saw the Leaning Tower. 5th day trip to medieval town Siena. We saw the Saint Caterina's mumified head and finger - exetremely creepy sight. Pigeons in Italy are nasty. One of them pecked at Chuck's foot. We heard that Rome will be extremely crowded because of some sort of event in vatican city (another saint will be announced?). 10/8 - We are in Rome. Everybody in Rome is sick with the flu. We are sick as well. Did the touristy things a bit. Highlight of Rome so far was finding the "Sacred Place of Largo Argentina" which was a ruin filled with cats! (Those of you who knows us can see how excited we were - we had a cat name Argentina.) Saint Caterina's headless body (see Siena above) is supposed to be someplace in Rome - we may search for it. Leaving Rome for Sicily tomorrow night. Then Sicily to Napoli. We are debating are debating about whether to go to Milan or skip ahead to Geneva next... 10/9 - Went to Vatican City and saw 3 mummified bodies interned there. Packed with tourists. Roma was poring rain. We did not have time to seek out St. Catherine's headless body. 10/10 - We are in Sicily now. It's humid hot! It seems many people here have the cold also. As expected, our night train arrived 2 1/2 hrs. late. (So we spent 14 1/2 hrs. total on board) This train had one carriage for carrying automobiles, then the train was loaded onto a ferry to cross from the Southern tip of Italy to Sicily. I was half sleeping when the train was getting loaded/unloaded onto the ferry but Chuck saw the whole process. Sicily reminds me of Bangkok...I really want to go back to Bangkok... trying to convince Chuck to go there (i.e. keep backpacking on through Southeast Asia.) I definitely want to go to Morroco - if anybody has any suggestions/experience there let us know! We decided to go to Napoli - Milan - Parma (Bologna) - Zurich - Berlin - Zurich - Geneva. (P.S. Milan is only to connect with the overnight train out of Napoli.) We learned our lesson and have already booked accommodations for cities. According to Lonely Planet, our place in Napoli is supposed to be in an area that is "threatening° after dark. I wonder what that means? That reminds me of New Orleans. We stayed someplace a little outside the French Quarter; we were told we shouldn't walk around there at night so we ran ... it turned out OK. Sicily has very few tourists, and not too many are able to speak English. So far, in Italy, everybody is pretty nice to tourists... that is still true here. But the drivers are dangerous! 10/12 - Waiting for our overnight train to Napoli now. It's raining and cold in Sicily today. We tried to reserve some of our upcoming train reservations at Palermo station, but the guy could not speak any English. It was tough situation for both sides. He somehow managed to understand what we wanted. However, the credit card machine broke. We had to pay in cash. We visited the Opera and took a guided tour. We went to some palace that was supposed to be free to go in, but it was closed because of recent earthquake. Chuck is still searching for "Spumoni" ice cream...no luck yet, but he got the real cannoli (Sicilian invented pastry), the cream filling had a really strong cheese aroma and flavor. Since Rome, I can't get decent hot tea; they don't clean the pots/mugs so that the tea still has a coffee flavor. And I don't see so many chocolates in Italy like I did in Austira/Munich... I guess that I have to go to Perugia. We will go to Parma for Parmesan Cheese and Modena to maybe see the Ferrari museum before heading to Bologna. 10/14 - We are in Napoli. Since the Italian trains always arrived late, we were expecting and hoping this time would be the same ...however, it arrived on time at 5:55AM. Our conductor woke us up 20 minutes prior to arrival. We had to hurry up and got out of the train because Napoli is not the last stop. The Tourist Office was closed. Since the station was empty, we decided to try to reserve our Zurich to Berlin couchettes. (At the station in Sicily, we were told that it can not be done.) This person was very helpful - he tried many different ways to make the reservation, but he could not do it. He told us to come back in 2 hrs, so we did. He contacted the German train station and concluded that we cannot make the reservation in Italy. We have to take a chance that we will be able to take this particular train. As soon as we were done with this tickets business, we headed to Pompeii. Visiting Pomeii was one of my dream places to visit - it was a very interesting site. Yesterday was clear day and we could see Mt. Vesuvius. We are have eaten Pizza for lunch and dinner for almost 4 days in a row now. We just went to supposedly the best Pizza place in Napoli. We had to get numbered tickets first to wait for seats. Then we had to sceeze into a tiny space to shared the table with other costomers. They only have 2 kinds of pizza: 1) tomato sauce with mozzerella cheese or 2) tomato sauce with garlic. It was good. But I really want to eat something else. Most restaurants open at 8 or 9 PM, but we are already hungry at 6 or 7PM. Therefore our choices are limited...I guess that we should somehow adjust our body clock to Italian time... 10/15 - We went to Amalfi coast...it was an amazing view. Sorrento was filled with tourists. We asked the Hotel to do our laundry yesterday and it is not done yet. I wonder if we will even get them back at all. A strange guy was sitting behind us on the train back from Sorrento: one lady changed seats and another girl had to call the conductor and security for an escort...seems that Napoli is not safe place. P.S. Chuck finally found the Spumoni Ice Cream he has been seeking. It was stored in a special fridge. 10/16 - We managed to check out from our hotel. Yes, the place we stayed at was threatning! Our quote and their "quote" were different and it was obviously their fault. We both contacted the online booking agent, who told both parties that Hotel made the mistake...we had a long argument and finally it turned out in our favor. We think the hotel is running a scam. We were glad that we are out of Napoli. Chuck saw a fight break-out in front of him in the info line at the station and went to get the police. Later, Chuck saw (even held momentarily) a bag snatcher. It happened right between us. The lady chased after the guy, who escaped on the back of his partners waiting moped. 10/17 - We are in Milano. We took the train to Lake Como. It was a freezing day. Besides this we went to get LP Spain book for the next big country we will visit. Everything is so expensive in Milano... I had to skip my afternoon snack. We will visit Torino (Turin) tomorrow and head to Parma in the PM. 10/18 - Ha, Ha, TreniItalia was on strike until 5PM. We could not go to Torino at all. One of the Metro lines was also on strike as well. We were worried if we can even get out of Italy... gladly the strike ended at 5PM as expected. Seems that only foreigners did not know the strike would be happening. Next |