This morning I write from a massive chunk of
engineering goodness, miraculously floating 10,000m in the air somewhere over
the Middle East. My travel plans have taken a rather unexpected turn, as today
I make the 16,000km journey back across the globe to Australia for a week,
before returning to Europe to continue my journey as originally planned. I’ve
made the extremely hard decision to fly home for my grandfather’s funeral, and
while I am excited about seeing family and friends after over five months away,
I am also apprehensive about heading home mid-journey – for this was a one year
adventure I set out upon!
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| Sofia, Bulgaria |
I have spent an amazing couple of weeks with
friends in Italy, Ireland and Belgium, and my one-week holiday back to my own
bed, and my mum’s cooking in Adelaide should provide ample time to catch up on
blogs!!! My last update finished up in Skopje, Macedonia, and after a one
night, whirlwind stopover in Sofia, Bulgaria, I was on my first plane in a
while, on my way to the sunshine, stone-fruit and silliness of Italy!!!
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| The A Team! |
I met up with a friend, Eliza, in Bergamo,
and with her face still contorted in disgust and revulsion at the sight of my repulsive
facial hair, we made our way into Milan to meet up with another friend, Clem,
and begin the journey to end all journeys… and all diets! Keen to get out of
the city, and see some of what Italy has to offer, we all jumped straight on
the first train south, and just before midnight, met up with Marco – our host
in Riomaggiore, the ‘Cinque’ of ‘The Cinque Terre’. Parco
Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, or
The Cinque Terre for those of us born without a sexy accent, is a 4,300 acre
national park located in Italy’s La Spezia province. The National Park is home
to an estimated 5000 permanent residents, and has five coastal towns
overlooking the dramatic, spectacular coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. The
park is most famous for it’s 12km walking trail, linking the five towns, and
providing thousands of tourists each year with breath-taking scenery, quaint
villages, and a fair work out!
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| The Cinque Terre |
Marco, a hilarious, entertaining and
good-looking 23-year-old, must have thought he had hit the jackpot when the
classy-chorister Eliza and terrifically-tanned Clem walked into his apartment…
with me in tow (I did shower that day, so that’s a slight improvement!!!).
Marco works at night as a waiter in an Italian restaurant overlooking the
National Park, cliffs, and ocean below, and spends his days eating, drinking,
relaxing at the beach, and… did I say eating? We were set to be great friends
from the word go! He briefly welcomed us into his home, before rushing us out
the door in the direction of the local bar – a journey some would say was
Eliza’s last sober walk of the trip… but I’d hate to spread such information when
her parents might read this!
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| The Cinque Terre |
We spent our second day in The Cinque Terre
conquering the partially open trail (which we approached only after an
appropriate breakfast of pizza and coffee), enjoying the breath-taking views of
the Mediterranean coast, stopping mid walk for yet more pizza, and wandering
the many small alleyways and staircases of the towns along the way. With the
walk out of the way, it was time to relax, and we headed to the local beach
(not a grain of sand in sight!), where we thoroughly enjoyed watching countless
people complete the painful journey from the smooth rocks on which we sat,
across the jagged, sharp rocks on the shore, and into the cold water where they
would go on to encounter a range of submerged obstacles on which they would
trip and fall. And this was their idea of enjoyable??? Of course, such intense
people-watching drastically depletes ones energy reserves, which we rectified
with the BEST bruschetta in the entire universe, followed by an Italian salad
which I am certain would even bring David to life, and a couple of drinks (aka bottles)
to wash it all down – as a group of live musicians serenaded the copious
amounts of food through our digestive tracts with great music.
Following a fresh breakfast from the local Pasticceria (which Clem and Eliza sent
me to get… so they could have breakfast in bed!), we decided to conform to the
typical tourist mould, and made our way to Pisa, a small city on the River Arno,
and home to the famed Leaning Tower. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or Torre Pendente di Pisa, is
the bell tower of the Pisa City Cathedral, and took 177 years to build in the
10th and 11th centuries. Just five years after
construction commenced, the inadequate foundations of the tower began to sink
into the ground, and the tower developed it’s famous lean, which over 900 years
later, draws over a million tourists each year. Having been to the tower
previously, in 2009, I was soon bored with the structural condition of the
building, and with a little too much influence from Eliza and Clem, began a
photo-challenge, in which we spent the next half an hour walking through the
crowds of posing tourists, snapping photos of them participating in a range of
structural support efforts. Of course, we had no intention of making the
tourists look sensible – none of our photos lined up with the tower!!!
Heading back to Riomaggiore (after a Panini
lunch of course!), it was time for dinner, and thanks to a cash injection from
loving parents in Adelaide (not my own… but maybe next time? Hint???), we
headed out to dinner at Marco’s restaurant, working our way through a cheese
platter, a kilo of fresh mussels, salads, spaghetti marinara, fettuccini,
bread, more cheese, more pasta, panna cotta, crème brulee, chocolate
amazingness, coffee… and a number of bottles of wine… which Eliza could have
kept count of on her hands – had they not been constantly pouring more
glasses!!! The view was spectacular, with the restaurant looking down over the
rugged Italian coastline, yachts out at sea, and the sun setting amongst the
vineyards and orchards as we merrily gorged ourselves on the delectable Italian
goodness!
We said an emotional goodbye to Riomaggiore
the next morning (over a supersized Italian cappuccino and a baked ricotta
cheesecake for breakfast! MMMM!), before making our way to Reggio Emilia – a
beautiful city in inland Italy, with an impressive hexagonal shaped old town,
well presented streets of designer labels, and a Friday morning market
reminiscent of a Chinese flea market… but three times the price!
While hunting for accommodation, I had stumbled
upon an absolute bargain hostel in Reggio Emilia, and was feeling pretty good
about myself for finding such value-for-money – right up until we were told the
city was affected by recent earthquakes in the area, and earth tremors were
still being felt the day we arrived! Whoops. Earth tremors aside (we didn’t
feel any anyway!), we had a great night in the city, spending longer in the
antipasto section of the supermarket than we spent on any sightseeing, and
being witness to the most amazing busker EVER – so good in fact even passing
motorists pulled over and stopped their cars to listen to her sing. Truly
amazing!
It was while walking the city streets,
enjoying the great weather and great nightlife, that something quite peculiar
and completely unexpected happened – I fell in love! It caught me completely
unaware – passionate, raunchy, seductive, gobsmackingly beautiful LOVE! Love
like I have never seen or felt before!!! A love so splendid it lifts me up where
I belong. Love, love, love! I fell head
over heels into a love so strong and intense I refuse to believe any human
being has EVER fallen so deeply. And not only did I fall IN love… but I
witnessed someone MAKING LOVE. Making love for me! Making love so passionately
and intimately I feel I am betraying this special bond by even mentioning this
moment in such a casual environment – I fell in LOVE!
She may be plain, with a couple of slight
blemishes… and goodness only knows how many men have been inside her, but from the
second I was in her presence, I knew I had found something special! Her
sensual, luscious curves; her gooey, liquid centre; her subtle appearance, yet
her knock-out flavours; and more than anything else, the way her name just
rolls off my tongue – Emilia Gelateria! Never in my whole entire life have I
come across a gelateria quite like it. If heaven were a building, it would be
an Emilia Gelateria store, with metal scoops for angels, and chocolate
fountains beside the Pearly Gates. Eliza
and I stepped inside the store, and it was if time stood still – how could
there possibly be hate, unrest and negativity in the world when Italy does
gelato as good as this!!!
Nervously approaching the counter, we ordered
the most decadent, luxurious, beautiful combinations of gelato imaginable, and
stood back to watch as our own personal gelato-artiste
started to make sweet, glorious love to our fresh, crispy, perfect waffle
cones. With grace and elegance rivalled only by a ballerina on stage at the
Bolshoi, our artiste took our cones, holding them under the magnificent,
cascading chocolate fountain, filling the cone with delicious Italian
chocolate, before carrying each cone with a greater sense of pride and passion
than one would carry the Olympic torch – toward the mysteries and wonders of
the gelato bench below. Armed with a scoop undoubtedly carved from stone
belonging to the very gates of heaven, she plunged herself into the punnets
below, scooping glorious, extravagant amounts of sensory-overloading gelato,
dolloping and sculpting it on top of our chocolate filled waffle cones, zealously
moulding this beautiful Italian indulgence into a work of pure, adulterated
passion and beauty! Just when I though our artiste could not possible make any
sweeter love to my handcrafted work of perfection, she slowly reached into a
glass jar, and in one swift, delicate, calculated move, thrust a fresh, crisp
and gorgeous wafer biscuit atop her marvellous work! Voilà! Bellissimo!
Needless to say, I enjoyed the gelato!
With a spring in my step, head-spinning from
my new-found love, and no doubt a whole kilo heavier than the previous morning,
I awoke the next day to the impassioned pleas of Eliza and Clem, and without
any hesitation, headed back to the galateria for breakfast, where I somehow
managed to hold myself back from ordering, and spent the next ten minutes with
my jaw at their feet, drooling as the girls devoured yet more amazing flavours,
obviously equally as impressed with their gelato as I had been the night
before. Clearly I am glad both Eliza and Clem were able to share the
life-changing amazingness of Emilia Gelateria… however I will admit I was a
little upset to find Emilia shares herself so freely! What a whore!
From Reggio Emilia, we headed back north to
Milan, settling into our 1970’s brown and yellow hotel room, before hitting the
supermarket for a conveyor-belt full of liquid supplies (how can you say no to €1 bottles of Italian Passion Pop?), before meeting up later in
the evening with Lee, who had flown in from Hungary for the weekend.
Unfortunately the rest of the evenings events seem to have slipped my mind (I
do have vivid memories of consuming the Passion Pop…), however I am certain
great fun was had by all – and very little was achieved the next morning!!!
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| The next morning... |
Our afternoon was spent walking the gardens, parks, quaint
laneways, and oober-fashionista streets of the city, enjoying the warm weather,
great food (and more gelato, of course!) and entertainment the city has to
offer, before one final Italian dinner together. Miraculously, after days of
searching, we came across a karaoke bar later in the evening, and with a strong
G&T in me, and very few audience members who spoke fluent English, I
absolutely destroyed the Michael Bublé version of Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love, while Clem blew the audience away
with her rendition of Katrina and The Waves, Walking on Sunshine.
Up early the next morning, it was ‘Ciao’ to the girls, and ‘Buon
Appetito’ to the boys, as Eliza and Clem headed off in search of other
adventures in Europe, and Lee and I managed to find space for one last Italian
breakfast – Panini, Coffee and Cannoli… the breakfast of champions!
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| Thanks for the ANZAC Biscuits Ali!!! |
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