Genoa

This computer has to stop for a think about every 2 seconds, it appears, so this might be brief and peppered with missing letters, although it seems to be behaving so far...

Anyway, checked out this morning and took the train to Genoa without incident, wasn't too bad with the bags, big strong men just seem to appear at moments like these! Or weak and feeble men who regret the offer when they realise just how heavy my suitcase actually is, but follow through from a fine sense of machismo, at any rate...

I'm staying in a private room in a B&B here in Genoa, and let me tell you, after the snore-ridden, automatic 5-minute-shower-restricted, locked out all day hostel in the Cinque Terre (actually, it was aiight, but you know) it is a perfect oasis of calm and tranquility. Clean, spacious, nicely decorated, free internet, ahhh... was seriously tempted not to stir outside this afternoon.

Stir I did, however, walking past the old harbour (featuring a large old-timey wooden ship - is it the Pinta? the Santa Maria? No, it's the set of a Roman Polanski film! Ha!) and into the old town, which is very aptly named. The old town of Genoa really retains a medieval feel (if you shut your eyes to Vespas and neon signs) with a mass of dense, narrow, dark alleys, which shut out the hot sun and summon up unexpected breezes - a bit perilous when you venture in with a pouffy skirt like I did! Had no agenda, so just walked around soaking up the atmosphere, down the compulsory Via Garibaldi (nice old palaces, but again, so closely crammed together that it's hard to get any perspective on them), into the cathedral, which featured the supposed Holy Grail in its treasury - Dan Brown, eat your heart out... as well as a knock-out reliquary or something like that of John the Baptist - this was absolutely stunning. Oh and the platter old Johnny's head was served up to Herod on. They seemed mad keen on John the Baptist for some reason - I suppose you get his head-platter and the collecting urge just sets in...

That's about the extent of what I did today, other than being chatted up by an 80 year old Italian psychiatrist named Aldo in a very broken Italian-English conversation (come down this alley, it's not so windy, it's sunny - ummmm, how bout no? I mean, at least sweeten the deal with some candy...) More Genoa tomorrow, don't know what exactly, then my time in Italy is up! How can that be?

Quattro Terre 2

Made it to 4 of the 5 again today - Riomaggiore, Manarola and Vernazza again and Monterosso for the first time. Awful night - woman above me got into bed at a bout 2.15, don't know where she was, supposedly there's a midnight "curfew", woke me up, and then snored solidly so I couldn't get back to sleep, THEN her alarm goes off at FIVE FORTY-FIVE, she gets up, loudly, turns the light on... so that was my 5 hours' or so sleep. Anyway, I got up and walked to Riomaggiore along the Via dell'Amore again, then caught the boat from there to the furthest town on the other side, Monterosso, where I had this delicious sort of spinach quiche-like thing, but on a pizza-type base. Yum! The views from the boat were lovely, as you can imagine.

Then I set out to hike the Monterosso-Vernazza stretch, which, as I said, is supposed to be the hardest. It certainly was at first - basically a flight of steps all the way up the mountain, ooof! It was not pleasant, but the views were great and once you were up the top (more or less) then it was a nice walk along the ridge and eventually, naturally, what comes up must go down. With the exception of Corniglia - town of the 368 steps, you will recall, you start out at sea level everywhere, so you constantly have to go up and down, there's no sneaky direction you can take to avoid hiking up. Please to be remembering this when you see my photos - every time I'm up high, it's cos I walked there from sea level! Okay, it's not Everest, but it's an achievement for me!

At Vernazza, I headed back to the beach and sunbathed with Mr. Henry James and then had a bit of a swim, dried off al fresco (after the fiasco with the microfibre towel picking up pretty much every leaf off the forest floor in Monza, I elected not to try it out at the beach...), then took the train back to Monterosso, where I had lunch and a bit of a wander around the town. I was perplexed at first why it looked so different from the morning, but figured it was my hopeless sense of direction, before eventually finding out that the town's actually bifurcated by a rocky spur, and I had been on the other side coming in on the boat from where I ended up from the train. Anyway, eventually found my way back to the boat which I took back to Riomaggiore, then walked to Manarola again.

All in all, highly recommend the Cinque Terre - stunning, relaxing, good exercise etc. My kind of hiking - you only have to go a couple of hours at most before the next place where you can get some food and a glass of wine or an ice cream! Much better than trogging through the bush with only the hope of a soggy weetbix as your reward! Kudos goes to Tiana for telling me to come here, would not have even known it existed otherwise!

Tomorrow I head to Genoa for 2 nights - no idea what I'm going to do there, it doesn't seem to figure very highly on the tourist trail, which isn't a bad thing. And then Nice! I can't believe my time in Italy has gone so quickly, I still feel like I just got here. Of course, horribly apprehensive about the flat hunt and teaching and all the rest of it, but it will be nice to (eventually) be settled and be an expat, not a tourist. Ciao!

Quattro Terre

Arrived yesterday in the Cinque Terre - Manarola to be precise, one of the 5 towns strung out along the coast here. Ended up going out to dinner last night with 2 kiwis from my room... not that I come all this way to hang out with kiwis, but they were good value, from Nelson, in their 40s... we managed to get an Italian guy to buy us a bottle of wine too, score!

Anyway, today I hiked the trail, which for most of the way goes right along the coast. It's absolutely gorgeous, not sure if that will come through in the photos, since most of the time you're literally on the side of a cliff with just the ocean in front of you - from time to time, obviously, you get to one of the 5 towns which are perched on the hillsides and all done out in pastel colours which are probably mandated by the town council or something...

I was up early and went on the Via dell Amore (Lover's Way) to the next town, Riomaggiore, which is the first on the left so to speak. This is the easiest track - 1 km, 20 minutes, all flat and paved. A good start to the day. I had breakfast there and then walked back to Manarola, picked up my togs, and set off on the serious hikes. The next trail, to Corniglia, was steeper - still only a km, but the estimated time was 1 hr 10 to do it, think I took about an hour. The pinnacle was the 368 (?) steps to get up to Corniglia itself, which zigzag up the hillside. Sweaty and berry after that I tell ya! Then it was on to Vernazza, 4 km away and an estimated 1h30 - knocked it off in about 1h15 I think, what a legend! This was also pretty steep and quite a slog since it was getting towards lunchtime and it was sunny and hottish, although not too bad.

I had planned to take the train to the last town, Monterosso, cos I couldn't face the 2 hr hike that everyone says is the most difficult, but I found the beach at Vernazza and just stayed put for the rest of the afternoon - even had a bit of a swim! Had dinner there and then caught the train back to Manarola. Great day - who woulda thought Gwan would enjoy hiking and beach so much?

Tomorrow I think I'll take the boat to Monterosso, lie on the beach there for a while and then tackle that 2 hour hike down to Vernazza...

PS Happy birthday Mum! xx

Arriverderci Roma

Great, now I'll have that song stuck in my head all day again. Yes, blogging before leaving Rome for the Cinque Terre, 5 small villages on the coast, where I plan to walk, relax, read, eat gelati - ahhh bliss! Hopefully the weather improves, as it's been rainy for a couple of days here and there's nothing indoory to do there as far as I know, plus the hostel I'm staying at locks you out from 10 to 4!!

Anyway, up early this morning as I decided I would regret it if I didn't see St Peter's. Got there about 8.15 or so I think, there were no queues and not too many people inside - perfect. The queues had already built up by the time I left around 9.30. I walked around the church and then saw the treasury, full of a predicable bunch of crucifixi and reliquaries and the like. At the gift shop, I got a wee cherub charm in the style of one of Raphael's putti - after all, the Vatican is another country, so should get a commemorative charm! I've already got my Italy charm, a leaning tower of Pisa - I know I'm not going to Pisa, but I think that is *the* symbol of Italy, so had to have it.

Then I walked across the Tiber, having decided to check out the Pantheon properly. Not actually that much to see inside, but it certainly does have an impressive bulk offset by the soaring dome. Since I needed to get back to the metro anyway, I then went by the Trevi Fountain agian - this time, it was going, but since it turns out it doesn't actually spurt upwards, it didn't look very different to yesterday...

Now just killing time before my train at 2 - a 4 hour trip!

PS ranch ranch ranch

The wandering Gwan

Tired of having an itinerary and things to do, and all such bourgeois things, today was about wandering the streets. Well, that's nothing particularly new for me, granted, but there you go.

Set off from my hostel near Rome Termini station (in case anyone wants to start un novo Bloomsday or something - feel free to call it Gwansday), I walked first through the Piazza della Repubblica, past the Fontana del Tritone, to the Spanish Steps. I came to these from above, which I highly recommend, because that way you don't have to climb up them. They actually weren't particularly spectacular, I've seen pictures where they're lined with flowers, but not at this time of year I suppose. From there I walked down to the Trevi Fountain, which was absolutely thronged with tourists watching a couple of dudes clean out the stopped fountain. You would have thought that there was a show going on or something from the looks of it... The sight of all the sheeple tourists congregating around nothing turned my stomach a bit, and I put away the coin which I had at the ready for tossing in the fountain (over your shoulder, natch) in order to ensure a return to Roma, and left. Next stop was slightly further south-west - the Pantheon. This is legitimately cool - an ancient Roman temple converted to a church. And it's HUGE. It was closed for Mass, its entrance again thronged with tourist hordes goggling in at the worshippers.

The attitude of people in churches here is starting to really bug me, in perhaps a hypocritical way. I like going to churches in the non-religious sense, and looking at the pretty frescoes and taking photos and all the rest, so who am I to judge the rest? But there's such a complete lack of reverence in some people - even if you don't believe in it, surely you can at least have the grace not to put your feet up on the pews or take photos when it expressly says not to or (as people were doing in the Duomo at Florence, one after another, as if catching the infectious idea in turn) taking photos posed in the act of lighting candles, which is supposed to be an act of prayer. In some countries churches etc. barely seem religious places at all, but there is a sense here that (even though I think Italians in general are quite secular now) there is real belief - the nuns and priests wandering around everywhere, for starters. Anyway, rant over, journey continues.

Next is was south again to the Area Sacra, ruins where Julius Caesar was supposedly murdered. But my real reason for coming here was the cat sanctuary set amongst the ruins. You can go down and pat the kitties, and give money, or buy something from the shop. One of the poor volunteers was explaining to me how the cats were abandoned and they rescued them and I started bawling, how embarrassment. She was all "the most important thing is to spay and neuter them" and Gwan was all "mmm-hmm WAAAH!" I miss my Miaow :( It was so sad though, they had all cats that had had cancer or were missing legs or blind or whatevs, and they were all so nice still and wanting affection and pats. It was a nice way to spend half an hour at any rate.

After that, I went to find a pizza place Lonely Planet recommended (PS the cats are all vaccinated and so forth, but I did wash my hands), which was closed, so I had an indifferent lunch somewhere else and then, since it was raining and I was a bit over it all, decided to walk up to a metro station. I went through Piazza Navona, where the Brazillian Embassy or something was hosting a free anniversary exhibition on Ayrton Senna which I popped in to, then up past Augustus's mausoleum and through the Piazza Popolo to the Flaminio metro station, where I decided I'd had enough of walking, and took the metro back to Termini.

Tomorrow I have a train to catch at about 2, not too sure what I'll do with the morning - I suppose I really ought to try popping in to St Peter's, it's far away, but, unlike half of Rome, it has a metro station nearby. Ciao all.

Lost (not in) the Catacombs

Up brightish and earlyish today as has become my disturbing wont, and out to see the catacombs of St. Callixtus, which lie outside of the city on the Via Antica Appia, also known as the Appian Way, a metro and (surprisingly easy) busride away. Perhaps exposure to Wellington life has cured my bus fears? Anyway, it was pretty cool to walk down the Appian Way. I think I was expecting some broad, imposing highway paved with huge Roman slabs or something like that - it's actually pretty small and narrow, cobbled like everywhere else, and refreshingly pastoral after the city.

I muscled my way into the first English tour going after I got there (you don't book a time, just wait for them to announce a tour in English, French, Italian etc.), which was led by an affable Australian priest. (The young Americans next to me were speculating whether he had a Scottish accent - wtf?) The catacombs date back to the 3rd century, and these particular ones hold some half a million tombs, but no remains - when they were rediscovered in the 19th century, 90% of the tombs had been despoiled, and the remaining bones were taken to an ossuary which is somewhere on-site, but not in the tomb complex that tourists go to. We headed to the levels 12 metres below ground, apparently they go down as far as 30-something metres below. The catacombs housed the tombs of the first 9 popes (although not sure if that included St Peter?) but they were moved I think in the 9th century, when the barbarian invasions of Rome started to pose too much threat to them. It's hard to milk much atmosphere out of a place like this as part of a horde of huddled tourists, but the tour was quite informative and it was nice to see them, even if it is just mostly dark passageways with hollowed-out tombs in the walls and the odd old fresco or carved mortuary stone.

After that, I took a different bus back to San Giovanni in Lateri Sq, because I wanted to head over to the other side of the Tiber to find a second-hand bookshop. This was a bit of a mistake. It wasn't actually on my map, but I had inferred from the presence of San Giovanni in Lateri Street on the map that it was near to the Colosseum. It was not. I asked a couple of people and got vague 'that way' instructions in Italian, but after about half an hour of walking in a featureless, unpeopled landscape, still not on my map and with nothing to get my bearings from, I was starting to panic a touch. Luckily I wound up on Terme di Caractella St and was wandering down there for quite a while before I saw a hop on-hop off bus stop there and twigged that Terme was baths - the Roman baths! There was an entry for this on my Lonely Planet pages! It was an enormous relief to find myself back on a map, even if it was only the hopeless small (large?) scale Lonely Planet map. Before long, the dome of St Peters hove into sight far on the horizon, and I came across the Circus Maximus and finally on to the proper map I had with me, and was able to steer my way across the Tiber to the Trastevere area where (bliss!) I found a bookshop. As mum would say, an adventure, but it is unsettling to have not even a single clue where you are and just be walking endlessly on in the hot sun...

Anyway, nothing else to report today. It was lovely not to have much of a plan though. I was reflecting how nice it was not to be at work, which I say somewhat bashfully in the knowledge that I haven't exactly a solid track record of doing the nine to five thing behind me... Still, gotta do what makes you happy, right? Tomorrow I was going to go to some antiquities museum, but I think I will roam about to the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and Pantheon instead. Maybe St Peters too. And then the day after that, it's arrivederci Roma! (sp?)

Race video - last one, I promise!

And finally, by popular demand (not), a video of a proper race lap - well, a teeny, tiny portion of one, anyway. Pretty early on, so they haven't spread out too much yet.