Bohemian Rhapsody

Florence.

 

This travelogue is so named because Florence is the birthplace of Galileo, Galileo and as I name these blogs after song titles this was the most appropriate one. It’s also appropriate because being in Italy is like being in a constant 70s and 80s soundtrack. Every place I go plays the hits from these decades and you leave one shop playing Phil Collins to enter another playing ELO and then another playing Howard Jones. Breakfast has featured Mike and the Mechanics and other times I’ve heard some of Feargal Sharkey’s minor follow up hits. Sometimes we hear something modern, like an Italian singer covering Phil Collins songs or someone singing What about me in Italian or another covering Juice Newton’s Angel in the Morning! I’m not complaining – I love the 80s!

Palazzo Vecchio.

Florence is a city that comes highly recommended by many people however I found it a little disappointing. The problem is that the whole city seems a bit contrived and similar to Quebec City in that they have apportioned part of a city entirely for tourists and shopping. The locals are nowhere to be found and live away from the tourist precincts. Consequently it’s full of tourists but has younger tourists then the usual FARTS (fat American retired tourists), teenagers, young adults and many mother – daughter couples holidaying together. That’s not to say it isn’t beautiful because it is with the beautiful Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, piazza’s and churches it’s very much like a compact version of Rome. It does however smell but because there are so many beautiful women here wearing nice perfume this offsets the bad smells from the sewerage and the river.

Ponte Vecchio in background.

I think that the problem with Florence is that it’s a city designed entirely for women and couples to enjoy and one needs to take this on board before coming here. There was 1 guy that warned me of this but I guess I went with the weight of numbers. We were here for 5 days but the city is so compact we could’ve seen it in 2. There was also the Sunday – Monday factor to consider. This is a problem whereby in Europe many things are closed on these days, either shops, churches or museums. However in Italy they complicate matters even more because they half open things and charge you the full admission fee only to have you enter and then discover you can’t see half the things you wanted. We got burnt with this twice. The city is packed with people and there are long queues to get into everything. This isn’t because of weight of numbers but all due to Italian inefficiencies in processing. At the Uffizi you have a security screening, show your ticket once, and then go up 3 flights of stairs to show your ticket again. At the Duomo there is a queue for no apparent reason we can fathom. It took us 10 seconds to get tickets but its all these losers that get to the ticket counter that don’t have their money ready or FARTS paying separately or waiting for Merv to catch up. At one point in a trip up one of the towers there was so much congestion of people it took a German tourist to step up and bring order to things because the Italian staff standing around are just there for looks and not to guide people. This is frustrating.

Duomo.

Enough of the negatives because it wasn’t bad being here, just not as good as expected.  We kicked our time off in the city with a Segway tour because obviously only the coolest people do these tours. Allan thinks I have Segway on the brain because I keep using it in general conversation saying, “That was a really good Segway into the conversation.” Which is apparently incorrect English but I’m hoping it becomes the norm.  The tour was fun as expected, the guide great and we met the nicest American family that were straight out of an American TV sitcom set in New England. The coffee stop mid tour was also a bonus and great chance to practice my American. The shopping is fun, there are many leather goods here and numerous markets one can look through. We also found the most amazing food market in our random wanderings. Fresh deli meats and cheeses with the most amazing smells. In Europe I can eat unlimited deli meats as opposed to a 100 gram limit in Australia. This is because the deli meats are preservative free and have a much lower fat content meaning you can eat more before you feel full. I have been enjoying the anti pasta at the start of a meal as well as the continental breakfasts.

Allan has a theory that the quality of the hotel you stay in affects your perception of the city. The theory being a crap hotel, crap sleep, crap room, crap breakfast brings a real negative to your day. Our hotel was ok but not as good as many others and this may have been a contributing factor. Any hotel not offering eggs at breakfast is a problem for me but this happens in Italy. Our interactions with people this week have been quite interesting as well. There is a whole communal dining experience in Europe because you are in much closer proximity to the other tables that you can end up talking to those around you. This has happened a few times. On one night we met these American Evangelical Christians that didn’t believe in debt and felt America’s problems could be solved if people lived like them. They live in what’s called a Christian bubble, whereby you surround yourself with people that believe in the same things as you and are never in the real world. We have many of these people in Australia as well. We also found a great little restaurant we went to a couple of times and mingled with some Americans in the tables around us and we talked about one of my favorite subjects – the differences in the American accent between regions. I was also able to use some of my pre-prepared American jokes like when one girl was saying she went to San Diego and it rained and I got to say but it never rains in southern California. On this trip Allan has also been making an extra effort with the dinner time conversation. I told him I hadn’t noticed and asked if I should throw out my box of pre prepared conversation starters. They are on standby.

In Florence we found the standard of coffee and gelati dropped significantly but if you head away from the tourist areas you can find something better and cheaper. The pasta was unbelievable though and I had the best gnocchi (pronounced no key if you’re an American tourist) ever. The best coffee in town is found at a café that shares its name with a bad Australian domestic cricketer Scuderi who ended up as captain coach of the Italian national cricket team because he couldn’t get a game in Australia. All over Italy we have found that Italian bread is terrible, it’s either dry and stale or too sweet. It’s a big call but Italian bread is worse then American bread. Italian pizza is also disappointing and worse then most Australian pizza. Just stick to the pasta when coming to Italy – they do gluten free pasta as well! I am keeping a list of hotels that offered gluten free breakfasts for those that are interested. Gluten free in Italy is 100 times better than Australia so keep this in mind if pondering a gluten free holiday. They make some good stuff using corn and potato flour – pretzels and crisp breads in particular.

We visited numerous churches, palazzos and the like in Florence and found most of them weren’t really worth the price of admission. The Uffizi gallery is one of the premier attractions and it was about as interesting as the 1990/91 ashes series (i.e. boring). I am not into art so I rely on other things thing, like an interesting tour guide or decent descriptions of the painting to make it more accessible and interesting. I booked a tour for this very reason but it all went horribly wrong when I cleared the security screening only to lose my ticket when going to the bathroom so that they wouldn’t let me into the gallery. The tour takes off without me, I say goodbye to Allan and so begins the search for my ticket. I can just imagine Phil’s voice in the amazing race saying, “I can’t check you in without that ticket.” I manage to find the ticket on the 3^rd search and catch up with the tour. The guide was German – Italian but had very poor English and she just gave facts about the pictures and didn’t bring them to life. Add the fact that the gallery has far too many people in it and you’re constantly brushing people, the pictures have little/no descriptions and the art not that well presented and you go to the café, get a crap coffee and figure its best to leave. Allan likes art but even he was disappointed.

Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Florence is very central and one can visit many of the towns around the area. I decided to visit Pisa to see the leaning tower. On the train on the way over I started chatting to these 2 guys from Western Australia when this group of FARTS come in and take the seats surrounding me. I wasn’t happy with this invasion of personal space but then they started eating lunch and the oldest and fattest guy sitting in front of me spills his coke all over the floor. He says, “oh darn!” asks his wife for a napkin and here I am thinking he is going to clean up his mess and all he does is wipe his hands. So I sit there in coke for the whole journey. Moving wasn’t an option as the train was full and it was either this or sitting with noisy school kids. The tower itself was good but much smaller then I expected. I was also expecting a bigger lean.

Verona.

 

Verona was my destination for the allocated holiday day off from Allan and this was easily the nicest city I’ve been to in Italy. It is completely tourist friendly, well signed, they speak English in the key areas and it’s flat with all attractions easily accessible. Many people miss Verona in their travels to Italy but anyone that does is missing out. There are numerous pedestrian areas, the sidewalks are wide for a change, the city is clean and doesn’t smell and the locals are not locked away like they are in other cities and frequent the same areas as the tourists. The city is not all that big and doesn’t boast a lot of attractions but the highlights are the teatro roman and the alleged balcony used for the Shakespearean tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Of course it’s probably not what was actually used but someone has made a lot of money out of charging people to see the house and go out on the balcony so they can have their photo taken. There is also a love wall whereby people write messages to their someone special, or the someone special they want to have and hope their wishes will come true. The city is set around the beautiful river Adige and there are some lovely old bridges that cross the river. There are also numerous piazzas, palazzos, churches and a duomo. The difference is that these piazzas and churches look nicer then in the other cities I’ve been. Possibly they are just in better condition or they haven’t yet been overrun by tourist shops and vendors selling illegal items around the edges of the piazzas.

Block Arcade equivalent.

Milan on the other hand was not like any other city in Italy. It’s quite similar to Melbourne and operates more like a German city as people have more of an abruptness about them. There are trams but the city itself isn’t particularly beautiful and doesn’t attract a lot of tourists. The main arcade centered on the beautiful Duomo, which has a gothic feel to it, is very similar to the block arcade but 100 times bigger and very spectacular. All around there are shops and coffee shops and the beautiful Italian department store la Rinascente. Italians take department stores to the next level and in Milan a level above this. One must visit an Italian department store when coming to Italy, and it’s not just because there are clean and free public toilets. A beautiful princess greets (she looks like Queen Myrcella from Game of Thrones) you at the door smiling and at each level a beautiful girl greets you with a Buonasera whilst holding a clipboard that matches her outfit! This is the first recorded clipboard sighting in Italy and it was done with such class. The store has modern dance music instead of the 80s and and has a stunning balcony on the top floor where you can have a coffee and look out on the city. The prices are so expensive though, underwear starts from 150 euros but I’m sure its quality. Probably best not to wear underwear bought at such prices as you might ruin it!

Outside of Block Arcade equivalent.

The first thing that struck me about Milan was that everyone was beautiful. As soon as I got off the train all these immaculately dressed women passed me wearing the perfect outfits. Everyone you see here is immaculately dressed and looks good. Ugly people couldn’t survive here, they are probably shipped off to the south of Italy. There aren’t many tourists here and so the concentration of locals versus tourists is much higher hence you tend to notice this more. Guys dress well also, wearing neat pants and a nice tight shirt and of course a decent sunglasses. Italians love sunglasses. People wear them on the plane because they look so good in them. And they are surprisingly cheap to buy here, cheaper than underwear. One wonders if people wear underwear at all here because it’s so expensive. Milan doesn’t have a lot to see for the tourist besides the duomo and the castello and so the city gears itself up for shopping. We took a tour and the highlight was a private viewing of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It’s a fresco painted on the wall of a church and they only let 25 people in to see it at a time. It’s also very large. Its probably the best piece of art I’ve seen but this may be because I’ve read about it. Milan was the place where we tried to find somewhere to watch Eurovision, in a bar with the locals. However nobody I asked had heard of it and in the end we found a restaurant showing it and Allan and I were the only ones watching it. It was disappointing but then I think many of the entries were as well.

At this stage I like Italy but I do not love it like many others do and could never rate it above any German or French speaking country. It may be the number 2 tourist destination in the world but I struggle being in a place that is just so poorly organized it constantly frustrates me. I look to the positives, the people are genuinely the nicest and friendliest out of all the European countries I’ve been. They are always up for a bit of a chat or joke and are quite blunt which I like. They will help you along if you use your dodgy Italian. I like how they say “perfecto” when you pronounce the word correctly. The coffee is good and I like having it at the bar for 1 euro although sometimes the bar is too high and I need to stand on tip toes. I guess the Italians have raised the bar on coffee. The problem is that they run everything stupidly. There is paperwork for no apparent reason, long queues that could be avoided. They have staff that stand around and do nothing when they should be managing the crowd. The staff at train stations are useless so it’s best to use the computers or research things online before getting there. As you go further north the country becomes more efficient. People’s English gets better and it has more of a German flavor to it. However even though people speak English they exhaust their vocab with you very quickly and the standard is very poor. All foreign TV is dubbed into Italian and even though its fun to watch the A Team, The Cosby Show, The Jeffersons and Walker Texas Ranger in Italian this doesn’t help their English. Italy is indeed stuck in the 80s.

Roam (If you want to)

I can see now why so many people don’t bother with the south of Italy and just focus on the north. It is so much nicer and more accessible than the south and functions more like the rest of Europe with the usual Italian idiosyncrasies. The journey to Rome involved the usual Italian inefficiencies which I am slowly learning to deal with. It seems that the rule is whenever there is a journey between 2 points Italians chose the one that takes the longest or whenever any sort of task needs to be done Italians take the inefficient method. As soon as I landed in Rome I felt fantastic which confirms my theory I’ve been working on for a few years that I am intolerant to humidity. From now on I will avoid humid climates and not eat anything should I have to go to one.

Allan has joined me for this phase of the holiday and we have instituted the Golden Rule that we shall not compare Italy to Germany because it will fail in every respect but will rather look to find the positives in Italy. So far these include unbelievable coffee with a consistency between venues you don’t get in Australia. Allan doesn’t really like coffee but even he is surprised by how good the coffee is here and how easily it goes down. There are many other varieties of coffee I have been trying like café macchiato, latte macchiato and a new favorite maracchino (espresso hit with milk shot, a dash of chocolate and top with milk froth). And a tip for new players, a coffee costs about 1 Euro to have at the bar, a public toilet 50 cents but if you go to a bar and get a coffee you can then use the bathroom for free. In Italy the potato chips are also amazing and Italian radio is stuck in the 1980s playing only European and American classics which I love because there is no law enforcing them to play 50% crap Australian content like there is back home.

Rome is one of the most amazing cities I have been to and well worth its rating as one of Europe’s top 5 cities. After a day here I was thinking it was possibly better than Paris but there are a few things that will always hold it back. I thought 4 days here would be sufficient to see the sites but I was wrong. I didn’t even touch the surface. Allan and I kicked started our holiday together with a segway tour of the city. These machines are not like mini motorbikes as I suspected but are actually rather organic. There are no buttons, peddles or handles to control speed or breaking but rather you use your body weight to direct the segway. If you put weight on the machine it moves forward, the more weight, the faster you go but if you put the weight on in the other direction you go backwards. It takes a bit of getting used to. We thought perhaps by doing something so obviously cool we would meet other cool tourists but alas the only other people doing this tour was an Indian family from American that didn’t even like cricket.

The tour was a great way to see the main sights. The coloseum, the forum, circus maximus, Rome’s first shopping mall built exclusively for women, numerous piazzas and all kinds of different views of ruins that were great for getting orientated as well as taking photos. By the end of our time here we were suffering piazza fatigue. This is a syndrome whereby Rome has so many piazzas, Piazza Venezia, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza di Trevi, Piazzo del Populo and Piazzo Navona (our favorite), to name a few that after a while they all seem the same. The segways were great fun to ride and we were quite an attraction with other tourists waving and smiling at us. During the tour we had our first brush with fame. This guy wearing tartan pants and a green handkerchief was walking down the street mobbed by women all wanting his autograph and photos. He was obliging the adoring fans but the problem was that there were a whole bunch of guys hanging around going who the hell is this guy? I suggested it was a world famous fashion designer because in trivia circles guys generally don’t know anything about these people and eventually this girl told us it was Roberto Capucci and when we acted like we had no idea who he was they were all very surprised. I’m sure if I asked them if they knew who Lando Calrissian was they wouldn’t have any idea either!

In Rome I pre organized a series of tours for us to do to help us get acquainted with the city and enjoy some of the history of the place by taking advantage of the expertise of the guides. As Allan is a history buff I thought this would get our holiday together off on the right foot. However there were a series of incidents which thwarted these plans somewhat. On the day we turned up for the Colosseum tour we were told that the Colosseum was on strike and as such the tour was cancelled thus putting a dent in our plans. Only in Italy can buildings go on strike! During this time I was able to bond with the other Australians waiting to reschedule their tour over that binding of sports – AFL football. You’ll be pleased to know that there is an Adelaide Crows fan everywhere one goes in the world. I got picked as a Hawthorn fan when people started talking about how well Essendon were going and I just said, “Have you seen their draw?” The tour itself was well worth it because we were able to skip the most amazing long queues and the guide told us stories about how this stadium was the original and the best. 76 entrances, 7000 guards doing crowd control, a sun shield for the crowd and the entire stadium could be evacuated in 12 minutes. Not to mention there was no overpriced food – the emperor gave everyone free food so there was no need to bring your own (which was banned!). There were no issues getting in and out of the stadium as each ticket had a gate number and seat number. It puts Telstra Dome to shame.

One should never come to Rome unless you are prepared to queue and wait to get into things. Also don’t come to Rome if you hate people because they are everywhere. Every time you want to go somewhere you have to squeeze past crowds of people negotiating the same narrow paths as you. The crowds are everywhere and in your face. There are many younger people in Rome as well as numerous school groups but the usual groups of fat American retired tourists (FARTS as I call them now!) abound. You’re probably sensing that I don’t like these people. The reason being that they travel stupid. For example they stop at the bottom of stairs to have conversations about where to go next or wait for Merv when there are masses of people behind them trying to get past. They stand next to things at the breakfast buffet deciding what to have when they should’ve decided before leaving their seats. Anyways I found Rome very safe to get around despite all the rumors of pick pockets which for many years put me off Italy. I think these were just stories designed to keep tourists away and you just need the usual sensibilities.  

Sometimes the pre booking of skip the line tickets doesn’t always work out as was the case for the Vatican City. As you know the Vatican City is one of Rome’s premier attractions and the queues to get inside are reputed to be crazy. The city itself is quite small covering 50 hectares but you still wouldn’t want to walk around it. Unfortunately this is exactly what Allan and I did whilst making our way to our rendezvous point that would have enabled us to skip the queues. Everything was going to plan perfectly, we left the right metro station and started making our way through the streets towards the Vatican but we weren’t quite sure which direction to go and instead of taking a left we took a right. We kept walking, thinking it wasn’t far to go but the map we had for some reason didn’t have the Vatican drawn to scale and what was down as a tiny little line was actually several kilometers in the real world. After numerous conversations with people that didn’t speak English trying to figure out where to go using broken Italian we really didn’t advance too much further and I decided we should give up, head on the next bus and go anywhere. Allan however recognized that on previous trips when my plans went awry he would let me fall on my sword and watch the plan fail so he could bag it but on this occasion he was very helpful in getting us back on track and forcing me to the finish line – the rendezvous point just so we could prove to ourselves we could get there like on the Amazing Race.

The problem we found was that once at the Vatican there are 50 people wandering around getting you to join group tours that will take you inside. The pope in his kindness has had these prices regulated at 45 Euros meaning you can just rock up and join a tour basing your decision entirely on the attractiveness of the tour guides. Our issue was that everyone has the idea of getting a skip the line ticket so that the skip the line queue turns out to be bigger then the regular queue! The entire system for processing people through the Vatican is essentially completely stuffed and as such I wouldn’t recommend going unless you were a private guest of the pope or were able to procure the services of a private tour guide who takes 2/3 people through. The hallways of the Vatican are simply not built to handle the many thousands of people that want to go through. So you get in, clear security and then there is 1 escalator to transport you all to the top. There is only 1 way through the Vatican and you are often caught up in a wave of people pushing and shoving to get through (people were falling over – so Christian!) trying to keep up with their tour group. And given that we weren’t on a tour we were completely lost trying to figure out what we were doing and seeing. The Sistine chapel was amazing but I just couldn’t enjoy it. I can best describe the experience using a football comparison. Imagine a full MCG emptying at the end of a big game except instead of it taking minutes; you are stuck with these people for 3 hours. Not good.

All you do in Rome is roam around and see the sights. There is so much opportunity for photos. Guided tours are great but its tiring out there in sun. We quite enjoyed our visit to the Villa Borghese, a private gallery on the edge of the city. Its set in beautiful gardens but for reasons unknown to everyone the only way you can see this is to book well in advance (unlike the Vatican), which I did and have a tour guide take you through. The Art collection is one of the best in the world, and for non art lovers like me the tour guide is able to bring the Art to life getting you to notice all kinds of things you wouldn’t have seen if you just rocked up and stared at the picture. The stories of the pictures are quite interesting and the gallery contains works by Caravaggio and Bernini. Another highlight was a restaurant we stumbled upon when looking for a place to eat one night. The restaurants are scattered about everywhere so how does one know where to go but the rule is to try and avoid tourist areas because they cost a lot more. We ended up in a restaurant where the waiters all wore white pharmacy jackets, didn’t speak much English and was downstairs so I felt like I was on a boat. The problem was that all the waiters were run off their feet like Manual in Fawlty towers and would be rushing around frantically doing things but whenever someone needed their attention they would walk away. They weren’t particularly nice to the customers either. It was great fun watching people try to get the waiters attention and then they would get it, ask one question, the waiter would walk away but they actually wanted more. Of particular amusement to me on this trip has been watching the French tourists interact with the Italians. Now you may think this would be OK but there are major communication problems here. Neither group speaks each others language and so they resort to their 2^nd language of English, which is also quite poor. This has made for some very strange conversations.   

Over the years many people have asked why it was such a debacle when Allan and I first traveled together back in 2003 and why we would continue to travel together given there were problems. The answer is that things have since changed. In 2003 things were quite different. Allan and I were different people in a sense because we’ve changed in the years since but Europe was also more challenging for the tourist and google had only just been invented so it was difficult to plan too much of your trip online in advance. We stayed in dodgy accommodation, we often got lost looking for our hotel after a long train ride (no google maps!) , people spoke less English so it was difficult getting directions and it was unseasonably hot meaning we were getting flustered and frustrated with things and could take this out on each other. Often our hostels smelled or we found that we were sharing with 10 other guys or the hotel was in a dodgy part of town. Allan would complain about my choice of accommodation and I would get grumpy because he didn’t put any input into the planning and so you can see this was a problem. However Allan made a good point during this trip to never come to Europe until I could afford to stay in nicer places. Now this is much easier with online reviews and using my travel experience I know what to look for and I rarely strike out. Despite the tenseness of that first trip at times I still have some fond memories which I re-tell to Allan who was fortunately forgotten everything which is why he keeps traveling with me.

During our holiday together we planned to have 3 days apart whereby we could have holidays from each other. On my holiday from my holiday I decided to head to Siena. When coming to Italy the first question people ask is, “Are you going to Siena?” It’s like you have to go so I did. It’s a small city in Tuscany nestled between Rome and Florence that is very beautiful. It’s a little hilly but it’s filled with lovely little lanes, churches, piazzas and all to the backdrop of Tuscany’s countryside. I can see why so many people love it. It’s true its one of those couples destinations but it does seem to attract many different people of differing ages (so no FARTS!). It was a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of Rome and an extra day there would have been handy – maybe next time.

In Rome they speak much more English then in Sicily in and around the tourist areas but once you venture outside of these then people don’t know much English. I’ve found that Italians are very much like the Germans when you try your dodgy Italian and get something wrong. What they do is subtly repeat the word you got wrong with the correction pronunciation or article and then move on. I was warned by my Italian teacher however that if you get the word too wrong then the Italians will laugh at you like she did. I had this experience when we walked into a bar to use the toilet and buy a coffee and the bargirl asked as to whether or not we had tried a coffee called the “marocchino”. Never having heard of it I asked about this and she told me I had said it wrong and then proceeded to get me to say it right. Well she made me say it 10 times in a row, and every time I got it wrong, and every time she laughed and in the end gave up. I told Allan that it’s a tactic with European women to deliberately mispronounce the word in their native language so they laugh and think you’re funny or cute. However in my case I’m not mispronouncing the word deliberately – I really don’t know how to say it properly!

Some tips for people coming to Italy. Always have coffee at the bar. It costs 1 Euro as opposed to sitting down and paying anywhere from 3 – 8 euros. Always have a take away gelati. It costs 2 – 3 euros as opposed to 7 – 10 euros to have it sitting down. Never buy a eurrail pass for Italy (I didn’t!). Train journeys are cheap and fares are about AUD $10 - $25 between cities. A 4 day eurrail pass costs AUD $250 for 1^st class but you should know many regional trains in Italy only have 2^nd class so there is no point buying a 1^st class ticket. And a general hint – try not to use the toilet on Italian trains. Food wise Europe has been great for my intolerances as long as I avoid too much sugar, don’t each much wheat in the mornings and avoid onion and tomato I am fine. I think it’s the absence of preservatives and freshly made food that makes the difference for me here. Onion is rarely added as a default ingredient here so when you order a gnocchi gorgonzola they go away and make the cheese sauce fresh without onion. In Australia its pre made with onion. Traditional Italian recipes that don’t contain onion will never have it added in Italy – this is an Australian invention that drives me crazy. Anyways its Eurovision week this week so it will all be happening!

Living on an Island

Catania - Piazza del duomo

There is nothing that could have prepared for me for the chaos of Italy. Whatever was I thinking when I decided to come here for a month. My previous European destinations have all been in well run European countries like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Scandinavia and I know a bit of French and German and was able to get by because most people know English anyways and could always bail you out. I was contemplating this on the flight over when the plane was filled with boisterous Italian school kids returning from holidays – quite the norm in Europe. From the moment the plane landed it was on. People jumped out of their seats before the “unbuckle your seat beat” sign was off and it was a mad scramble to grab luggage and get off the plane as if it was some kind of race. I was worried someone was going to accuse me of having tripped them so they could get ahead as Italians have a reputation for falling over to get an advantage.  The race continued to the luggage carousel when people pushed for pole positions and school kids went crazy riding the carousel for fun. There are no signs saying you can’t. For anyone that studied Italian in school you’ll be pleased to know that Dario was the main perpetrator of the carousel riding. It’s always Dario you see. Anyone naming their kid Dario is asking for a trouble maker.

Catania - Teatro Roman Greco

You can imagine the irony then when I got into the taxi and inquired as to whether the driver spoke English when he answered ‘Tedesco’. I took some Italian classes before coming to Italy and know that ‘Tedesco’ means German. What are the odds? So we figure things out by resorting to my obviously lame Italian and a backup plan of having the address ready in writing and I make it to the hotel, which was truly wonderful and worth the 4.5 star rating from trip advisor. Catania was my first destination here and I have to say it’s a complete dump. The streets are small and crowded, buildings are run down, it smells in places and there really isn’t that much worth seeing. And as it’s not on a grid system one gets lost very easily! Amazingly there are more signs around the place to my hotel than any other attraction or street which bailed me out a few times. It was almost as if it was a sign of Gods providence but I try to avoid thinking like that for fear of becoming one of those annoying people who think finding a good car parking space is a sign of Gods providence.

Syracusa - Ortegia Island

One should never come to Sicily unless they know some Italian or are ready to wing it with actions and a phrase book. Outside of the hotels people generally do not speak English, and if they do it will only be marginally better than your Italian. I decided to learn Italian prior to coming back to Europe as a result of the Luxembourg Italian restaurant debacle on my last trip whereby I had learnt all the French I needed to know to get by and the first time I went out to dinner they handed me a menu entirely in Italian. Having food intolerance issues one needs to know as much language as possible so I’m sitting there wondering what the Italian word is for onion but now I’m all set. Unfortunately one doesn’t learn much studying a language in Australia because Australians are so bad at foreign languages and as nobody bothers to teach English grammar in school most of the lessons are spent listening to the teacher explain subject, object, verb and what pronouns, prepositions, adverbs are etc … because they can’t teach anything until the class knows this stuff. Most people really struggle and then once you introduce grammatical concepts not in English their brains explode.

Syracusa

My first ventures out in this country did not go very well. I had issues crossing the road without being killed. There are pedestrian crossings here but nobody stops. I’m not sure what side of the road the cars should be on because it doesn’t look like there are any consistent patterns. The streets are all at angles, poorly signed and it’s very easy to get lost. Its also difficult walking because there is either no sidewalk or what is there is quite small but you don’t want to walk on the road for fear of being hit by a car. Not to mention the number of Italians having conversations in the middle of the footpath you need to walk past. Italians love to talk. I went out and got my first coffee but I realized I was missing a few words of vocab that would have come in handy. The coffee was good but not life changing as I expected Italian coffee to be. I went to the train station to organize my ticket for the next day and got referred to the information desk but the woman was hardly informative and reached the limit of her English vocab with me. She told me you don’t get tickets in advance you just get on the bus. “Which bus”, I ask and “From where does it leave? and she answers, “Oh you just keep looking until you find the right bus.” I can see now why Hitler had such issues with Mussolini during World War II and how he ran his army. The country is a disorganized rabble and sorely in need of a few clipboards!

Syracusa - Sunset over the Ionian Sea

So I did the only thing I could think of in this situation. I went back to the hotel to regroup and have a team meeting with myself. I went through my guidebooks and iPhone and started looking up the missing vocab and made lists of the words and phrases I didn’t anticipate knowing before coming here that I should now learn. I set myself tasks and challenges to immerse myself in Italy every time I went out. I looked at street signs and tried to see how much I could read, I went to the supermarket for supplies and read as much of the labels as I could, I bought tickets for things and I went for more coffee to could get more confidence doing basic things. And of course I did what I always do in foreign countries I scan the TV stations looking for quiz shows. Only the Italians could create a quiz show that contains dancing girls, models, shoes, special effects and the most amazing array of trivia I’ve ever seen presented on a TV quiz show – multiple choice questions, true/false, wordplays, elimination play-offs and lateral thinking challenges. Obviously I watch it to get ideas and improve my Italian.

The mountain town of Ragusa - set amongst the hills.

Catania received the ultimate black mark in my book when I decided against buying a tacky souvenir to remember it by. As a collector of tacky souvenirs this blight should not go by unnoticed and I was very glad to only spend a day here. I then moved on to Syracusa in the south of the island. This was a complete turnaround from the hustle and bustle of Catania. It was much more peaceful here, the streets are laid out on a grid system and everything is walkable. The girl at the hotel gave me a map upon checking in and circled every location of interest whilst conversing in a combination of Italian and English. I’m not sure what you call that hybrid language. The main part of the city Ortegia is set on an island and is a beautiful, worthy UNESCO world heritage listed area. It’s full of little alleyways, piazzas, duomos, churches, cafes, restaurants and the like. It’s also flush up against the beautiful Ionian sea. And whilst it is great to wander the streets and take in a different style of life traveling alone one does soon get bored with this sort of thing. My favorite attraction was probably the Archimedes museum which is only for Math nerds because they explain things like how he derived all of his formulas for parabolas and various other shapes which is quite interesting.

Ragusa panaroma.

Ragusa was probably the destination I feared most before coming on this trip as it was quite remote and difficult to get to. Ragusa is a city nestled right up in the hills of Sicily. It was destroyed by a massive Earthquake in 1693 and so they built a new city next to the old city and so now it’s a tale of 2 cities so to speak. It’s very hilly, windy and has stairs everywhere. One gets very tired if walking for too long. It also has 18 UNESCO World Heritage listed buildings. Italy itself only has 59 so in a few hours once can see more World Heritage sites then most people see in their lifetime! The problem is that to get here you take this incredibly slow train that winds its way through the mountains going through tunnels, hills and stopping at all kinds of places. Italian trains aren’t like German trains either. There is no timetable when you get on, announcements and the stations themselves have this 1 crappy, tiny sign that you really need to watch out for when entering because if you miss your stop that its. There isn’t another train that day to take you back – its single track!

Ragusa.

The reasons why I feared Ragusa all came to pass. You end up at the base of town and need to make your way to the old part of town which is some way away. A British couple took the only taxi at the train station and it was left for me to follow my Google Map printout on how to get to the hotel. Eventually I ended up on a highway without a footpath and I realized I would probably get hit by a car if I walked on the road so turned back looking for a taxi. Not being able to find one I decided to navigate my way there using my google map printout but I soon got very lost as I didn’t know which way was north or south because it was all so hilly and I had no bearings. Carrying 20 kilos eventually I stopped and had another of these team meetings with myself (its going to be difficult allowing Allan into these meetings when he rocks up!) and asked myself the all important question, “What would they do in the Amazing Race?” Then I knew what to do. I walked into the lobby of a hotel because I knew the hotel manager would probably speak some English, which he did and I explained the situation. He gave me a better map of the city, circled the hotel which was 2km away and I inquired about a taxi. He suggested I head to the bus station 5 minutes up the road which I did. I then found a taxi and we had a very interesting conversation using my broken Italian and he corrected my pronunciation of certain words and told me all the things I should see when there. After seeing the route the taxi took there was no way I would ever have found my own way in the windy, hilly streets in the heat.

One of many churches in Ragusa.

Ragusa itself was beautiful, quiet and peaceful and full of retired American tourists traveling in groups. There must be a collective noun to describe groups of American tourists traveling together. It was a bit cooler which was appreciated as I have been struggling in the heat. When first traveling with Allan many years ago one of the early comments he made was that hot weather was bad for the type of traveling I like to do – explore cities on foot. This point was noted but it got warmer in this part of the world more quickly then I expected. It was 20 degrees when I first got to Malta but now it is 27 degrees every day and I have to take Siestas every day like the locals because if you’re outside from 12 – 4 you suffer! Leaving Ragusa was just as difficult as it was to get there and I relied upon all the internet research I did prior to getting here because there was no chance of receiving any useful information from a local. If coming to Italy I couldn’t encourage this enough – it’s very difficult to work things out on the go. After catching a connecting bus back to Catania which dropped me at the bus station next to the bus station (which isn’t confusing at all!), I then took a slow bus to Taormina and arrived well over 6 hours after I left.

The sun is intense here.

Taormina however is easily the highlight of Sicily. It has picture perfect views of the coastline going north and south as well as looking over the Ionian sea to Italy. It’s a town set in the cliffs 700 metres above the beach and as such it’s a bit cooler and has the added bonus of a sea breeze. It’s very touristy, which I like as it gives it a vibrancy and holiday feel that these other places didn’t have. Its biggest bonus is that people speak more English here which was a pleasant surprise. Although on my first night out to dinner the waiter thought I was French and said Bonsoir and it just didn’t compute as to why he wasn’t saying Buonasera. He then asked if I was German and I said No and he then guessed English. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be someone else and when I had the chance I let it slip by! Taormina’s highlights were easily the views and an old greek amphitheatre set high in the hills.

Teatro Roman - Greco

Sicily is quite different from anywhere else I’ve been. It’s really nice but really ugly at the same time. It has some stunning locations and sites but at the same time their cities are filled with old soviet era styled apartment buildings which wouldn’t be great to live in, can smell, the traffic is crazy and many parts of their cities are just eyesores. It’s also a different pace of life. Everything opens early in the morning but shuts down in the heat of the middle of the day. Locals then go of for siesta which isn’t standardized so could be anywhere from 1 – 3:30 or 12 – 4:30 but what this then creates is a 2^nd stage to the day. Towards the end of the afternoon as things open up again so begins the evening passsegiata and people go out to the piazza’s and bars for coffee or drinks and socialize. It’s a dimension to society we don’t have in Australia and something many Europeans complain about when they rock up here. They can only go to the supermarket or mall after work which isn’t the same. The shops stay open later until 7:30 or 8:00pm because they know they will get clientele. Restaurants also don’t open until later because of this. Its weird seeing restaurants empty at 7:30pm, indeed many of them are only just opening. I would have to say though that the people are really nice. As I obviously don’t look Italian every time I try my dodgy Italian out they realize I’m giving it a go and they always speak slowly and clearly and use hand actions to stress their points. One of the things I love about romance languages is that you can learn so much from intonations and non verbal signs of communication and you can always pick things up by listening to the locals when performing the same transactions as you.

View from Taormina

All in all though I’d have to say this place isn’t for me and isn’t a great place to go as a single traveler. You don’t see too many other lone travelers around the place and the trains and buses are mostly empty. It really doesn’t gear itself up too well for the tourist – don’t expect much useful information from people at help desks. It’s also too warm for my liking and this means I can’t eat during the day which in a way worked because I needed to settle my system down after a big first week. I’ve made a note that days 6 and 7 of my holiday are always the worst. However I did verify the theory that Italy is the place to go in Europe for gluten free. As I was looking for some food to settle my system down I stumbled upon this gluten free shop selling a huge range of gluten free products the likes of which we don’t get in Australia. It looks like the Italians are exporting their crap products and keeping the good ones! They had all sorts of things like pretzels, rice bars and various other things and I stocked up.

Townshop of Taormina in foreground, Mt Etna in background.

Despite this the coffee really was excellent and the reason why Italian coffee is highly rated is that it is good everywhere. It is so consistently good that when I asked a girl at the hotel where the best coffee was she didn’t understand the question because it was good everywhere – there is no best. The hotels were all great, breakfasts offered a wonderful variety of foods, they made fresh cappuccinos from a real coffee machine and the staff did everything they could to make my stay pleasant and at the end of the week I would have to say that you learn much more immersing yourself in a language then you could ever learn from a course in Australia because you are forced to give it a go. I’m now very much looking forward to the north of Italy which I will be tackling with Allan. The next 3 weeks should be my favorite as I’ve recovered from jetlag and am in the travel zone. I now get to take lots of voyages on European trains. You never know who will meet!

Island in the Sun

Bugibba

The 2 most important moments in any holiday I have are the moments that I leave home for the last time and that moment when I first return home. The moment I leave is significant because as I make the final preparations for my journey, finish packing, do the washing etc.. I am wondering what kinds of things are in store for me. What if something goes wrong, what if a plan falls through, what if I forget something, what if something gets stolen, maybe I should learn the French/Italian word for ???? or what if I made an incorrect plan and I remind myself of all the backup backup backup plans, contingencies and systems in place that over time I have developed to deal with holidays. The moment I return is significant because I walk through the door after having lived in shoe boxed European hotel rooms and my backpack for 7 weeks and can’t believe how much space I have. I then see my home as I left it and am reminded by what I was doing just prior to leaving and what I was thinking and realize there was a point when I didn’t know what adventures were in store for me that has been long since forgotten. For this reason I have planted something so that as soon as I enter my living room I will laugh but I can’t say what it is because then I can read my blog and remember.

  

Lost somewhere!

As expected on the flight over I sat next to a blonde German girl, I suspect there is a clause in the seat allocation algorithm for airlines to ensure that this always happens. However I didn’t really get talking to her because I didn’t want my trip to start on such a high that the only way was down. She also had a boyfriend. I flew Emirates for the first time and it was 7 hours to Singapore, with a 2 hour layover during which time I found the best toilets at the Singapore airport (near the coffee bean and tea leaf) which are pretty much a deserted sanctuary of cleanliness and space and it was good to know that my spiritual gift of finding public toilets was working from the outset of my trip. From there it was another 7 hours to Dubai which I discovered was an absolutely huge airport that was jammed packed with people. I found somewhere to have a coffee and passed the time away before catching another flight that went to Larnaca in Cyprus and then Malta. It turned out the whole Larnaca thing was a bit of a debacle and that wasn’t because of a bumpy landing. Emirates flight attendants do some things really well and are really proactive always giving you something to eat or drink and they look and smell nice and advertise the fact they speak 20 different languages between them, including Swedish and make all announcements in Emirate and English. However their communication is very poor when it comes time to providing instructions upon landing. Nobody was quite sure when landing in Cyprus if we had to get off the plane if flying on to Malta or stay on. In the end as we made moves to get off we were told to stay onboard but this created complications because then the cleaners came on board, new passengers came on as some were leaving and it reminded me of flying in the early 80’s when this was exactly what happened during stopovers. They even sprayed that magical spray at the end which nobody is quite sure what it does. I suggested it was to kill Mosquitoes which got me a few laughs.

St Paul's Cathedral Mdina

During the flight over I made friends with the Maltese people around me. Maltese people love 3 things, eating, talking and complaining. They complain more then the Hawthorn football club does about its draw each year. So we were able to bond over how poorly Emirates managed some of these layovers on the trip over as a few of us had flown all the way from Melbourne and were never really sure if we should get off the plane or stay onboard. It turned out that the lady on sitting on my left found a connection with the lady on my right such is the size of the Maltese community. I got all sorts of tips on what to see and do in Malta and they all wished me well for my trip.

Valletta Sunrise

Malta was the perfect first stop on my trip. It is the San Diego of the Mediterranean. Its almost always warm sunny weather and there are only 55 days a year with rain (most of these are in winter). It attracts tourists from all over Europe escaping their colder weather, in particular the English, German, Italian, French and Spanish tourists. If they looked European and spoke another language then it was all Dutch to me. The deepwater port of Valletta is a breathtakingly beautiful UNESCO World Heritage listed area (my trip is full of such areas so get used to this) and I paid $10 extra for a room with a view and it was well worth it. Valletta is a planned city and relatively modern by European standards being only a few hundred years old. Its built on a grid system which is unusual for European cities, meaning it’s easy for westerners to get around without getting lost. Italians on the other hand always seem to be getting lost so no doubt they will get me back when I soon go there. When I did a holiday review of my last trip with myself (yes I had a meeting – a clipboard was present!) it was decided that I should always try and start my trip off in a warmer place where they speak English and where I can just roam around in the sun doing as much or as little as I please as I recover from jetlag. On my last trip I made the mistake of kicking off in Paris and it rained, I got a cold and it was just extra effort to deal with that as well as handle language issues.

Fireworks Festival - 2 long hours!

The thing to remember about Malta is that it’s just a little bit different. There are no road rules here, you should drive on the left but it doesn’t matter if you don’t, traffic lights are optional, there is no drink driving limit, its ok to double or triple park, you don’t have to indicate or wear a seat beat and you don’t have to give way to pedestrians. So it’s basically just like being in Melbourne except there everyone drives illegally and gets away with it. I certainly didn’t have any problems with the madness and just exercised more caution when walking around. However it’s more than that. The people have an oddball sense of humour as well. Tourism is a big thing here but people aren’t all that tourist friendly, don’t expect customer service with a smile or for people to go that extra mile with providing information – you have to be direct and blunt with people. So for me this all worked out perfectly. I got the people and humor straight away so when leaving the hotel on my first day to enter the perfect sunshine the hotel manager stops me and says, “You can’t leave without your umbrella.” and I stop and say, “Really - its going to rain today?” and he just laughs at me and then I get it and join in. It may have something to do with the fact that I have a small amount of Maltese heritage in me cos my Nana was Maltese. She talked all the time, complained a lot and cooked the most awful salty food like ox-tongue stew. I wouldn’t eat that as an adult and certainly didn’t as a kid. In coming here I understand her a bit better now. She always took us to the worst, ugliest beaches in South Australia, filled with seaweed but the Maltese word for beach literally means “seaweed entry point” because here that’s what most beaches are. She just didn’t know any better. And of course I understand now why she settled in Adelaide. They say Adelaide has a Mediterranean climate and feeling the heat here for the first time I really did think, “It’s just like a warmish day in Adelaide.” Except here there is often a sea breeze.

Vitorrosia Harbour

Valletta, the capital of Malta was heavily bombed during World War II as Malta was a very strategic port for the British. Indeed we were forced to watch a documentary about this when we were kids and saw how the Maltese survived with the help of the Daleks. I think Doctor Who was on after it so my memories are fused or it was a doctor who rip-off like Inspector Space time, which was set in Malta. Malta is a fusion of all sorts of influences – British, Roman, Spanish, Italian and French. The country has been around for a long time and was very looked after during Roman times, then the Spanish took over for a while and there was a long period where the Knights of St John were here. These knights came out of the crusades and were an order of military monks assigned with protecting the island from invaders, mainly the evil Turks who failed several times to capture the island. Napoleon managed to gain control of the island for a short while but he looted the churches treasures to finance his wars so the Maltese called the British for help who then stayed for another 150 years. Hence English is an official language along with Italian and of course Maltese. It surprised me but there was more Italian spoken here then I expected and there is certainly a lot Italian signage around. The TV commercials are weird as they try and do everything in 3 languages – mass marketing! English is spoken by everyone to varying degrees but the locals all speak Maltese to each other and certainly seem better at it then English. The service industry is not something you should expect much of. There is none of this friendly, “Hi, I’m Jane and I’ll be your waiter this evening spiel.” or questions like, “Is there anything else I can help you with?” It’s more like “you want to eat?” or “need menu?” when you sit down at a café and don’t ever expect a smile. That said, I never had any problems and as I kept frequenting the same places the staff got friendlier with me and would greet me. The coffee here was quite good, better then the UK coffee but not on par with Australia. It was cheap though, 1.50 Euro was the going rate but in some places cappuccinos were more expensive than lattes and vice versa. I couldn’t figure out why.

War Rooms - They kept score for the whole war!

Malta is a very easy country to get around because of an intricate bus system that works across the island.  As the country is tiny, it’s also densely populated. Nearly half a million people crammed into a space smaller than the Isle of Wight.  Despite this there is so much to see and even though I was tired and jetlagged I made myself do it all in order to assimilate and recover from my journey. The capital Valletta is a historic town filled with all sorts of old buildings, forts, Churches, museums and cafes. Its also quite hilly but despite this is a great place to just stroll around for hours as there is always something to stumble on. Not far from here is the touristy Silema. It stands opposite Valletta on its own bay and is basically a series of high rise buildings and tourist villas built right on the beach. It is the place to go for shopping. Not far from there is St Julien, also very touristy it is set right on the bay and is filled mainly with hotels and nightlife. Doing a tour of the north I found that over the last few decades many of Malta’s bays that were once deserted have become tourist meccas and they pretty much all look the same. One such place, Bugibba is a replica of the UK so British tourists can come on a holiday and feel at home. The South on the other hand gets missed by tourists, possibly because people become consumed with the tourist Mecca’s but avoid this at your peril. Its easily more beautiful than the north and has not yet been corrupted by money and tourism. My favorite town was a small fishing village called Marsaxlokk. Maltese is a Semitic language meaning it has some similarities with Arabic. This charming little town is set on a beautiful bay without any high rise buildings. Cafes spill out from the road running alongside the bay onto the waterfront. There is also a market and a beautiful little town square featuring a wonderful church. For some reason this town was plagued by French tourists and I felt I was in the south of France. I also saw the temples of Mnajdra and Hagar Qim but I felt they were an overpriced tourist trap and not very interesting unless you are an archeologist.

Mdina

The place everyone sees when they come to Malta is Mdina, nicknamed the silent city. Located in the centre of the island it was once the capital and is a magnicifienty preserved ancient walled city. It was deliberately built with false alleyways so if it was ever invaded it was easy to kill people walking past. It features the magnificent St Paul’s Cathedral named after the apostle who was once shipwrecked in Malta, the story of which can be found in the book of Acts. This is quite a big thing for the Maltese people because he is credited with bringing Christianity to the island as he stayed here for several months and helped bring many people to faith. He didn’t actually land in Malta, but on a small island off the coast called St Paul’s Island. They called it that after he landed there. Consequently this country is very Catholic. Every town has a church and it also has a yearly festival. Festival fatigue is not something this country can experience. Apparently every town forms committee’s to run these festivals and they spend the whole year planning an event that runs perfectly. Obviously clipboards abound here. I am serious when I say that in Malta I did actually see a lot more people holding clipboards than anywhere else I’ve been. It also turned out that on my first night here I got to witness one of these festivals. I had the bright idea of going to bed early to recover from my flight but then at the same time these massive boats moved into the middle of the harbor and started playing ENYA really loud. Then started the fireworks festival! Now we’re not talking 5 minutes of fireworks here, there was 2 hours of non stop fireworks all played to Italian Classical music and finishing with ENYA. It was truly fantastic but I just wanted to sleep. Against the odds the Maltese also showed its possible to have a fireworks display set to music without playing Phil Collins “in the air tonight”. It turns out the Maltese are world leaders in fireworks development. Every town has a festival that features fireworks. They have won international fireworks competitions and are very adept at making the difficult fireworks – the blue ones.

War Rooms - Map of Sicily

My favorite place was easily the War Rooms. This place was only recently excavated and has been open a few years despite its importance in Malta’s history. The War Rooms is kind of an underground bunker that was used as a control room in Malta and the allies’ efforts in the Mediterranean in World War II. When Italy entered the war it declared war on Malta and attacked it the following day from its bases in Sicily which is only 60 miles away. Malta was a strategic base for the British as it was halfway between Britain and Egypt and it was part of a supply chain for the allies’ North African effort. The axis powers aimed to destroy Malta simply by bombing it into surrender because it would run out of food. As Malta wasn’t able to produce any food and it relied upon convoy ships from Britain. These arrived every 3 months and if a convoy didn’t turn up then Malta knew it had 3 months left of food and prayed a convoy would turn up. The rooms were made without any heavy machinery and old style with use of pick axe. Initially the rooms were used to defend Malta who were able to get camouflaged radar stations operational unknown to the Germans and they communicated from there to points around the island.

War Rooms - Montgomery's Office - Note the clipboard!

Eventually Malta created systems to defend itself despite being bombed 6 times a day, for about 2 years and being outnumber 20-1 in the air. As the war continued Malta became of  extreme importance because it could be used to attack the supply lines from Italy to North Africa so all the big guns came to Malta to plan the first invasion of World War II, that of Sicily. Patton, Montgomery and Eisenhower all turned up and worked in the war rooms. You may know all this but what we were told during the tour was that it was all just one big debacle. It turned out Patton and Montgomery hated each other and couldn’t work together and agree to each others plans. So Eisenhower turned up and decided the British would land in one part of Sicily and the Americans another part but this plan backfired because then the generals got competitive and it became about whose army would win first. So the generals landed and did their own thing and forgot to support each other but it turned out the Italians were so incompetent it didn’t really matter in the end and the allies won quite quickly and used the feedback from the invasion to plan D Day. There is a sitcom in the making here. There were so many interesting things to see here but my favorite was looking into each commander’s office and seeing clipboards in each of them making it the true, unsung hero of World War II.  

Valletta - Grand Harbour

There were only 2 things about Malta I didn’t like but these are only relevant to me. The first was that it was very difficult being in Valletta the city, without thinking of one of Australia’s worst 1980s cricketers Mike Valetta. Mike Valetta was one of Australia’s most useless cricketers and he wasn’t even Maltese born. He struggled to make runs against New Zealand and Sri Lanka yet they picked him against the West Indies where Malcolm Marshall had him for breakfast. His career highlights include a mistimed 21 against Sri Lanka, a fine 11 against the West Indies and one of the more humorous incidents in cricket against New Zealand when he top edged a ball onto his head which then deflected to point where he was out caught. He walked off the field shaking his head, not because he disagreed with the decision but because his head hurt. He spent the rest of his days playing for the ACT as a kind of father figure mentoring a young Brad Haddin. The other thing revolved around one of the bastions here, Fort St Elmo which sits at one end of Valletta. Every time I saw it I kept on thinking if that ever catches fire we would have St Elmo’s fire and so the song kept playing in my head.

Valletta - Grand Harbour Evening - Cruiseship leaving

Many people thought I was crazy to go to Europe for 7 weeks and maybe I am. I’ll probably get homesick after 5 weeks. The trick is to not stress about all the things that are coming up but to take it one day at a time putting faith in the well laid plans I made many months ago. Its actually quite a relaxing holiday by my standards, 19 cities in 49 days, meaning I have a stay point average of 2.58 days in each place, compared with my last trip whereby it was 2.47.  The thing I like about such holidays is that it enables me to get into a holiday routine. All the systems, rituals and traditions I have in place when I go away come back to me and this calms me as well as creating links between holidays. For instance I always have a flat white at Melbourne airport before departing because on my first overseas trip I was with my parents and I wanted a latte but Dad didn’t have enough money so he got us all flat whites because they were 50 cents cheaper! I pack the same things, in the same way and have the same systems for dispersing risk by splitting money and cards across my person and luggage. On this trip I have bought a new back-pack. Its purple, so you can’t miss it and obviously female. I’ve called her Annie. As my holiday progresses I tend to find I become emotionally attached to my backpack. I smile when I see it at the end of the day or on the luggage carousel, I cringe when I see her fall out of a luggage rack or if she is wronged in any way. By about week 5 of my holiday I start having Eddie McGuire withdrawal symptoms. I haven’t heard his voice for so long that I wonder what’s going on in the world of football and realize its possible to survive in the world without hearing an opinion from the Collingwood football club.

Kinnie is a local soft drink that outsells coke

And so that ends my first travelogue. Malta was everything I wanted – R&R, English, some food I could eat and easy to get around. Food wise I’m still conducting experiments, the main thing I’ve learnt so far is that my fish intolerance carries across continents but everything else is early days. One of the main reasons I come to Europe is because they make all main meals fresh at restaurants meaning they can take onions out. In Australia most places pre cook their sauces with onions and it drives me crazy cos we’re being charged $20 for reheated food. The hotel was perfect for me, more like a backpackers then hotel but the room was everything I needed. I highly recommend www.tripadvisor.com to anyone planning a holiday. I’ve planned my last 2/3 holidays with this and there have been no complaints with the advice received. My next challenge is Sicily.