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.