Italy & Switzerland

Sooo... more length between blogs :-) Again it feels like forever ago that we were in Greece, and that we've had many adventures to share.

After arriving in Italy from Greece by ferry, we went straight across to the Amalfi Coast (West coast, south of Naples & Rome) to a little place perched up in the hills called Agerola. Getting there wasn't easy, but it's only a few km as the crow flies from Amalfi, about 700m above the sea. We were in a tiny chilled out little hostel, and enjoyed doing not much, especially when the rain set in on our 2^nd day. We did manage to walk down the 3000 steps to Amalfi one afternoon, our legs were complaining for days. Besides that, lots of Take 2, cards and catching up with a few people with Skype.

From there we went to Rome, where we stayed at a place on the outskirts in a camp ground (nice and cheap!). We met Amie, a friend from our Africa overland trip and explored Rome for 2 very full days. We happened to be there on a Wednesday, when the Pope makes his weekly public appearance – he arrived gliding through a sea of people, standing in his little Popemobile. We caught 2 minutes of the shenanigans before we cleared out of St Peter's Square and went to the Vatican Museum, where the queue had gone from around three corners of the block to nothing, so we went straight in. It's an amazing place, full of so much art you could live there and see something new every day. I guess that's what the popes did!? It's crazy when the ceilings of the hallways contain more amazing art than most small art galleries in Australia :-)

The rest of the afternoon was filled with wandering the Forum, walking to Trevi fountain where we tossed a coin in over our shoulder (apparently they make 3000 euros per day!) and then some backpacker-style shopping for a picnic-in-our-room dinner. Day 2 we woke up early, said goodbye to Amie, and went to St Peter's nice and early, arriving pretty much just as they opened, again missing the crowds. A big difference from yesterday when the Square was packed! St Peter's Basilica is remarkable, cavernous and full of artworks, sculptures and marble everything. Nearly all of the little chapels had some sort of service happening, we paused to observe a few.

Then lots of walking over the remainder of the day – Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, a handful of churches including the one with the Month of Truth, Circus Maximus, then the Colosseum where we explored inside. Several more churches (one of which was the girls Rome highlight: the Capucin crypt which is decorated with bones from hundreds of human skeletons), the Spanish Steps, then a nice walk through the Borghesi park to the villa, which was shut for the installation of an exhibition. Piazza del Popolo was packed with some event honouring public servants, but we stopped at Santa Maria del Popolo to see 2 Caravaggio paintings before home for another cheap dinner.

We'd planned to go back to Gallaria Borghesi on our way to Bologna the next morning, but not being able to book tickets the day before meant we turned up without reservations and they were sold out. We instead went into town to the Capitoline museum for a quick walk through, seeing the famous Romulus & Remus suckling the she wolf, and Medusa. Then a wait at the train station for a train to Bolonga.

Bolonga will remind us of many good things, we really enjoyed our time there. We rented an apartment for a week, because it's central enough to be able to do day trips out on the train. That meant a place to ourselves to come home to every evening, home cooked meals and not lugging our bags around every day! We washed everything we had, including our backpacks – I didn't know mine was that white! Our first day trip was to Parma, a little place NW of Bolonga. The rain's still following us so it was a short trip, but nice to explore the historic centre, have a hot chocolate and buy some fresh bread. It was still raining on Sunday, and Ryan Ferguson was due to arrive at some point, so we stayed home – drinking tea, watching tv and doing more washing. Ryan's joining us until late Nov, it's been really good having him – amongst other things it rounds out our number for 500 :-)

Monday was a day trip to Venice – nothing in particular to note, just hours of wandering the canals, little streets and markets. It's really cool, everything you imagine plus a slightly unpleasant odour ;-) Tuesday we went to Verona. We didn't really know what to expect, but really liked it. It has an ancient arena in the middle of town, more intact (and maybe impressive!) than the Colosseum. We walked all over town, crossing the big river that winds its way through, then up to a lookout spot at some sort of palace where we ate out home made salad rolls for lunch :-) A gelato stop seems to work itself into our itinerary each day, not that we're complaining.

Wednesday was a briefer-than-expected trip to Florence. We left Bologna in the dark, not really knowing what the weather was doing, only to find cold drizzly rain in Florence. Arriving early did mean we didn't queue for long at the Uffuzi Gallery, where there's a huge collection of Renascence art – Michelangelo, Botticelli, Caravaggio to name a few. The Duomo is a massive cathedral topped with a big dome, which you can climb to the top of for views of town. The rain paused for 15 minutes while we were outside up the very top – by the time we were at the bottom it was raining again. We would have stayed longer and seen more but our flimsy umbrellas weren't the best, and we were happy with what we'd seen so we took a train back. Of course, as we pulled out of Florence the blue sky appeared through the now clearing clouds :-P

Seeing as we'd been in Bolonga for a week and hadn't really seen any of it, we put aside our last day to wander around, as well as to make final use of the valuable washing machine! Bolonga has a lovely centre – its famous covered walkways, beautiful old buildings, numerous squares and some big churches. The main basilica had an exhibition on the life of Mother Teresa – it was perhaps more interesting than it sounds :-P A last Italian coffee/hot chocolate (Ryan & Carly have rated their hot chocolates the best) then home to gather our stuff back into bags from all edges of the apartment.

We'd been in contact with a friend of a friend who has a chalet in Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, who had kindly said we could stay. We took a train from Bolonga up through Milan to Montreaux on Lake Geneve, through some really beautiful areas with lakes and mountains. It's well and truly autumn, so all the trees are different shades and there's a decent amount of snow on the mountain tops. We had no idea what we were in for when we arrived at our “Chalet” - it was the most amazing house! 4 stories, 100% timber inside and out, countless bedrooms and bathrooms, furnished with quality everything - it was so nice. Then there's the location of Chateau d'Oex with plenty of snow-capped mountains surrounding it. In summer it's known for hot air ballooning, in winter it's packed with skiers, with access to the lifts from right in the centre of the tiny town. We were a 10 minute walk from the half-a-dozen shops that make up down-town, most of which were shut :-)

We had 5 days there, with mixed weather. We spent the first beautiful sunny day relaxing at home and looking around Chateau d'Oex. In the evening we went to a classical string group performance at the church - how very cultured of us, listening to classical music in the Swiss Alps! The following two days were unexpectedly wet, cold and rather miserable, but we still headed out. We caught the train up a few villages to Shönried, where we visited a local dairy farmer. On the way it started snowing, which was kinda cool, unfortunately in both senses of the word. Klaus showed us to a few of his 20 or so paddocks, which were just blocks of land randomly placed around town. We met some of his 80 cows, all of which are named, are super tame and spread around his different blocks. Rather different to Australian cattle or dairy farming! Due to the snow he had to move some back into the barn, so his wife took us up to their house and showed us the cheese they make, some of which we bought. 18 Swiss Francs for 900g (about A$18), but boy it was good! In summer they make about four 40 kilo wheels per day, not bad money!

Another day we went to Gstaad and took a bus to les Diableretes, in the hope to go up to Glacier 3000. The weather was pretty bad still (heaps of snow in the higher altitudes) so the view would have been of grey-nothingness, and the lift pass to the top was A$77 so not cheap :-P Our last day was mercifully sunny (still cold) and we went all the way to Speiz on lake Thun. That's a really pretty place, quiet now the summer lake crowd have left, with more impressive mountains surrounding it. Nik was not feeling so great so she and Carly went back home (after another hot chocolate) and Ryan and I waited for what turned out to be a non-existent ferry to Interlaken. We went instead by train for a quick trip, it seemed much larger, touristy and busy than the other places we've visted in Switzerland, but still beautiful. Other Swiss experiences for us were having fondue (cheese and chocolate), indoor fires, buying Swiss Army pocket knives, going to a traditional church service (in English), watching Dexter season 4 and attempting to speak French :-)

From there (about a week ago) we headed back south again to Italy, but I think that can wait for the next blog! We're currently in Spain and will be for a few more days before we head back to France. We're feeling like the end of our trip is close now, even though the reality of living back home again hasn't hit us. Still lots to look forward to before then though, and lots of reasons to want to get home too!

Alex

The Amalfi Coast

With Amie in Rome, at the Trevi Fountain

The Pieta in St Peters

Venice

Chateau d'Oex