Finally, in amoungst getting back to Melbourne, catching up with everyone, moving house and going back to work, we have managed to get the rest of our travel photos posted up.
So, as always, you can check them all out from our Album – enjoy… we did!
Archive for the ‘Photos’ Category
Travel Photos Up
Sunday, September 7th, 2008Time out in Thailand
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
After a long flight (11 hours) from London, we touched down in Bangkok, collected our bags, and exited the airport to our awaiting hotel transfer.
On exiting the airport, you immediately notice the humidity (it’s not as if its hiding!) – this place is hot and humid, luckily the south of Italy at this time of the year is also pretty humid and hot at times, so we have been fairly well acclimatised over the past weeks.
We were driven to our hotel and checked in – where we were greeted by my Mum (she is on her way over to England and Italy for 2 months).
It was really great to see a familiar face after 4 long months traveling, and it was really good to see Mum.
We only had a few hours together as Mum was flying out only hours after we arrived – but we managed to fit in a quick market wander, dinner and a chat before we had to say goodbye again.
The following morning we checked out of our Bangkok hotel, headed back to the airport to catch a local flight to Phuket.
We are staying in a Resort in Patong Beach, only about 20 min from Phuket town. The resort is absolutely beautiful, and has all you could want.
In our time here we have mastered the art of spending Bhart! Its actually quite simple… A massage here, some beautiful Thai food there, a few drinks bye the pool, a few tailored suits, and various nick-nacks from the street merchants… In know time at all you have drained your wallet and need to replenish the supplies from the magic hole in the wall.
We can really recommend a Thai massage, especially after 4 long months of back packing around the world – Nothing like the burn of Tiger Balm to ease those aching mussels.
After a few meals in the Resorts restaurant, we woke up and found the much better, and much cheaper eateries in the street (not street vendors – these are proper food establishments). In the resort, each dish would cost about 300 – 600 Bhat. Down the street you can get Pad Thai noodles for 70-80 Bhat. For 300 Bhat (about $10) we got Pad Thai, Basil Chicken, Pepper & Ginger Crab, a large beer and a coke – and could not eat another thing!
Anyway… we have seen the last of this for a while now. We check out tomorrow morning to head for home – so I guess we could say “The honeymoon is over”.
San Lupo
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
We arrived into Benevento by train from Naples, and were greeted warmly by Laura’s relations Sandra and Lorenzo Ciaglia. We then drove for about 30min up into the hills to our destination, the small town of San Lupo.
We arrived right at the beginning of the three day festa, where the town honors its patron saint – San Lupo.
During the festa the town comes alive, and is dressed up with lights all up and down the main street and through the main piazza in front of the church.
The three days of the festa include various religious and civic events, including various mass’s honoring San Lupo, public concerts of classical music in the piazza, fireworks, processions through the town and the obligatory markets and food stalls.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Italian fiesta without food – and there was defiantly no lack of that – Laura and myself generally returned to our accommodation most afternoons(for siesta), and again at night, stuffed to the brim with traditional Italian foods including, various pasta, pepperoni (stuffed peppers), breads, prosciutto, cheeses, parmigiana, vino, and beautiful home made limoncello – to mention just a few.
The town of San Lupo was absolutely beautiful. The main part of the town is essentially a medieval village with tiny cobble stone streets that wind up and down the side of a mountain.
Now days the town sprawls out a little with more modern, free standing houses surrounding the original village – but we were surprised at how modern the interiors of the older houses in the village actually were.
The piazza is the main focal point of the town (as with most European towns and villages) with a church at one end, a bar at the other and houses all around.
The first two nights we stayed about 1km out of town (an easy walk), in a newly opened B&B which was great. On our last night (the festa night) we stayed in town with some family friends, Alex & Berel, who were a lovely older, English speaking, couple.
We participated in most of the events of the festa, including two of the main mass’s, and all three of the town processions – 1 to commemorate the beheading of a bandit who used to raid the town a few centuries ago, the next to bless the local oil and grain, and the final one which was the longest and wound its way through almost every street in the town was to honor San Lupo.
The final procession follows immediately after a large mass given by the Bishop. The procession is made up of a marching band at the front, who are followed by many candle holders (who have made offerings to San Lupo). They are followed by another marching band and a group of men who carry the statue of San Lupo on their shoulders. Finally, anyone else who wishes to participate in the procession (this included us) walk behind.
This final procession took about an hour – on quite a warm day – and wound its way through almost every street in San Lupo (all of the main ones at least). It starts and ends at the church.
Many of the candle bearers walk the entire procession in bare feet.
Once the procession has completed (about 2.30pm), everyone retires to their houses for the festa lunch. Sandra had prepared an absolute feast for us – antipasto, lasagna, scallopini, pepperoni, parmigiana, fruit, and cake.
The festa night included continuous music in the piazza from two bands, and ended around 1.30am with a fireworks display – which we were ucky enough to watch from Alex & Berel’s roof top terrace.
All in all San Lupo was fantastic. Initially we were not sure what to expect – we have passed through some small towns before and had been given a poor impression – San Lupo was unlike any where in Italy we had been before. Everyone knew who we were and that we were Australians (or Kangaroos as we were sometimes referred to) visiting for the festa on our Honeymoon.
San Lupo was defiantly a highlight for Italy, and even our entire trip. It was a fantastic way to spend our last few days in Italy – we will leave with fond memories of this little town, and the people we met there.
(Hope to have some pictures shortly… We took heaps!)
Updated: I have finally put the photo gallery up here.
Napoli, Sorrento and beyond
Sunday, July 27th, 2008
After our adventures in Rome, our next stop was Napoli.
We headed to the Termini train station to reserve our seats – two seat reservations in 1st class came to 10 Euro.
In recent times, having traveled a fair amount on the trains in Italy, we had noticed that the train conductors were not overly concerned with our Eurail pass – it was always the reservation (which looks almost exactly like a regular ticket), that they were interested in.
It was at this point we decided to take a punt. Could we get to Napoli from Rome for 10 Euro in 1st class? The answer is yes. In fact it appeared you could have ridden the entire journey without paying, proving you got off before the last stop, being Napoli. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes before our arrival in Napoli that the conductor came rushing through our carriage.
He looked at our 1st class reservation… stamped it… and moved on.
We navigated our way from the train platform down in to the Metro, finally emerging about 500m from our hostel.
First impressions of Napoli are of a chaotic city – people every where, and for every person walking there are about 10 motor scooters buzzing in and around people, cars and anything else that gets in their way.
The green pedestrian lights at crossings often don’t mean much – especially to scooters who seem to be above the law. Stepping onto the street has to be an act back by full confidence – its as though the traffic can smell your fear, and the slightest of hesitations could end up with a very close encounter with a Moped.
After the initial shock, and after putting the heavy back packs down in our hostel we set out to absorb more of what Napoli has to offer – in particular delicious pizza.
On our second day in Napoli we decided to catch the train out to Pompeii for the day and explore the old city. We had been told that the Napoli train station was a pretty dodge place, and we found out first hand how dodge it could be.
On entering the train station we immediately walked towards the automatic ticket machines to purchase our tickets for the day.
After waiting in line for a few moments a friendly man wandered over to us and asked if we required help. Immediately recognizing the blue shirts worn by the Italian train staff we responded by asking for tickets to Pompeii.
With this he led us across the station, away from the lines at the ticket machines to a newsagent stand. Here he asked the owner for the tickets we required to Pompeii and back – a total of about 10 Euro. We handed him money and received our change.
The man then took the tickets from the news stand owner and took us to the ticket validation machine. He validated our out-bound tickets for us and handed them to us. He was a little reluctant to give us the return tickets – at which point we began feeling like something was up. He eventually gave us the tickets and then mentioned that “Tips are nice.”
At this point we looked closer and his blue shirt, while remarkably similar to those worn by the Italian train staff did not actually carry the train companies logo.
It then hit us that we had been taken for a bit of a ride, and were even in doubt that we had the correct tickets.
Mean while the man continued to request tips, “10 Euro is nice.” The return tickets didn’t even cost us this much! At this point we thanked the man for his help and began walking off. This was obviously not to the mans liking as he began yelling at us – “Tips, Tips, give me tips!”
We were both a little spooked after that, and every loud noise or bang that we heard as we hoofed it to the platform made us turn and check behind us that no-one was in pursuit, which they weren’t.
We verified that we had reached the correct platform and that we had the correct tickets – which made us feel a little better, but we were still a little unsettled by the fact that we had not picked up on what was going on. In hind sight, the man had actually helped us – although it was help we could have done without.
Once we got to Pompeii we had a fantastic day. Pompeii was dry, hot and dusty, with virtually no shade in the whole place.
Unfortunately we don’t often travel on day trips with much ID (except photo copies of our passports) – this meant couldn’t get one of the audio guides that had been recommended to us by others at our hostel. This was a little disappointing, however we managed to get around most of the city (which is huge), and saw most of the main sights.
The following day we left Napoli for Sorrento – with a little apprehension about what we would find, as the Lonely Planet guide had not given it a great wrap.
We arrived in Sorrento and were surprised. The town was actually very nice, and our camp ground was huge and resort style. We had booked into a small cabin van, and were within 50m walk from the pool, the mini-market, and the restaurant.
The cabins were arranged into a group of about 6, with a small basic kitchen and fridge in another separate half cabin.
We were also lucky enough to have two other great groups of people in the cabins near us – one young Australia couple, and a group of three Irish girls. Other groups of people came and went over the time, but our three groups were the constants over the week that we stayed there.
We actually loved it there so much, we extended our stay by a day. We couldn’t see any reason to return to Napoli – especially with the weather as good as it was and a pool and the ocean on our door step.
We also found we were able to live reasonably cheaply, yet another reason to stay on.
From Sorrento we made a day trip to Positano, which was an interestingly windy 20km, 1 hour bus ride.
The following day we ventured out to Capri, with the intention of seeing the blue grotto – however on arriving we quickly discovered that the tides had been wrong, and there was no way to get into the grotto. This put a bit of a hole in our plans for Capri. We eventually decided to do a boat tour around the island anyway, which turned out to be quite nice.
The remainder of the time in Sorrento was spent lazily by the pool, at the (rock) beach (with its amazing blue water) or around the cabins at night with a few drinks and a chat with the others staying there.
Today sees us finally return to Napoli – back to the heat, but at least its only for one night. Tomorrow we are off to Benevento and San Lupo for three days!
We do have photos, but until we find a new iPod cable, we may not be able to put any of them up…
When in Rome…
Friday, July 18th, 2008
We made it to Rome after a pleasant few days in the Cinque Terre. Almost immediately we noticed that it was a little warmer here in Rome, away from the cooler comfort of the coast that Cinque Terre offered.
We are staying in a simple B&B – its not quite what you would classify as a B&B in Australia, but I guess it meets the necessities, we get a bed, and we get breakfast. To be honest, its actually quite nice. The room is huge, and while there are no cooking facilities we do have access to a fridge.
For out first full day in Rome we ventured out to the Colosseum, a short walk from where we are staying. We also wondered around and through many of the surrounding sights, including the Palatine, the Roman Forums, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.
On our second day we ventured out to the Vatican city – not that the Pope is there… he’s in Australia at the moment! Anyway, we took in most of the Vatican’s sights, including the huge St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters square.
The Vatican has so much to offer, and many beautiful works of art – it was well worth a day there.
Today we wandered down the road to the Basilica di San Giovanni- which was the first Christian Basilica built in Rome. The Basilica also serves as Rome’s cathedral, and is also the Pope’s seat as the Bishop of Rome. The Basilica is also the home to many ancient and religious relics, including the heads of both St. Peter and St. Paul.
Rome has been fascinating, and well worth the time.
We continue our trek south tomorrow as we move onto Naples for a few days.
We have now put up some of our photos from Rome – however, as we left our iPod cable in Rome, we may not be putting too many more photos up in the near future! Have to wait until we get home – lucky its not long now.
