Uncle Travelling Matt .com — the personal site of Matt Gifford

Southern Italy is like another country. I arrived last night in Napoli at about 9pm in the dark, it was hot, humid and busy. I went to the McDonalds in the station to get a late dinner the only a couple of letters of their sign were working and everything inside that be stolen had been stolen, including the toilet seat but fortunately I didn’t need to use that!

After getting off at the correct Metro station for hostel, I got hopelessly lost. Turns out the hostel is up a winding industrial driveway in the middle of a construction site, and very difficult to find in the daytime, let alone at 10pm at night in the dark. I ended up miles away from it, being spat at by passing youths on Vespas. Napoli was starting to sound like a very bad plan.

The area I’d wandered into was pretty rough, with rubbish piled piled a metre high on the sidewalk and I was starting wonder if I was going to end up in dumpster too. However, I saw a family walking by and asked the husband for directions, but got lost again. Then they drove by in their car and motioned for me to get in and kindly drove me to hostel—without them I’d never of found it!

After Firenze I’ve spent two days over in Marche staying with Anna and her parents in a small town near the sea. Yesterday her father drove me over the mountains into Umbria to an even smaller town to catch the train to Roma and then on to Napoli. The mountains are really pretty in autumn but I’m looking forward to the better weather in the south as it’s been raining and a bit cold here.

Today is my last day in Firenze, tomorrow I head east to met up with Anna. Firenze is undoubtedly the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to and I can understand why so many great artists were inspired by it. However, it is incredibly easy to get lost here, the street markets being much like pinball machines, but this has lead to many unplanned discoveries, like the botanical gardens today!

My Hostel was about 5km away from the Train Station, so it took some effort to find. Below is a montage of the landmarks I use to get from Centro to the Hostel and back. The painted foot prints on the pavement are in fact to help school children find their way to school—green and red are two different schools. They also help lost tourists to find their way through the maze of streets too and I was very lost at the time!

After staying in a number of hostels in Australia, with lots of hot foreign girls that all spoke English, hostels here came as quite a shock. For one they’re not co-ed, so I’m stuck here with a elderly guy, a young Dutch guy, both of which don’t speak English or Italian, and an old Australian guy that sleeps naked. Yes, i don’t think it could worse! lol. Hopefully the next one is better!

Many people over here ride bicycles, not the modern looking ones we get in New Zealand, but bikes that look at least 40 years old. However, there is the problem of the Bicycle Mafia, who will steel your bike, stip it down, and then try to sell it back to you, lol. This may explain why all the bikes on the street have at least 2 locks, if not more, with chains that are up to an inch thick!

After 3 planes, 4 trains and 51 hours travelling I finally arrived in the City of Bologna in Northern Italy. This has been the longest trip I’ve ever done and navigating Milano after being awake for 45 hours straight proved to be an almost insurmountable challenge. Everything was in Italian, no-one spoke English and I was fast approaching the point of complete physical exhaustion.

Everything here is old, the airport felt like I was walking in the 1970′s, there’s no modern malls, big supermarkets, or chain stores. Grocery Shopping is done at several small vendors, the butchery, the baker, and yes, there is probably a candle stick maker around here somewhere too! There is also small fruit and vegetable stores that look like they haven’t changed for 100′s of years. Today I’m working in Anna’s office at the University of Bologna, which is 918 years old…

So far I been been getting of over the jet-lag and the dodgy aeroplane food—for the first two days I had a very upset stomach and was feeling rather ill. The food here is quite different to what I thought Italian food was. They put Olive Oil on everything and I mean everything, peas, beans, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, pasta, they’re all coated with oil. Bread they eat plain with nothing on it, and at the home where I’m staying they keep the dough pre-prepared in the fridge and bake it fresh each day.

I also found out why Anna and her flatmates don’t have a car, apart from the fact there are no and I mean no car parks, petrol is over $3 per litre—and we thought $1.70/litre was bad!!

Below is a photo taken from my bedroom window at about 7am yesterday. Each morning the bells of the Duomo (The cathedral in Centro [the city centre]) ring to call people to mass just after dawn. On Sunday there are several masses in the morning, so they go to town on the bells—there’s no such thing as a Sunday morning sleep-in here!! Tomorrow I’m heading to Firenze and Sienna in Toscana, I’ll post again in a few days.