Some notes from Italy

At last we have WiFi, so much easier than internet places when you're tired and scratchy from your big day out and just want to go and sit and have a cold one!
Some deep and meaningful(??) thoughts from the latter half of our stay in Italy.

• One night in Florence .......  After checking out 39 ristorante we arrived back at the first one and had an evening meal before meeting our good friends Margaret and Pat for a drink on the top floor of the Hotel Medici. A few shake, shake, shakes, a couple of mwah, mwahs and a couple of biers and a catch up. After a very tiring day for all of us we decided on an early night. Big day tomorrow, day 2, David day. That was about 9.30. Ken you would be well asleep by now. Its hard to describe what happened over the next 8-9 hours. What stood out initially was the cacophony of noise. It was as if there were 5000 people, all talking at the same time. Remember we are on the fifth floor. Actually you wouldn’t remember because i had not mentioned it.  

Then a street performer started. He had a whistle (ex ref), horn, a loud voice and an amplifier commonly used now by buskers. After 45mins we had had enough, got dressed and went outside for a look. He lasted about 10min and packed up at 10.30pm. After a quick look around for other attractions and a mental to note to self, only 2 million people out, we returned to the boudoir.

During those other minutes between the hour, the street cleaners worked continuously, up and down, up and down. In Europe they have a great system for rubbish. On nearly every street they have these large bins, on wheels for people to place their rubbish. One for paper/ cardboard, one for glass and one for rubbish of a general nature. Explains why the place is reasonably clean.

Where was i?  After the street cleaners the rubbish trucks arrive. The bins are pushed into position, over cobbled street then the MOTORISED truck picks it up and empties it. We liked the paper/cardboard better than the glass one. Also at very stage during the night, the shop owners pulled down their roller doors. Add all of these together and call them sound bites. These sound bites creep up the wall of buildings and look for open windows to crash in and slap you around the ears. 

         At about 6.30 we both fell into a deep sleep.
         At 6.55 Margaret rang, an alarm call, and to tell us about the bells.
         At 8.15 we were standing in front of David............what a man?
         PS. That afternoon we decided to have a nap, Italian style.  Then the parade started..........

• That was the parade with bands, flags being thrown high, lots of men in tights and a cannon going off a regular intervals.
• Pine trees - didn't know this weed in NZ was a treasured, shaped and trimmed found everywhere tree.

• Busker and beggars - some fantastic like the 5 men in silver who broke out in raucous laughter very time someone put  money in the tin, some heart string stuff like the oboe player with his wife and baby on the metro. 
• Oh for some brown bread...
• Pizza with broccoli to get our vege in...
• Loved Genoa and down the coast.
• Pisa has a tower that leans, but that's it.  Almost overshadowed by the lines of stalls all selling the same things.
• HIGHLIGHT Lucca - wish we'd stayed longer than 1 night.
• Driving the backroads from Pisa, Lucca to Florence was beautiful.

• Florence - so many people it was a bit hard to appreciate - back streets awesome.  Spaghetti and clams yummy! 
• Dab hand at the tolls on autostrado now, even getting good at racing the huge trucks as you leave to merge in to 3 lanes!
• Paving - who'd have guessed you could take so many photos of different types, sizes, shapes, even, uneven, old and very old sorts of paving.  And who'd have thought people would wear stilleto's over them!

• HIGHLIGHT 3 actors portraying 10 of Caravaggio's paintings (only by changing the colours and shapes of fabric they had on stage) perfectly timed to dramatic music, in a very old stone building.
• HIGHLIGHT the Vatican.  Our tour with 8 people through the museums, Sistine Chapel, Basillica was fantastic.  Even the other 6 Americans were great, and our guide just the best. Both really annoyed by the huge numbers of people ignoring the 'silence' and 'no photos' in the Sistine Chapel.  Soooo disrespectful.

• Beautiful drinking water all over Rome - fountains and taps to fill the drink bottles everywhere.  ...and you need it.  Did everything at the Trevi Fountain to make sure we come back again!
• Purchased a book for school at the Colosseum.
• Great train rides on very comfortable trains - highly recommend!
• Milan, the fashion capital is covered in graffiti.  In between the Gucci and Armani shops, and sadly on some of the old stone buildings as well.
• Duomo in Milan spectacular, and even more so as there was a service for the ordination of priests occuring while we were there.  Accoustics amazing for music and singing.

Today we have arrived in Zermatt, Switzerland, after a fascinating train ride up the mountains.  Beautiful blue sky day and the Matterhorn looks spectacular from our balcony.  Great recommendation coming here Karl.  We've splashed out on a very nice hotel as a birthday treat, and after the ride today, we're really looking forward to our Glacier Express train trip across Switzerland to St Moritz on the 4th.

Good luck everyone at Sacred Heart for the big production on the 4th and 5th - I'm really sorry I'm missing it. 
Go the All Blacks..