Italy Road Trip

A few blog posts hardly do justice to describing the amazing 10 day holiday spent in Italy over the August Bank Holiday weekend with a great bunch of Melbourne expat friends - Wai, Roopa, Farrah, Rob and Allee; the best Italian food we have eaten, gorgeous Mediterranean sunshine and seeing some of the most historic and scenic places in the world.
Thank you to everyone (and of course especially Olie) for organizing Mei's surprise 30th birthday present and also part of a joint holiday for Allee and keeping it all a secret for so many months.
Truly grateful and overwhelmed by the amount of effort that went into making this trip possible.




Recap

This 10 day trip was the longest stretch of continuous travel that we had embarked on since arriving in the UK. We had 10kg backpacks that included clothes catering for all weather conditions - the very mild London summer to the scorching Italian heat, shoes for heavy walking on day excursions, to more formal footwear for recommended fine dining restaurants.

On the Amalfi Coast

Italian bread horoscope pictures

Great Train Journey
The format of the trip was based on a Grand Train tour; purposely done so by Olie as Mei had once hinted of seeing Europe via land instead of just by air. And train travel in Europe is very easy to organise independently, with automatic ticketing machines at all major stations equipped with English translations and accept both credit card or cash.

Our trip from London to Positano

What has Olie planned for my birthday?

The detail of each leg of the trip will be written up as separate blog posts with plenty of photos, but here is a summary of this road trip:

Day 1 - London to Paris to Zurich
We departed London St Pancras station early in the morning to Paris via the Eurostar. We changed stations from Gare du Nord to Gare du Lyon and waited for our connecting train to Switzerland, destination Zurich. Stayed one night in Zurich and did some sightseeing around town.

Our third trip to Paris for all of 3 hours

The Alps overlooking Lake Zurich

Day 2 - Zurich to Milan
More sightseeing on Lake Zurich before we took the first of many Trenitalia run trains, this time to Milan. The train journey was quite an experience - passing through the Alps and Lake Como district although it was too dark to appreciate the scenery.

Passing through the Alps on the way to Milan

Day 3 - Milan to Florence
We started our day in Milan with a visit to the Duomo and the Sforza castle then took a train through Tuscany, arriving in the magical city of Florence. Florence was brimming with culture, but also reached a burning 40 degrees so we retreated to our Bed and Breakfast for the rest of the day, emerging at night to explore both the Palazzo Vecchio museum, restaurant area and the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Milan's Duomo

Inside the grounds of the Sforza Palace

Ponte Vecchio

Day 4 - Pisa and Lucca

The day started early with a day trip to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. Then after a long wait at a train station that offered electronic pre-recorded messages as the only form of customer service, we boarded a train to Lucca - a Renaissance walled city full of churches bell towers. We returned to Florence for a pasta dinner.

One of the many cathedral inside Lucca

Day 5 - Florence to Rome
Last day in Florence started with a 200+ step climb up the dome of the Duomo to admire the view of the city. Then as the city temperature warmed up, we headed for the train station for Rome, arriving in the late afternoon. Our Bed and Breakfast was located near the Colosseum but as we had visited Rome late last year, we were more interested in relaxing than sight-seeing. Dinner was spent at a restaurant on route to the Spanish Steps.

The view from the top of Florence's Duomo

The Spanish Steps

Day 6 - Rome to Naples
The morning started off with Italian coffee, pastries and juice before heading to yet another train station for our journey south to Naples. We arrived in Naples at the edge of the Old Town, however the squabbling market traders and dirty streets did not make the city centre look very attractive. But the view improved near our hotel along the port where we explored the local area and my first surprise (Farrah) arrived to join us for dinner.

Pizza in the home of Pizza, Naples

Mt Vesuvius overlooking the Bay of Naples

Day 7 - Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius
The next day started early with a mini-bus pick up for our excursion to Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius. Both places were amazing and we were very tired by the time we returned back to Naples. However, my second surprise was waiting at dinner where Allee, Rob and Roopa had also come to the party. Wai joined the group later that night.

The 'surprise' dinner

Day 8 - Amalfi Coast to PositanoThe whole group met up for the start of our road trip down the Amalfi coast. Using a private mini bus and guide, we stopped off at small towns like Scala, Ravello and Amalfi, before a very tasty lunch along the coast. Positano was the final destination where we checked into our hotels after climbing down numerous stairs, took a swim in the ocean and enjoyed a great view of the night skyline at dinner.

Funny poses against a night-time Positano skyline

Day 9 - Island of Capri
A day devoted to touring the Amalfi Coast by water, with our own boat chartered to take us to the island of Capri, small swimming grottos where we could enjoy the surroundings without loads of boats and a local hotel owned by the captain's family to eat the most amazing array of antipasto. We celebrated our last night in Positano with many melon and lemoncellos on a wooden jetty under the moonlight.

Pippo our captain and our private boat

Chilling on the jetty in Positano

Lemon granita on the Isle of Capri

Day 10 - Naples to London
Last day in paradise, we spent the morning soaking up the last rays of Italian sunshine, eating our last stuffed courgette flower and wishing we had more days to spend in this tiny, beautiful village. However, it was soon time to head to the airport for our flight out of Naples. And when we arrived into Stansted airport, it was back to reality and the gloomy, cold London weather.

The last of the stuffed courgette flowers

Over this trip it was difficult to have 'favourite' spots but there were some places we would recommend to other travelers:

1. City to visit again

Florence - a city that offers so much in art history but we didn't have the time to visit all the museums and galleries, see the Renaissance masterpieces or try all the local specialty foods.

2. Scenery for that Kodak moment

The Amalfi coastline - a place where villages defied gravity as they hung from cliff faces, there are bambino villages isolated in the nooks and crannies of rock ledges where the key attraction is 'to make babies'; and the scenery is picture perfect

The view from a balcony in Ravello

3. Historic landmark from high school history lessons

Pompeii - a city that got buried under 6 metres of burning ash, that has been excavated and studied in so much detail that every ancient shop front tells a story, every raised stone had a purpose and the red light district taught us that some practices have gone unchanged for centuries.

The Forum in Pompeii

4. Food to recommend to friends and family

Florentine steak - the tastiest, smoothest cut of meat; or the clam pasta from Naples

Florentine steak, enough for two people

5. Drink to recommend to friends and family

The meloncello won hands down in terms of drink of choice, with our friendly group of tourists chugging down at least 5 full bottles of melon and lemon flavoured liquor over a three day period.

The melon-cello and lemon-cello layered shot

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