Doug and Kerry Hudson in Italy

We left our little guesthouse in the Austrian village Matrei, and headed south for Italy. Our drive took us through the Brenner Pass, through some incredible mountain scenery, and suddenly we were in Italy. Our road meandered through small hilltop villages where the old folk were setting off for church dressed in their Sunday best.

We eventually emerged from the mountains only 50 km from Padua, our intended destination. However by now, the driving was nightmarish, with lorries, cars and mopeds all competing to overtake you, or undertake you, not really caring about which side they passed you on. We ended up on the coast at Chioggia, just south of Venice. We camped in a seaside camp resort, complete with swimming pool. Kerry pointed out the camp dance instructor with very tight shorts! He was "camp" in every sense of the word!

The next day we spent relaxing by the pool, having agreed that we would not go near the car after the previous day's nightmare drive. In the afternoon we strolled down to the beach. We can report that the Adriatic Sea was filthy! There were plastic bags and bottles floating in the water, and who knows what else. We didn't stop for a swim, just turned around and went back to the pool to jump in and cool off from the unbearable heat and humidity.

Since arriving in Italy, Doug had attracted a following of mosquitos. They loved him! Every night a couple of new bites appeared, despite him taking all the precautions of repellant and mosquito screen. It was just another part of our lovely Italian experience!

After our rest day, we were refreshed and ready to take on Venice. Luckily we found there was a ferry from Chioggia to Venice, so two hours later we rocked up at St Mark's Square. This was amazing: literally thousands of tourists and pigeons competing for space. Nevertheless, it still felt really special to be there. The buildings were quite grubby, but we felt that Venice would lose its charm if it was cleaned up. We went into the Basilica of St Mark, where the Apostle Mark was buried under the altar. Apparently two Venetian merchants stole his body from Egypt. The cathedral was exquisite, the ceiling being all covered in gold. We saw the altar cover, called the Palo D'Oro. It is solid gold and all covered in precious stones. It was really over the top but we could not help but be impressed with the wealth.

After St Mark's Square we decided to "lose ourselves" among the little streets and canals. We headed to the Domodoro district and succeeded in getting away from all the tourists and finding our very own quiet streets and canals. Kerry remarked that she'd never been to a dead end due to a canal before. People had told us how dirty and smelly the canals were, but we found them to quite clean. You could even see the fish. All in all, despite the crush of other tourists and the intense heat, we found this city delightful.

Our next city was Ravenna. We struck camp and set out for another nightmare drive, but at least we did succeed in finding another nice campsite on the coast. We caught the local bus into the city from the campsite. This was full of strange-looking characters jabbering away in Italian. On arrival in Ravenna we proceeded to see the eight UNESCO World Heritage sites there. Well six of them anyway. It's really tiring to see so much in a day, you know.

Ravenna was actually the capital of the Roman Empire following the sack of Rome, and the high point of its culture was around the 5th to 6th century AD. We visited churchs and mausoleums dating from this time to see what the tourists come to Ravenna for: the mosaics. And they were well worth seeing too, being so colourful and detailed. It was easy to take for granted that they were nearly one thousand five hundred years old.

Wandering around the streets in Ravenna was a pleasure as the streets were so quiet. In fact, there were hardly any tourists compared to Venice and not one Japanese in sight!

Between noon and 3pm in Italy, everything stops. All the shops close up, the streets empty of people and everyone heads to bed for a siesta. We liked this idea, but it was damn inconvenient sometimes, like when we wanted to put petrol in our car. That is why they have petrol pumps in Italy that work like vending machines. You just insert your credit card or bank notes and start putting your petrol in.

We struggled to communicate with the Italian people. The language notes at the back of our Lonely Planet Guide just didn't cover enough essential words. Such as, "Bill, please" for example. We sat in a restaurant for ages not knowing what to say. Kerry made Doug get his wallet out and place it very obviously on the table as a hint.

We drove from Ravenna to Siena in Tuscany. This was quite possibly the worst journey of our entire world trip. Kerry was in tears at one point, screaming, "Just get me out of this expletive deleted place!" Our meandering route had already taken us through the middle of Bologna and when we got lost in Florence it was more than Kerry could take. We proceeded to drive all over Tuscany looking for a campsite with space for our little tent. After eight hours we eventually found one in Siena, the town famous for the colour "burnt siena" that all the houses are coloured in.

We visited the Duomo in Siena, a bizarre-looking cathedral that we didn't know what to make of. First of all, it was completely in black and white marble stripes. When you go in and look up, there are all these carved marble heads looking down at you. It looked like the people were decapitated. They all looked very disapproving too.

The square in Siena was unusual in that it was not square but oval. They hold a famous horse race there every year.

We`d worked up an appetite, so we found a little bar/cafe, thinking we`d have a nice slice of pizza for lunch. This turned out to be an unforgettable experience - for all the wrong reasons!

First of all, we had this very rude Italian man seat us at a table with plastic knives and forks. Actually, he just pointed in the general direction of the table. He handed us some menus with no prices on - oh oh! We had just enough time to select something cheap sounding before he snatched them away again. Then we waited for over forty minutes for our food to arrive. In the meantime Italian customers had arrived, ordered, been served their meal, eaten and left! Our food came on plastic plates, pizzas dripping with extra olive oil and double extra cheese. The pizza base was like thin toast, exploding into shrapnel in several directions when we tried to stab it with our fork. Doug's fork melted within seconds of his first mouthful. Kerry nearly gagged on a particularly cheesey and oily mouthful.

The final insult came with the bill: 13 euros for this cr@p! And he wasn`t even grateful, just snatching the money away from us. Don't worry, we won't be back!

Our neighbours at the Siena campsite were from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It was really interesting to learn about life there. They cycle everywhere, and expect to have at least one bike stolen each year. It`s okay though because everyone buys their bikes back from the thieves through 2nd hand shops. They also share a car with two other families, for grocery shopping. They took great pride in the fact that Amsterdam is the most forward-thinking city in the world: for example, gay couples can marry there, and prostitution is legalised there. He said that they even have to pay taxes now, and that they have a union! He told us that prices have doubled since legalisation; don`t ask us how he knew!

The next day we caught the bus to Florence. In fact it was a combination of two buses, both of which were late... It was incredibly hot and humid in Florence, and the city was full to the gills with tourists. Unlike Venice there was no way to escape them, so the experience was claustrophobic and unpleasant. The streets were dirty and smelly too, unlike Venice. On the bright side, we saw some incredible paintings, including the Anunciation by Leonardo da Vinci, and his Adoration of the Wise Men (our personal favourite); we also saw paintings by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Donatello, Rafaello, and Caravaggio; the whole experience was very cultural!

The Duomo in Florence (the cathedral) was in white and black marble, like in Siena. It was incredibly detailed and very impressive on the outside. The inside was a great letdown, however, as it was bare stone apart from the dome which had some paintings.

Such a hot day required ice cream, so we decided to buy one. Unfortunately this cost us 15 euros. Ouch! We couldn`t afford to do anything else, so we returned to Siena feeling sick.

The next day we moved our tent to San Gimignano, a hilltop walled town in the heart of Tuscany. The scenery here was wonderful; the town was also pretty. It is famous for the towers, 13 of which remain of the original 72. They didn`t appear to serve any purpose other than to show the neighbouring towns that "We are significantly richer than you"! Walking back from town we saw some illegally parked cars getting towed away. Fair enough; however the majority of the cars were Italian and they were only towing the French and English ones, the b@st@rds! This was just one more example of the Italian attitude that has annoyed us so much.

The next morning when we woke up, our car was covered in bird poo. This bird must have been on a seriously high-fibre diet! By the size of the splashes it could have been an elephant in the tree above! Doug had the unpleasant task of sponging this stuff off before we proceeded. Kerry helped Doug by pouring clean water over where Doug had just scrubbed. Thanks Kerry!

We decided to forego the delights and pleasures of Pisa, Genoa and the Riviera di Levante that we had planned to see, and decided to head straight for the Cote d'Azur. We had literally had enough of Italy, and could not bear to be there a moment longer. So we took to the Autostrada, willing to pay any price to get out of Italy quickly. The Autostrada took us through some very impressive scenery in the posh part of Italy. Our journey consisted of alternating bridges and tunnels, and one hell of a storm. We will always remember the thrill of leaving Italy behind, and driving towards the shining hope of France.

From the word go, Doug's had found the Italian people to be vain, ignorant, impatient and self-obsessed. You should read their tourist brochures, talk about bragging! Kerry initially found them to be stylish and very image conscious, but after suffering a week of daily exposure to them, she aligned her opinion with Doug's!

World Trip >> Europe >> Italy

Last updated: Sunday August 27, 2006