Italy March 2002

We saw an add in the paper for a bus trip to Italy. We didn't know really any of the places the brocure listed, but signed up for all the little excursions. Hey, why not? Sometimes the prebooked tours can be a good overview of a city or country. The obvious trip that we wanted was to the Vatican to see Pope John Paul II give his Easter speech. We're not religious, but, when in Rome...

Italy - Piza - The first day of our trip had us starting at 10pm from Glasgow, and arriving somewhere in France around supper time the next night. We stayed in France, then went thru Switzerland (check out the Switzerland page) and then into Italy. The country side of Tuscany was very picturesque - littered with little farms, vinards and the like. The next set of pictures is of Piza. Unfortunately, this is as close as we were able to get, as we were a bit late, and we were unable to pursuade the bus driver for a little detour.

Here we have the leaning tower peeking out from behind another building.

A little better picture. Here we can see the leaning tower a bit better.

We are going around the city, this taken from about 90 degrees from the first set.

And, here we have the sun setting on the outskirts of Piza. The sky was a lot redder then in the picture. Oh well, one of those "had to be there" experiences.

Italy - Assisi - Assisi is perched on the top of a hill. When you are driving towards the town, you notice the Basilica and the town rising above. When you leave the parking lot, you are greeted with the long pathway leading to the Basilica. On each side of the path is a covered walkway, for wetter days than today.

In the above picture, in the second archway (just behind the person in white) was this tablet. It shows the birth of Jesus, with Mary in the center, angels above and the kings and wise men below.

Here is Kim on the way up to the Basilica, with the Basilica on the right.

Here, we are looking directly at the main entrance to the Basilica. To the left is the valley that we drove thru and to the right just above the fence is some vinyards. All over was references to the T and PAX. I am guessing that the T was for the cross, but I am not sure what PAX means.

High upon the hill are a couple of forts and city walls that would have protected Assisi years ago. The problem was that from the Basilica, we could see the fort but we had no idea on how to get there. We hunted and zig-zagged our way up and along dead end streets, and as luck would have it, actually found it. We saw one sign which was in the middle of town, but other than that, there was no help to be found. We did end up taking one path that led into someones back yard, but I think (or hope) that they weren't home, as we were there for a couple of minutes before we realized that we had to turn around.

This shot is some of the windy roads that we had to try and navigate thru.

Along the road to the fort, we noticed this little trail. I have no idea where it leads. It was a good test of my zoom lens.

Here is a close up of the north east tower and walls. They were doing a lot of repairs on the forts and walls.

Ah Success. We are almost at the top.

Here is a close up of a tourret and a guard house that they are restoring. For the amount of tools and scaffolding around, there wasn't anybody actually working. It was a shame that they were working on the fort, as you weren't able to enter the forts.

This tourett is on the north west corner of the border, about 100 feet from the above picture.

This is looking down at part of Assisi from the fort in the last picture. Also in distance is vinyards and farms.

Now just to prove that these pictures aren't just scanned postcards, Kim decided to steal the camera and take a couple pictures of me. Behind me is the fort in the north east corner, and to the left would be the fort on the north west corner.

Strolling around the city, we found this church along the way.

Here is Kim admiring the church.

Here is another church with it's tower under repair.

This is one of the village squares. One problem / benefit with Italy is the number of gelato vendors. Probably every three stores sells gelato. And, although I didn't try every flavour, I did have at least one every day. And, eating gelato isn't as easy as you think. There is a correct way of eating it - you just can't dive your tounge at it to expect the full flavour. Honest!

This looking to the valley from the Basilica.

Looking down to the valley, also from the Basilica.

We were wandering along the town. This is east of the Basilica.

A little further east from the above picture, looking down at more of Assisi and the valley.

This was on the way to the fort. Any idea on which way to go???

A little more hunting around the village streets. Quite a quaint little town.

Here is one of the old guard towers and entrance ways to the city.

Some more narrow streets, and a tower ahead.

A little closer look at the tower, and it's coat of arms, an olive tree.

Italy - Florence

This is Florence's version of the wishing well. You take a coin, and put it on the forehead of the boar. When you let it go, it goes down his nose, and into a little well. The story is, if you do this, you will return to Florence. If you rub the boars snout, then you will have good luck, and you will return to Italy. Now, not being superstious, we didn't believe that. But... just incase, we did rub his snout and rolled a couple of coins down, just incase. And, it would be worth it. I think if I had the money, I would definately go back. So many people have touched the snout, that it is in danger of being rubbed out. As you can see, it is well worn, and is a totally different color than the rest of the boar.

Just behind the crowd, is the camera shop ((BOOGI)) where I found out that my precious camera was worth as much as a paper weight. I was quite miffed, as tomorrow, we were to go and see the Pope, and a telephoto would have been a great benefit in the crowd. Wah.

We were given a little guided tour by a local guide, and she dropped us off at this square. This church just seemed to gleam in the square. We did a quick little tour in the church, but, as rules would have it, no pics in the church.

This is looking thru the streets of Florence, and you can just see there is a little gap in the people, and then the streets become congested again. Between us and the mob is the river.

This little garden looked quite interesting. This house is right on the river. Nice place.

The entire building on the right is a museum. In there, they have many paintings, exhibitions, and statues including David. We tried to go to the museum, but the lineup was around 3 hours and we only had one day in Florence. At the end of the building on the left is another open square with statues and a replica of the status of David, and several of religious icons.

Below is the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, which had interesting statues all around it.

There are quite a few bridges separating the residential (left) part of town with the business and fashion (right) part of town. There is obviously business, fashion etc on both sides, but they have their own main areas. This is looking west.

This is looking east from the bridge. Just on the left where all the people are, is the back of the museum and the tail end of the lineup.

This is the bridge where I took the last two pictures. The is the only bridge in Florence that survived the war. Not only is the bridge very old, but it is home to most of Florence's jewelers. You wouldn't know it by looking at it, but there are some sweet (aka: expensive) deals to be had there. Bring a smile and your platinum Visa.

Just on the far left is one of the towers by the museum.

This is from the same vantage point as the last picture, with the jewelers bridge behind me.

One lone rower dares to tame the mighty river.

A snap shot taken from the other side of the river.

Even though the water looks like pea soup, there are quite a few good sized fish swimming about. I don't know what they are, I wasn't close enough to ask. Plus I don't speak fish.

This little guy (the rodent, not the rower) was quite fascenating. I don't know what he is, or what he does for a living, but there was quite a bit of interest in this little guy. He didn't seem to mind that we were watching him. I guess he'd seen tourists, and since we weren't feeding him, he just went along his merry way.

Here's a closer look at these little critters. They were bigger than rats, but smaller than beavers - kind of a mid-size rodent.

Ah, a room with a view. Sure, Florence would be expensive to live, but think about all that good biscotte, gelato, and expresso that you could actually drink, rather than that horrible Starbucks stuff. Sorry, there are some coffee shops that have good coffee, but once you have actually tasted someone that knows what they are doing... It's like day old, nuked instant coffee vs 5* perked coffee at the Pan Pacific. Wah. I want to go back.

These little side streets just look like your own typical neighbourhood. Snack Bar, Leather Goods (hey, this is jackets etc - remember, we're not in Amsterdam (those are on another page)), typical every day stores that you'd see anywhere... See, Florence isn't all that posh.

Or is it? You know, in most places you will have a store that has a couple of Gucci things, like a bag, or a couple of watches - well, here's the Gucci store. We didn't even want to look in the window for having our noses too close to the merchandise. Right next to it is the Armani store. Not just several token jackets or a couple of nice suits, but an entire store. This is how the other people live. So, we just mooned them, and ran away.

We're making our way back to the square, with the Gucci and Armani shops directly behind us.

And, this is the end of Florence - walking back to the square for our meeting point. The dome ahead of us is the third largest dome in the world. St. Peter's and St. Paul's are the two larger than this one. One difference this dome has is it doesn't have any supports holding it. They were originally going to build an inner dome for support, but the architect said that it was so perfect that it didn't require any supports - so, they believed him, and there it stands.

Italy - Tuscany - Our little hotel was about 2 hours from Rome, 30 minutes from Assisi, 30 minutes from Piza and an hour and a half from Florence. This allowed us to be able to visit these cities, without having to pay Rome or Florence's prices. Plus, that's where the tour operator dropped us off, so it's not like we had much of a choice!

Here are our tour guides - Fingers, Hi Ho Joe, and John. This was taken on Easter Sunday when we were going to the Vatican, so everyone was dressed up.

Here's some of the vinyards between Assisi and our hotel.

This was taken from the little village where were staying, looking onto another village. That night, we went to a Easter parade.

The parade is going to be a little hard to explain without actually being there. It started with druids being followed by Roman guards.

Another picture of the druids and guards.

Jesus was accompanied by many guards, but he was the only one carrying a cross. They select a different person to play Jesus each year, and it is a big honour to be selected.

Also on display was the calvary. In photo mags books, they tell you how to create your composition - try and form a triangle and all that. What I have never read is that you shouldn't use flash photography on a very large horse. They don't really like it.

Here are a couple tamer examples of the calvary.

Ooh, this poor horse. This century has been spending way too much time in the Roman baths, and not enough on the training courses.

This was one of the princesses going to visit Jesus.

And, more Roman guards.

A very holy figure appearing out of nowhere...

More guards with torches.

He's giving gold and jewelery.

The wise men.

Children with palm leaves.

Carring a cross.

A marching band to keep the saviour happy.

Mary and the body of Jesus.

Mary and Jesus at the end of the parade, and the spectators joining in the precession. The parade continued past us, into a larger square, where there were thousands of people joining with the members of the parade. It was quite a spectical - people in costumes mingling with common folk. Quite an experience.

Italy - Vatican - Our trip was mainly to see Italy. It might have been in the brocure that we would see the Vatican, but I didn't think that we would actually be seeing the Vatican, with the Pope on Easter. That was a really weird feiling. As you've probably guessed by now, I'm not religious, but it was just an interesting with the most holy of people. There's tones of famous people, several queens, but there's only one pope.

After leaving the coach, we exited the parkade, and were greeted by this little parade of the army and other military officers.

The parade went as quickly as it came. It was an unexpected treat.

They had a fence around the centre of the square - I'm guessing this was for crowd control. We were able to get fairly close, as we came pretty early. The odd thing is that nobody seemed to know when the Pope's address was to happen. We all thought noon, and we arrived around 9. Luckily it wasn't raining.

I just went for a wonder in the square, looking at a fountain statue.

Looking east into the square, the crowd starting to fill the square. We were standing half way between here and the obelisk for the Pope's address.

The semi-circle of pillars around the square were actually just cleaned. The tour operator (Hi Ho Jo from before) said that when he was here last year, you couldn't see the pillars for all of the maintenance work that was being done.

A crowd waiting for The Pope. The people with the Esperanto signs were bobbing around, but they were asked to lower them when the Pope came out.

Here is a wider picture of the square.

Another shot of the square.

Ever wondered how they get those shots above the crowd? That camera was swooping over and all round the square. Nobody was hurt in the filming of this production.

More people milling around before the Pope's speech.

On the big screen tv, the Pope is reading from a book held by a little boy. The lady in the middle doesn't look too impressed, does she?

The crowd is listening to every word.

Some people are taller than others.

More pics of the crowd enjoying the Pope.

As you can see, the square was getting pretty busy. There was a street just off to the top right (where the parade was) that was jam packed.

At the end of the cereomony, the Pope got into his Pope mobile and was driven around the square. We were about 50 yards from him.

This old gent was a reporter. I am not exactly sure which TV station, but I think it was something like CNN. He didn't smile much.

This lady was also part of the reporting squad. You can't see it from here, but although she looks posh, she was actually wearing flip-flops. I also don't think she was very nice to work with, as she kept barking orders. I think her camera crew were going to kill her at the end of the speech. So much for good will and the lot.

If you look real close, you can see the Pope. He's the guy becide the guy in black under the tent. With my dead camera, I was able to zoom just so the entire tent was in the picture. But, alas - the camera was toast.

Another shot of St Pauls and the crowd.

In the tv screen is the Pope reading his speech. Also notice that the reporter isn't really taking much interest in the speech.

The Pope continuing his speech.

At the end of the cereomy, the Pope was driven just infront of us around the square in his Pope mobile. We got pretty close.

Italy - Rome - After the morning at The Vatican, we had the rest of the day in Rome. This of course meant a quick trip around all the sites, and, you guessed it, more gelati!

Once again, random traffic and street signs get in the way of a nice building shot.

Here is the city hall in Rome.

Here a church has arisin from the runis of old Roma. On the right are some old ruins. Also, the lamp post is also interesting with the wolves and the screaming eagle.

Another monument and archway in Rome.

Circus Maximus - it could hold over 100,000 people. This is the famous stadium used in Ben Hurr. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I hear that it was a good one. Anyways, this is the best picture that you will ever see. Look at it - isn't it beautiful? No, not the ruins. Look down. That part that looks like a running track. That and the pit is pretty much all that is left. In Rome, once a building has served its purpose, the wolves are set free, and the bricks are recycled and used into new buildings. So, even though the building may be new, the bricks could be used before.

The Roman Colloseum is right behind me. Around the colloseum, they are revamping some of the other ruins and buildings. This was a nice little grassy nole where we relaxed and caught a few rays.

The Colloseum is directly to my left (where all thos people are looking). If you've seen the movie Gladiator, you'd remember this arch. Na, only kidding. This is just another section that they are restoring. Those are some of the old foundations that they are restoring, and in the distance in the fence is some more digs.

This is the first picture of the Colloseum taken from the bus. One thing you don't really appreciate is how old and large this building is. It held over 70,000 people, and is a couple of a thousand years old.

One reason that the Colloseum is still standing, and not dismantled like the Cirucus Maximus, is because the Colloseum has been marked as a historical religious site.

Can you tell which part is new and which part is original? They are rebuilding parts of the colloseum where it has collapsed or is unsafe, to look like it did originally.

Looking east at part of the colloseum from a little hill.

You don't think that the colloseum is really that big, until you see a picture like this - even the newer buildings are not as tall.

One interesting point about the colloseum was that events were actually free. And, no, that's not just for the lions or gladiators. The Romans knew that free time was precious, and thus, you were given free seats. The higher in society you were, the better seats you could get. This is section VII. They also had a really good numbering scheem, and you could easily find your seats.

Here is a little bit of old colloseum, and a little bit of new colloseum.

One interesting factoid about the colloseum - it only had 4 gates. The North gate, the South gate, the one for living gladiators, and the last was for the less fortunate gladiators. One other factoid is that the colloseum was designed so that the entire colloseum could be emptied of its 70,000 fans in less than 4 minutes. I'm not really sure why - it's not like the stone can burn all that fast.

You can take tours of the colloseum, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time. Isn't that always the way. I don't believe you can have the run of the entire colloseum, but you do have a little bit of freedom.

This is the Eternal Youth Fountain in Rome. It is as wide as the building, and is several stories tall. I don't think that you could find the fountain without the help of a tour guide. It would be such a shame to go to Rome without seeing it.

There are a lot of silly superstitions in Italy - one of them is that if you want to return to Rome, you have to throw a coin from your right hand over your left shoulder. My thoughts was, hey, for 10 or 20p, why not - it was worth the risk. As well, this shows the size of the pool as well.

Kim thought that since I had thrown a coin into the pool, that she didn't have to. She thought that if I was going, then she'd just tag along. Smart girl, and she saved a quarter. Actually, she did throw a coin in, but I was to slow with the camera. Also, this palce was swamped - we were lucky to squeeze in to the open bench, but with all the people milling around, you have to get in, throw your coin and get out.

By itself, this just looks like a normal building on a little island. No big deal. But, it is actually the first hospital to treat people with terminal illnesses. Of course, that is also one of the reasons why it is on it's own island. People checked in, but few checked out.

When you look at the hospital, it's actually a really nice place in a rather nice setting.

That little bridge is the only bridge to get to the island.

These stairs were actually used by the Roman army to ride their chariots and horses to and from the city. There are two statues depeticting the importance of their calvary.

This is a beautiful memorial.

Another shot of the memorial.

These ruins are thousands of years old. We had an extra 10 minutes free, so we decided to paint one of the rooms.

There are some interesting ruins in Rome.

This is one of the original fort walls, holding back intruders. The other interesting part is the Levis add of the person running thru walls. Just shows that the world really isn't that large.

Another interesting ruin.

Several remaining ruins around Rome.

More ruins.

And, this will be the last picture of ruins from Rome.

This looks like quite a normal house. Ok, it's out of my price range, but, other than that, nothing special. Where this house has it's claim to fame, is it is where Ferdinan was shot, thus, starting the Great War (and you already know that it was "the shot heard around the world", so I won't add that in).

This is a monument to Romulus and Remous. A she-wolf took in the orphaned twins, and fed them. Romulus created Roma, and Remous hunted sheep.

Italy - Saint Gimignano - One of our day trips was to Saint Gimignano. It's one of these little towns that you would normally drive. Saint Gimignano is remound for it's towers. When people had money, they would spend their money on building towers. There are a couple that are still used today, but most of them have been dismantled. As you will see from these pics, there is still some standing.

Here is the entrance to the city. The city is pretty much contained in these walls, as you will see from some of the pictures from the towers. A lot of the cafe's were busy, so we had our lunch just on the right on the raised garden.

This is looking at the grape fields, taken from just on the right of the above picture.

Here is the local church. It doesn't really look like much, but the artwork is always extrodinary.

Some beautiful carvings and the insides of the church. Sorry the picture is a little underexposed. You'll have to go there to see the real intensity of the experience.

Some of the stained glass is extremely old.

What you would have seen is several really nice works of art.

A statue of the Virgin Mary.

I decided to spend a couple of euro's, and climb to the top of one of the observation towers. The tower is right next to the church.

This is part way up the tower. The climb wasn't really that hard, however, at the top of the tower was one small little ladder, in which people were trying to get up as quickly as people were trying to get down. The queue to get up the last 30 feet was longer than the entire walk up.

A view of Saint Gimigano from the top of the tower. Just below is the little street which is the main walkway for the town.

A similar shot to the above one. Not quite the same, but close.

But, after all that, the view was worth the trip.

The one thing that I have learned in my Gullivers travels, is that loud noises happen at noon. In Van, you have the horns from Canada place, in Florence you have the cannon, and, in Saint Gimignano, you have the church and tower bells. Guess where I was at noon?

Looking North East at the country side and at a couple more towers.

This is looking down towards the church and the square below. Can you find Kim? She's wearing red.

Looking East from the tower.

Now, you all know that you should back up your data. Hey, while you are waiting for the rest of the page to load, save whatever you are working on. The reason I am telling you this is, because as I was uploading this page onto the internet, something happend, and I lost the rest of the descriptions. Now, I was all happy that I had finally finished the Italy page, and was ready to tell everyone that it was now available, and then just as fast as the speed of the internet, the rest of the page was gone. Wah. I luckily had a backup that wasn't too old, but, unfortunately that was 3 hours old and of course, my final push wasn't included. Now that the public service message has been said, I will let you get back to the rest of the pictures, while I try and remember what I put.

These are the winding streets that you saw from the tower. They are quite narrow, and, luckily, are pretty much owned by the pedistrian. I believe that cars and trucks are allowed on them, however, only late at night or early in the morning for deliveries.

The stores on the right are quite interesting in their setup. This part of Saint Gimignano is on a hill, so when you walk into a shop, you have about 10 feet of level shop, and then they can have a staircase going down 20 or 30 steps to the rest of the shop, where the back window is also at ground level. All along the stairway is also shelves, so no space is wasted. In one of these shops we bought 2 bottles of wine - the first for œ1,100 and the second for œ1,400 (pound symbol + 1400 for those not using UK fonts). They were nummy!

Here is one intersection, and all we see is just one car.

Here I am after running up to the top of the tower and back, and just having a little rest from our hectic day. In the bag is the two bottles of vino, and I think I'm eyeing a gilatto shop across the square. The people behind me are looking into an old well, now converted into a wishing well.

And, one last wave from Kim, as she says goodbye, and wishes you all the best. Goodbye from Saint Gimignano.

Italy - Sienna - When we went on the trip, either they didn't tell us where we were going, or else we just didn't listen. So, when we arrived in Sienna, we hadn't a clue what to expect. When we go on coach tours, we generally take all the excursions (except the clog and cheese tour in Holland) as, although they are touristy, they get you in to places that you might not find or know about on your own.

Unfortunately this picture is a little over exposed, but what it does show is the size of the cathedral and a little of the town around it. Even from this picture, you can see that the cathedral is actually striped.

When we were dropped off from here, we went to another church (can't remember the name, so don't ask). Inside it had a really beautiful stained glass and murals. One interesting item the church had that I have never seen before was a mummified nun. When they were doing repairs to the church, they were taking down part of the wall, and they found a nun, exactly in the same shape as when she was burried some 300 or 400 years ago. They don't know why she was preserved so well, but they now have a glass case infront of her to view if you like. (Un)fortunately we weren't allowed to bring the camera in, so you will only have my story and my word to believe.

This is the entrance, which would be on the right side of the above picture.

Here is a better shot of the entrance and the steeple behind it.

This shows some of the statues and carvings, which is found all around the church. You can also see some of the stripes on the cathedral.

This is an interesting story about this part of the cathedral. Now, quite a few churches or cathederals in England were bombed during the war, and they left the remains stand as a monument to the original church, but, this part was actually never built. They started building this section, and then ran out of money. So, they are now using this section as an observation deck for people to view the rest of the town.

Here is a picture of the steeple and dome from the back of the cathedral.

Now, the cathedral is really impressive from outside, but what does it look like from inside, you ask. Well, the answer is brilliant. The walls are decorated with beautiful paintings, and the ceiling painted with some of the most impressive art. You will just have to believe me on this one, as it was a little to dark to get some decent pictures, so you'll have to do with these.

Although this isn't as impressive in the picture as it is in real life, you sorta get the impression of the detail and sheer size of the work.

Our next stop was to the city square, just below the tower.

This is from inside the palace, looking directly up at the tower. Rapunzel, Rapunzel... nope, she's not there. She took a taxi out to get a pizza.

Oh no! They finally caught me. I was to be sentanced at dusk, but we told them that we had to leave with our coach in a couple of hours, so they had to let us go.

This is looking at the tower and the palace.

A wider shot of the palace and a little of the square.

These are some of the cafe's and flats around the square. The palace and tower is direclty behind me. This square is a meca for people just coming to enjoy the sun and just to meet up with others. It was a beautiful day, and we had a drink at one of the cafe's. It was a nice place to just unwind.

In the autumn, they have horse races around the square. This is no big deal. The problem is, the square is bricks and stone, and when it rains, this can get very slippery. Some of the horses are less fortunate than others.

This is the last picture from Sienna of the tower and the people. Goodbye fair city. Goodbye little cafe's. And, sadly, goodbye gelati vendors.

Italy - Lake Gardna - Lake Gardna is a natural border between Italy and Switzerland. On one side of the lake you have Italy, and on the other you have Switzerland.

This is looking towards the Italian side of the lake. We are standing on a peir. Straight across on the hill is a tram going up and down the hill. There are actually two trams, and they meet in the middle.

This is looking at the Swiss side of the lake. The interesting thing about going between a lot of European countries now, is sometimes you have to stop and say why and where you are going, and sometimes you have to slow from 60mph down to 50mph for the crossing. With the introduction of the Euro, it makes Europe a lot easier to get around. We are now leaving Italy, and this is the end of the show. Hope you have enjoyed this trip. Visit the Switzerland page for the continuation of this trip.