Romance in Italy

Flung from Africa to the boot-shaped country and into the waiting arms of Miss Phillipa Brumby, we started our Italian Romance. A two-week love affair. Here we kindled a bond beyond any other, bound by our mutual love of art, coffee, Italian food and Italian police officers (see below).

Florence

Our first day in Florence was well spent, I must say. We went truely Italian, spending the morning at l'Accademia, getting close with Michelangelo's David, drinking espresso, picking out engagement rings on the Ponte Vecchio (see below) for when Pip finally decides to pop the question, strolling up to the Piazza Michelangelo (yep, everything sounds significant and arty in this part of town), napping in a park and thoroughly enjoying a beer and pizza combo to finish off the day... Well they say that Italy is about indulgence right? Personally, Paris has been pipped for me as the city of Love...

But other then that we spent a few glorious days eating gelati, ending up at a random Latin American music festival held in a fortress, looking at markets, eating gelati, visiting Siena-Florence's biggest rival, and spending a mere 4 hours in the Uffizi- one of Italy's finest museums, although shoddily organised.

Next our lover's holiday took us to

Cinque terre National Park

Which is nothing like anything you could imagine from an Australian National Park, but in fact an area on the North-West coast of Italy, which covers five towns set amongst stunning coastline, hills and cliffs. Or for a more visual description:

There's a walk that goes between all five towns and takes approximately 5 hours. On the day we did it, we stopped half way, bought grapes and went to the rocky cliffs and swam around with all the beautiful Italians. Man, I love Italy! The final streach of the walk is a rather easy meander called Lover's Lane or Via Dell'Amore... Need I say more... Italy you've done it again.

Our last destination on our very short stint in Italia was the infamous

Rome

A city where you wander around and everything just looks a little bit familiar, because almost everything is of some kind of cultural significance, importance, Julius Caesar did this here or that there... blah blah...

But I was surprised to see such a pairing of tacky tourism, crappy food, too much history and fantastic art... an instanct that led us to believe that the only viable (cheap) food option was getting Chinese... a tourist sin, but one we indulged in anyway.

So our days were spent sniffing out monuments. Easy to see them coming because there's suddenly a huge increase in tacky tourist shops, annoying hawkers, terrible food joints and McDonalds... and BAM, there's teh Trevi Fountain/Colesseum/Vatican/etc. I also had a brief couchsurfing stint with the one and only Mexican designer living in Rome, Pepe. Greatly enjoyed wandering around the city and seeing what you find, free Opera on the Spanish Steps, vintage stores behind the Pantheon, taste testings on the street... there is always something going on.

And now I've already headed East-Europe-wards, so will be back with an update about travels around that way soon!

Wishing you all the best from over here.

IN-DEPTH

The Vatican

I can't help but bang on about the Vatican Museum... Sorry, but woah, this place has more art... then, well, anywhere. So I was left awed and absolutely arted out after a six-hour art nerd bonanza in this set of museums... yes, I am a loser. Absolutely loved it. But what I also found interesting was how such a collection was created. This guy:

 

Pope Julius II just decided that Rome had lost it's touch, that it wasn't as important or culturally significant as it used to be. So what does he do? Get his buddies, only the most famous artistis of the time (Raphael, Michelangelo etc) to come down and make some works specifically for the Vatican Museums. Now if that isn't a fantastic display of the power of the Church, well then... I'll eat my typical Arts-student moleskin that I've been tauting around everywhere.

ART-WANK

This could well be the longest art-wank of the entire trip... so here goes.

Florence

Made me fall in love with the Renaissance again.

• L'Accademia- Michelangelo's David is HUGE. Pretty awesome in the true sense of the word.
• Uffizi- I joined in with the throngs of Japanese tourists for a four hour, self-guided tour of this building. Seriously ridiculous how many famous works are housed in this shambled museum. Adorned by computer print-out didatics and little information for the non-art-versed visitor, you can catch a glimpse of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, douse it down with some Carravaggio (including his Bacchus) and fit in Gentileschi's Judith and Holofernes. The weird thing about this museum is that it was recently bombed in a mafia related incident, so heaps of the museum is being renovated, and some works were destroyed, leaving a really higgildy-piggildy (for want of a better word) museum with no clear guidance or sequence of the major works in sync with surrounding ones.

Rome

I'm pretty sure Rome is some set competition for Adelaide's title as the 'City of Churches'. Apparently if you visited Roman Churches at the rate of 3 per day, it would take you 3 years to see all of them! Anywho, if you know where to look, it means you can find lots of amazing works for free! Or they have this weird thing where you have to pay a nominal fee to turn the lights on and actually be able to see the painting!

• Santa Maria della Vittoria. A small chapel in the back streets of Rome, about 5 minutes from our hostel. And what do we find there? Only one of Bernini's most controversial sculptures- The Ecstacy of Saint Theresa. A work made famous because, well... her 'spiritual enlightenment' looks like she's having an orgasm. Reportedly one of the first viewers commented: 'If that's enlightenment, then I want some', or something to that affect. The first few minutes of this BBC episode portray it pretty well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsC5W-brbAo
• Santa Luigi Di Francesci-Caravaggio's St Matthew series
• Borghese Gallery-gorgeous. Show stopper's have to include all the works by Caravaggio and Bernini.
• THE VATICAN. Favourites include Raphael's Stanza, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and also the Picotera (painting collection), fabulously housed after the Sistine Chapel, so delightfully empty and housing great works such as Raphael's Annunciation.