Italy: Rome

If you don’t want to hear about food and fashion then this is where you get off, sorry folks!

Crowds at the Trevi Fountain.

After our midnight arrival from Istanbul and surly mini cab driver who waited around at the airport til 1am hoping for more passengers after saying we’d be leaving in 10 minutes (do not even get me started on how much I hate Rome’s airports and all who dwell within them – it’s a long story) we eventually got to our hostel and grabbed a few hour’s sleep.

Half the hostels here seem to have a daily lock out policy – that is, you must be out of the hostel between 10am and 3pm so they can clean the place and it probably discourages some kind of nefarious activities that I can’t quite imagine people wanting to do around midday in a bog-standard hostel. So this resulted in us being up relatively early and making our way to a couch surfing meet up, where a guy had offered to do a free 2 hour walking tour of the ‘non touristy’ bits of Rome.

Exploring the back streets.

Luke and I were, as is always the case, the first people on the scene. Eventually a group of about 15 people gathered and our tour guide, Alessandro, turned up. To say the guy looked flustered and disorganised is to put it mildly. He seemed like he’d had a big night out and his heart wasn’t in it. He’d explain something as ‘You know about Romulus and Remus, right?’ and if one or two people nodded their head he’d gloss over the story with ‘and so on and so on’, which was not exactly helpful. I know a bit of Roman history so I could explain a bit to Luke but our hopes were not set especially high in the beginning.

Apparently there are enough churches in Rome to go to a different one every day of the year.

But then Alessandro started getting on track and telling us really interesting things and the tour turned out to be really great. We saw through the keyhole of the Knights of Malta‘s establishment, some beautiful and unusual churches and a garden with interesting forced perspective and saw a rock, supposedly hurled by the devil at some guy who was praying. Oh and we saw a church for a saint whose name I missed but who lived under some stairs for a while so his shrine has stairs. I called him Saint Harry Potter.

Our feet were getting quite tired after a while so we stopped for gelato, which helped.

Tomato gelato, anyone?

Then we stopped for antipasto plates and wine, which was fantastic. We tried food in combinations I’d never had before – like parmesan and honey, which totally works. There was also zucchini flowers stuffed with fresh cheese – I’ve fried my own flowers with mince before but had not thought to have them fresh.

Delicious!

My favourite bit was when Alessandro told us that only in Rome can you eat Jewish Roman cuisine, but right now Roman artichokes weren’t in season and they use other artichokes and they ‘ruin everything‘. That’s right, an artichoke grown 100kms away will make your dining experience a complete waste. There’s something so delightfully Italian, whimsical and fussy about this statement and the casual but slightly depressed manner in which it was delivered. It as probably my favourite Roman moment out of all our time there.

Antipasto plate.

The tour was both improved and slightly ruined by the fact that it was a couch surfing thing and so we all tried to both listen and chat throughout. When you meet up with a group of people that you know you have something in common with and many of those people have not had a decent chat with a person in days it’s really hard to shut them up and couch surfers are, by nature, extremely social creatures. Not to mention interesting. Two of the guys had been sleeping in Termini station because they couldn’t find anyone to host them. Termini station is like.. uh.. hard to describe. It’s really big, old, busy and quite a large number of people live there. Not middle class backpackers, either. It’s about as full-on as European train stations can get. Kind of like a refugee camp/train station.

Despite the tour being touted as two hours, Luke and I regretfully tore ourselves away six hours into the as-yet unfinished tour to go have a nap and rest our poor feet, which were unused to so much walking.

In the evening we went for a short stroll to a nearby fountain to get some long exposure shots, which didn’t turn out anywhere near as well as I’d have liked, then had a drink at a bar that looked more like a roadside kebab van. The drinks were nice though, and the weather in Rome was perfect for sitting out in the evening.

As we sat I contemplated what I’d seen so far of Italian fashion. Italy is definitely a place that can intimidate the visitor in terms of style and flair. Particularly if said visitor is wearing trainers with holes in them and the same two dresses for weeks. Women in Rome are seriously striking and dress beautifully. They wear completely inappropriate shoes and enormous sunglasses. Their hair is dead straight or perfectly curled. They smoke endless cigarettes and throw the butts carelessly into the gutter. They walk tiny dogs, huge dogs, and push prams containing designer-dressed babies. I can’t decide whether I’m delighted, amused or horrified. Probably a mix of all three.

There’s this crazy paradox to Italians. So focused on fashion and appearances and being skeletally thin, yet the passionate, almost worshipful attitude to food and drink. Not that I’m complaining. Well, the only thing to complain about is not having enough time, money or space in my bag to go properly shopping.

Next stop: Florence… or do you call it ‘Firenze’?

9Sep2013

Here Comes The Planet 36 – Iceland 01

by Thorn

Our Iceland adventures get off to a slow start as we check out some fresh hot springs around the town of Hveragerði before exploring the capital of Reykjavík. We view some modern architecture, catch a cultural comedy show, see a church straight out of Middle Earth and eat one of Iceland’s famous hot dogs.

Also, Amanda hopes that her cold will clear up so she too can be assaulted with a terrible smell.

9Sep2013

Turkey: Ephesus and Selcuk

by Miss Penny Black

So far in Turkey we’ve managed to stay in a range of pretty lovely hotels and apartments. Maybe it’s just because we’re still slightly awed by the regular appearance of toilet paper in the bathrooms post-Africa, but everything’s been pretty good up til now. Selcuk, however seems to have conspired against us in the fact that, for each of the 3 nights we’ve spent here there’s been some kind of extremely loud event happening right outside our hotel window.

Night one was people busking with something that sounded awfully like bagpipes, night two was a concert with huge speakers pointed directly at our windows (and less than 100 metres away) and today there’s been a great deal of industrial noise which has now abated, no doubt to lull us into a false sense of security for this evening.

All that aside, our bathroom door requires pliers to open from the inside and breakfast consists of slices of cucumber, tomato and a hard boiled egg. I like eggs, but not every morning for two weeks.

But the reason we’re here is not the dubious charms of Wallabies Hotel but Ephesus, one of the largest and most-intact Roman-period archeological sites in the world.

Romans built things for keeps.

Lucas visited yesterday, Luke and I went today as yesterday we spent all day planning our next leg in Italy.

Ephesus is a short bus ride from Selcuk – in fact if it wasn’t for the heat it’d be more than walkable. Maybe 4kms? We took the bus because we’re lazy. We also took drinks from town – apparently a bottle of water on site can be as much as $5 (AUD) but a litre of peach iced tea was about 50 cents (AUD) in the local shop. BARGAIN. I’m probably going to cry when I get home and can’t live on it like I do here.

But Ephesus! Lucas had warned us that the best plan was to walk through the ruins to the top of the hill then wait for a break in the tour bus groups and walk between them, thereby seeing the ruins without crowds of people in every shot.

I’m pretty sure this says something about buying carpets.

Boy was he right. At some points on the way up I had to almost shoulder people aside just to get past and the walkway was several metres wide. Also, for the prospective visitor – wear shoes with grip. That goes for all of Turkey, in fact. They have this thing about paving everything in super slippery marble. I’ve nearly fallen several times and watched at least three people nearly fall while we were there.

Still, once we’d found our space and realised that the groups don’t go off the main track, it was possible to look at the view, touch the inscriptions and get some nice shots.

Look at the colour of that sky! Perfect day to be out taking photos. No Photoshop required;).

I used to love Ancient History. Mostly because I loved my teacher (in a platonic way (see what I did there?) hrm… are brackets within brackets ok?) and he made it really interesting. He’d tell us stories of Greece and Persia and Rome as though it was some kind of soap opera, which in many ways it was. The whole subject is also full of pointless yet interesting details that my brain latches onto like a mouse onto cheese. And yet coming to places like this, while I appreciate the antiquity, history and probably know somewhat more about it than half the people there that day, it just didn’t really do it for me. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the number of historical sites I’ve seen this year but I couldn’t help wishing I had my friend Oli by my side, someone who was much more knowledgable and passionate about the subject than I could currently be and who would fill me with his enthusiasm.

This building was destroyed by an earthquake nearly 2000 years ago and is in the process of being rebuilt.

Column detail.

This is our last night in Turkey and it’s been great. We’ve had fun traveling with friends but tomorrow we’re saying goodbye to Lucas (for now) and heading to Rome via Istanbul. Lucas doesn’t know where he’s going but will work it out at the bus station tomorrow.

Since Luke and I have done the touristy thing in Rome already, this time it’s going to be about the food. I’ve already got a few places picked out. Roast pork, red wine and gelato here we come!

9Sep2013

Turkey: Pamukkale

by Miss Penny Black

We headed from Antalya to Pamukkale, a bit of a one-horse town half way to the coast. The Romans built a very large city there, Hierapolis, at the top of the travertines. What are the travertines, you might ask? Well, it’s a bit of a complex answer and I didn’t really know until we got there. Even when we got there it wasn’t quite obvious what the place was about.

The travertines are white cliffs of calcium carbonate that is constantly being deposited by the hot springs along the top of the cliffs. The town of Pamukkale is at the bottom of the springs and you walk up the travertines to get to the Roman ruins.

Everyone takes their shoes off to walk up the hill because it is mostly white and almost entirely covered with running water. From a millimetre deep to ankle deep. There are pools built into the slope which you can sit in (the bottom is quite like clay sludge but white) or walk past. Although it sounds as though it might be slippery, the surface is very easy to grip and the deposits of calcium make beautiful patterns.

One of the less-white bits. The water is occasionally diverted to let the sun bleach different areas.

I visited twice. First Luke, Lucas and I walked up the first afternoon and looked around (it’s 20 TLR/$10 to get in) , enjoying the novelty of the place and the views at sunset where the white cliffs turn a gorgeous pink.

Pink – but not this pink. Since I got Photoshop re-installed on my laptop I’ve been going a bit crazy with colour. It was very beautiful in real life though!

Then Lucas and I walked up the following morning but he kept going to the ruins and I sat in one of the pools with my kindle observing the other tourists and, surprisingly, being asked to be in a photo with a couple of young fellows from Istanbul.

Obviously not a photo of me, but it gives you a bit of an idea what the pools are like. I don’t know if you can tell but there’s water running down the cliff-face. Sunglasses are NOT optional.

I have done some calculations based on my observations of the people there and determined the following:

10% of people were there to swim/bathe.

10% were there purely to walk the length and take photos of the view.

80% were there to take pictures of their girlfriends/be photographed by their boyfriends in the smallest bikinis available, perched in precisely the same back-arched, one-knee-drawn-up, reclining position that seems incredibly popular everywhere in Turkey. I like to think of it as the ‘men’s magazine’ angle.

In fact everywhere we’ve been the numbers are pretty much the same. Go somewhere scenic, get your girlfriend into as small an amount of clothing as is socially acceptable in the situation and then snap away – preferably at an angle where she’s on one side of a busy thoroughfare and you’re on the other so traffic grinds to a halt and everyone has to pause and admire the impending melanomas.

Nevermind, I’m just jealous because tanning in Australia is a life-threatening hobby whereas everyone here seems oblivious to the existence of hats and old age.

The beginning of the walk, where you take off your shoes. There’s a channel for the water to run into where it goes down to a duck pond in a park. It’s maybe hard to see here that the whole slope is covered in water. Made for a cool feet on a hot day!

Behind Luke you can see a bit of Pamukkale and the aforementioned duck pond, in which you can paddle about in those swan-shaped boats that work like pedalling a bicycle.

Pamukkale wasn’t a terribly endearing place. People start shouting at you the second you get off the bus (to eat, buy, stay) and it’s obvious that most people here survive off tourism, which must contribute to the general sense of desperation. However I was really charmed by the travertines and I would say they’re definitely good for at least a day’s visit and it’s really worth being there for sunset. There’s only about 5 minutes of magical light but it’s worth it, and despite the signs saying it’s only open til 8pm people were up there under floodlights quite late. Although because it’s all white hardly any heat is absorbed and the pools cool swiftly at sundown leading to very cold feet by the time you climb down.

I’m glad we went and it was nice to have two opportunities to walk up the hill. With my growing issues with chlorine in pools (massively itchy skin afterwards) but my deep love of water and swimming, I take my chances where I can get them and the travertines were certainly unique!

9Sep2013

Turkey: Antalya

by Miss Penny Black

I was going to write a post about the charms and loveliness of Antalya but first I’m going to rant at you (in a nice way!) about the Turkish bus system.

We’re about 20 minutes out of Antalya, heading for Pamukkale and, quite possibly, in a bus from the future.

When you get on and the bus is on time, smells nice and there’s nary a hole nor tear in any of the seats you think ‘hey, this is nicer than home’. Then you see the screens in the back of each seat and you think ‘hey, this is as nice as the better domestic planes at home’. Then you realise there’s wifi, the screens connect to the internet and there’s a guy handing out ice-cream and cake and drinks and you think ‘Hey! I’ve been magically transported into a Utopian future from which I never wish to return!’.

Lucas checks out the features.

Really, nice one, Turkey. You win at public transport.

Now, Antalya.

It was like a present that you get out of the blue, expecting nothing and then suddenly, hey wow! There’s something really great in front of you and everything about it is a pleasant surprise. Well, nearly everything. Because I was sick in Istanbul, Lucas and Luke booked this bit of the tour and based a stop in Antalya on a photo they saw. Lucky for us because it turned out to be clean, charming and our lovely accommodation was only a few minutes from the beach.

Our room is up on the left. In the courtyard was a little pool and some beanbags.

The ‘old town’ part where we stayed was a maze of cobblestone streets but the buildings were a weird mix of European and Oriental features. There were blossoming explosions of bougainvillea festooning the hotels and at night the sleepy, hot streets came alive with people out partying.

POW! Bougainvillea.

Antalya is on the southern coast of Turkey, at the apex of a bay that is surrounded by steep granite peaks. The little beach we went to was down a steep set of stairs and was more rock and pebbles than sand. Lucas and I rented a snorkel to share and there were lots of little fish to look at… when one wasn’t gawping at the leathery old people who were tanned an astonishing shade of coffee-brown and wearing white bikinis.