Naples is an amazing and extremely unique city. You can see, smell and taste the angst and vitriol of the place, its Italy on hypercharge. The days are quite sedate compared to the evenings, when the whole place erupts (pardon the pun.) Pizza was eaten, Limoncello was drunk and scooters were dodged.
From Naples we moved north to the much more sedate Cecina and Castiglioncello (top) in the Tuscany region (bottom.) We just chilled out here for a day to refresh after the manic Naples adventure. Tuscany must have some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.
Next was a night time trip to Florence. I was overawed by the history of the city, the birth place of the Renaissance and the largest concentration of classical architecture and sculpture I have ever seen. It was so much better visiting it at night, we walked for about 2 hours from 12am to 2am in almost complete solitude, recommended if you want to miss the stampede of tourists wrestling for the perfect photo location!
And on to the best New Year celebration I have ever had. We drove for about an hour and a half north of Pisa into the mountains to stay in the remote 'Refugio La Quiete' about 1000m above sea level. We did indeed have to walk for 90 minutes from the road to get to the Refugio, uphill...! I and several others nearly died from heart attacks. I thought I was fairly fit and healthy, but after 30 minutes of climbing with a 10Kg backpack my heart was racing to its limit and my vision started to blur. I was worried! :) But we got there OK and it was well worth it.
There was 18 of us in total, most could only speak a little English, so conversations were limited, but I think they got their moneys worth of English tutoring. Obviously, the Italians took care of the cooking, which was amazing. And obviously, I took care of the drinks, which flowed freely, (we took 50 Litres of red wine!) I could talk for pages about how beautiful the place was, and about all the adventures we had, but lets just say, it was one of the best times of my life!
January 2nd and we arrive in Pisa for the last days of the trip. To be honest, The 'Leaning Tower' was really impressive, but after the mountains it was very hard to compete. If you havent seen the tower though, it really does lean that much, I mean really.
The final day of the tour. We got the train up to Bergamo to fly back to Newcastle. I wasn't expecting much from Bergamo, but the 'Citi Alta,' the medeval area overlooking the city was fascinating and very picturesque. Lots of tiny shops, boutiques, cafes and cake shops, but the pizza shop (pictured above) was fantastic and the taste was even better!
It was a pleasure to meet all my new friends in Italy and to see all the great places. If you haven't been before, I highly recommend it, and I will certainly be going back.
Flickr Photoset