Italy

Well Mussolini might have made the trains run on time (he didn’t), but he’s gone now.

Off we go to Italy!

But first we got the train through the Swiss Alps. Suffice to say this picture doesn’t do them justice.

It was more like this.

BTW in Italy if you want to search for something you go to google.it which is really cool (well in English it is, fuck knows what it translates to in Italian).

“What the fuck was that?” said Tub.

The train trip was stunning, and worth the fact we had to get the slow train because we hadn’t reserved a seat. We got on a train to Verona. The ticket inspector came round and said “Where are you going?”

“Verona.”

“Verona! But this train goes to Verona. You’ll have to pay a 50 Euro fine each if you go to Verona.” He told us.

“Oh, don’t worry.” We said, “We are going to get off the Verona train before we leave Switzerland and get on a slower train that will take us to Verona.”

“Ah. That is ok. You need to reserve a seat to use this Verona train to go to Verona.” And with that he walked down the rest of the empty train looking for any other passengers.

Our lack of a reserved seat meant we had to change trains twice (actually 3 times because the last train kicked us off at a motorway service station for some reason). As we moved down through lower and lower quality trains we had this arrive and stop at our station.

Unfortunately we only had a second class ticket and had to wait for the next train.

Here is Tub when we weren’t sure if we were in Switzerland or Italy at the train station on the border.

Nor were any of the customs people which sort of sums Europe up really. Everyone knows where the cities are but nobody knows anything about the countries. If you think about it, Europe has been a shifting sand of borders for thousands of years. If the Roman Army had turned up at your door and said they were from the Italian Empire, you’d probably have scratched your head and looked at them confused and said “You what mate?” (but in Latin).

Verona

They love a bit of Shakespeare here. He based Romeo and Juliet in Verona which is one of the greatest romantic stories ever told. Everyone forgets he also wrote the gay version “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he ever visited Verona so he probably sat in his bedroom in Milton Keynes knocking this stuff out while simultaneously writing the study notes and knowing full well which one would sell better.

Here is his bronzed head to prove he was here.

Verona is another tiny European city but it’s very cultural, as they say.

They have one of those things for annihilating Christians here and its older than the one in Rome. No I don’t mean logic, its a big rubbly circle.

For 6 Euro you can have a wander around. They don’t have a guide book or any sign posts but they have put in a toilet so you can’t complain really. And they did add this nice little addition on the side.

It looks Photshopped, and I bet they wished it was, but its made of metal.

Inside it looks like this.

The Italians shouldn’t really be given things to look after, its just not in their nature. If you gave the Italians your dog to look after for the weekend it would come back looking like this.

However one thing they are extremely good at is wine.

For $5 you can get a really good bottle of wine here and even in a restaurant a litre of really nice wine is less than $10. At those prices who has time to look after ancient monuments.

Food

Ever since Marco Polo got back from his holiday in China and announced the discovery of noodles pasta, pretty much all of Europe has eaten nothing else. Add to that, the day that the Earl of Sandwich left his cheese and tomato lunch too close to the fire and you have covered the whole diet of the continent. However, always keen to evolve, the Italians are working on a new invention: The Stinco and Chips.

Ok, so they may get more credit than they deserve for the discovery of food, but nobody can take anything away from this guy, the inventor of biscuits.

Okay, that joke only works if you are from Britain and buy your biscuits at the pound shop.

Driving

In Italy driving isn’t so much a skill as an art. Many Italians spend minutes if not hours learning how to park perfectly.

The truck driver spend a few minutes wishing this guy a long and prosperous life before he finally moved his car.

Now I’m not saying that Italians are lazy fuckers (Tub did, but I just nodded). However, if I opened a shop I might actually turn up once in a while to run it.

Yes, the vending machine is the king of this city. Especially the 24 hour outdoor cigarette machines.

Thankfully they all carry warnings that you must be over 18 to use the machine. However the warning is at the top next to the coin slot so they also have a little stool next to them so small children can get up and read the sign.

Architecture and Shit

Here you go…

The markets are really nice. They have foldaway stalls. I shit you not. The one on the left here will turn into the one on the right.

They do like a bit of a barney in Italy. This was kicking off as we went past.

The woman on the left complained about the guy in the suit playing his Elton John records too loud so he got the Chief of Police involved. Then she called in the army. Before you knew it everyone had surrendered to everyone else.

Someone asked me how I get these close up pictures of people without being beaten up. Here is how.

Thursday Evening

We went shopping, but were too scared to buy anything.

Found this place.

And went to the supermarket for a bottle of wine. We thought the staff were shouting “Have a long and prosperous life.” but in fact the shop was shutting.

Tomorrow we leave early for Rome. Why early? Well we learnt from the mistake getting here that you need to reserve a seat on the train so we did. The nice man at the train station asked when we wanted to leave.

“Late morning, please.”

“Ok. 740.” he said.

“11? Maybe 10:30?” Tub pleaded.

“8.40. Final offer. Take it or leave it.”

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Lastly, if you were thinking of getting a worldwide copyright on the phrase “I Feel Food”, unfortunately it has been taken.

 

Rome

The Capital of the World. Definitely the best city we have visited so far. Rome is awesome. Every corner you turn there is something even better.

In 210 AD there were a million people living in Rome. There were only 190 million people in the whole world at the time. 63 years later, after a number of wars, the population was reduced to only 35,000. It must have felt like watching a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG on a Tuesday. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that it got back to a million people again.

Most of the things you can see in Rome today were built by corrupt Popes. That’s not my opinion, that’s from Wikipedia. It doesn’t happen now of course. The current Pope is whiter than white (and so is the crazy one that they keep in the cellar).

Although this guy is trying to keep the tradition going.

Even back then the Catholic Church had the PR machine in full swing, just ask Pope Innocent III. Apparently the main problem was with Pope’s having big parties and producing illegitimate children. Not something that is likely to happen now, unless a choir boy miraculously grows a womb up his arse. Anyway, that’s enough Pope bashing for a bit, lets get on with the trip.

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We got the fast train from Verona to Rome. We sat next to an annoying Italian arsehole (every country has them). He wouldn’t shut up and was talking very loudly. After 40 minutes Tub had had enough and grabbed his hands and held them by his side to keep him quiet for the rest of the trip.

Our hotel is only a short rainy walk from the train station. It’s not your normal hotel either.

According to TripAdvisor it is pretty sweet.

I thought we should check out the guy who said it was terrible.

Apparently he was really annoyed that they have buses in Rome that make a noise and his room didn’t have double glazing, which is a bit funny because ours does and also has a big external blind that you can lower with a button. Oh, and the buses don’t run at night. This guy must have been a real pain in the arse because he knows all the things wrong with all of the rooms. Lets get his advice on our room, 102.

‘And, if you think you’re lucky and get room 101 or 102 because it’s the rooms to the backyard your fun part starts approx at 5:30am as well when the restaurant kitchen directly underneath your windows starts their preparation. First you’ll smell the omlette, then the lettuce and the onions will be chopped – and afterwards there’s meat-chopping time … “wuumpp”.’

So tomorrow we are going to be woken up by the smell of lettuce and the deafening sound of onions being chopped in another building and then “wuumpp”.

Shoes

We hadn’t been in Rome for 15 minutes before I found myself in a shoe shop. “These boots are shite.” said Tub pointing to her Macy’s boots. When she thought I was asleep last night I caught her using a nail file to dig a hole in the side of them.

Goodbye Macy’s boots. I no love you no more!

Bus Tour

What else!

I had that feeling that someone was watching me, maybe taking pictures of my arm and the back of my head. I sneakily turned the camera to selfie mode and guess what? I caught her!

SPQR

When the Roman Army marched into your village with the bloke at the front holding a banner that said “SPQR”, it used to put the fear of god into everyone. If only they had known some Latin and realised it meant  “Senātus PopulusQue Rōmānus”  – or in English “The Senate and People of Rome”, then maybe they wouldn’t have been so scared. That really translates as saying “We’re from the Council”. 

“Oh hello. Are you here to build some roads? Maybe sort the plumbing out and introduce some justice? How nice. Would you like a cup of tea?”

First Impressions

Rome is just sensational. It is so beautiful and so welcoming.

It was raining when we got here and about 30 people tried to sell us umbrellas. Then it cleared up and about 40 people tried to sell us selfie sticks. The weather forecast tomorrow is mainly selfie sticks with some patches of umbrellas in the afternoon.

Here, have some culture, you motherfuckers. This was from the quick bus tour, we’ll do it properly tomorrow.

The Colosseum (from Colossus – meaning big,  and See ‘Em).

Altare della Patria. Probably the best place we have been on the trip, but we don’t visit for two more days so you’ll have to wait (yes, I am a bit behind on writing the blog).

I don’t know what the fuck this place is, maybe a restaurant? But it was nice anyway.

Chez Pope.

Here is the orange tree outside our hotel.

We found an Irish bar and then went for dinner where we both agreed that Life is a Chianti.

Then we walked home past Tub’s favourite building and couldn’t sleep with excitement about the next day, well, that and the awful smell of lettuce.

How to Speak Italian

To speak German you just use a lot of consonants and run all your words together making sure you sound angry. Try this one: “rindfleischetikettierungsberwachungsaufgabenÃbertragungsgesetz“, it means the law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling, but it sounds like a threat.

For Dutch you just speak German, only slower because you are stoned.

However if you want to speak Italian you just use a lot more vowels. If you are stuck for a word just pop an O or I on the end of it and you’ve got the Italian version. Its a bit like the Germans and Italians did a swap. People think that World War I was started because of the assassination of a bad pop group but in fact it came about because an Italian and German ended up in the final of Countdown.

The Vatican City

The Pope had something on for Sunday so we had to go and visit him today.

Back on the bus!

St Peter’s Basilica is wonderful. Its pigging massive and you can go in for free if you don’t mind queuing up with a bunch of God Botherers for about an hour. There is a lot to look at even in the queue and I’m not sure Tub really understood her audience when she decided that the best phrase to use to get people in front to move on when the queue advanced was “The Power Of Christ Compels You.” I shit you not.

We queued all around the square.

The Vatican isn’t just a global dictatorship that abuses children, it is also a country. As a country it has its own police force.

But for some reason the police force is run by Noddy.

The Pope’s have put their tree up a bit early this year.

No, not these two, I mean Dave and Helen Pope from St Ives.

Once inside it is quite spectacular.

Tub was very impressed, but perhaps the words she used to describe it weren’t entirely appropriate for the location. In fact she was made to sit in here for a time out.

It was supposed to be a half hour but after the 3rd priest came running out of the confessional they decided to release her early for bad behaviour.

For 5 Euro you can walk up to the big dome, but they have a special deal for atheists who can get there for 7 Euro using the science lift. However everyone is equal under God so even we had to climb the last bit.

It was well worth it.

How do you top that?

Beer

It was right next to the Vatican and only 20 Euro.

So far so good….

But all good things come to an end. Next we went to the Sistine Chapel. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE EVER GO TO THE SISTINE CHAPEL. It is shite. I’d rather spend a rainy afternoon in Sofia.

Lets start with the good stuff. They have a golden ball thing.

Instead of going to the Sistine Chapel I recommend you get 100 people that you don’t know (preferably a few smelly ones too) and all squash into your bedroom while trying to look out of the window all at the same time, then move to your spare room and keep going like that for an hour or two. When you have finally had enough, all head into the bathroom and stare at the ceiling while an Italian shouts at you to be quiet, this is a holy place.

For once I don’t need to quote Tub because there was an English woman in front of us when we finally got to the Sistine Chapel who said “Hmm. That’s under whelming.”

It took us nearly two hours going through the “museum” to get to the chapel. The museum is not only really crowded but all it has are Jesus carpets and Christmas presents for previous popes that they don’t want to keep in the house.

Oh, and scaffolding.

 

We met this guy. He was thinking – what the fuck am I doing here?

There actually were some nice rooms on the way but the current of humans didn’t really let you stop and look at them.

Finally as you are losing the will to live, you end up in the Sistine Chapel. I’m not saying all of the stuff in there was finger painted by primary school children, but whatever Michel Angelo got paid was too much.

But they did have these guys back at the Pope’s house, so all up it was a great day.

At night we both picked up.

Had dinner.

And Tub snuck back to St Peters for a final look.

Thanks God, wonderful day!

Tomorrow we do the rest of Rome. It’s going to be busy because we’ve also got to go to the laundrette.

Sunday

This morning we did the Altare della Patria, probably the most beautiful building we have seen so far. The Italians call it pisciatoio nazionale, the national urinal, and complain that its too white. Whoever wrote the Wikipedia page really hates it.

It is a war memorial but its actually very nice despite that. It houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which is a strange concept. They went around the battle field going “That’s Fred. There is Giovani. Not sure who that is. Does anyone know? No. Ok. Are we sure he’s on our side? Anyway, grab the body we’ll stick it in a memorial back home.”

You can go up on the roof too and enjoy one of the best views in Rome.

Just next to it is Nelson’s Column.

And here it is from the side.

Just opposite is the balcony where in 1936 Mussolini made his famous speech.

 In the speech he announced the abolition of parking tickets which led to Italians being the worst drivers in the world.

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This is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Tub didn’t want to go in so we looked through the bars. “We’ve done enough of that shit for one lifetime” she said.

We did go to the Colosseum which is Rome’s entry in the Rubble World Championships. It won second place in the category of “Would Be Better As A Shopping Centre” back in 2007.

We didn’t go in, it would have cost time and money both of which were frankly better invested in lunch.

 

Here is a man pretending to float in mid air.

And here is us in the shadow of Caesar, although it could be a drunk stood on a bollard with a pint of Guinness.

Segway

Finally! Every bloody city we have been in we’ve seen a Segway tour, but by the time I get the camera out they have sped off into the distance. This time I got the Pulitzer Prize photo I’ve been waiting for.

And that is a great segue into the final part of our Italian trip…

The Trevi Fountain

Undoubtedly the most romantic part of any trip to Rome, this landmark has featured in many famous films.

How can you leave Rome without an evening stroll past the Trevi Fountain?

Well here it is in real life.

Oh Rome. Such wonderful highs and terrible lows.

But we did find a shop that sold Pinocchio’s (big ones too).

And very nearly managed to capture a nun getting a selfie with him. If only she had a selfie stick.

I only caught the very end of it, but Pinocchio has quite the smile on his face.

To end the night we walked back along the beautiful and extremely quiet streets of Rome savouring the wonder for one last time. Suddenly we heard the most famous sound in all of Europe, someone taking a piss. We were not expecting this… a fake pissing machine.

We met some great people in Rome and some arseholes, mainly in crowds and on trains. Constantino who was the receptionist at our hotel was awesome and we met an Irish guy who runs a forklift truck business in Ireland called Vergil. He was over for two days and we met him in an Irish bar where he was spending the whole trip. Well, we were in there too both nights so we can’t really complain.

Only two countries left. I hope we make it!