The Dirty North

Final stop: Milan.

A few people asked me why we were bothering with Milan. It's pretty dirty, and mainly known for fashion (not that fashion is bad, it's just not an interest for me). I think it was a shrewd move. Aside from some of the most pushy street sellers we've come across, and a fauxstralian thief (fake Australian, and he didn't steal anything important), we did a load of interesting stuff here.

After arriving, we headed straight for the San Siro. AC Milan were playing Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League! I was surprised at how cheap the tickets were (22 Euro), but mainly excited for my first Champions League match. The Italian crowd were great fun; setting off flares and showing a hell of a lot more organisation than I've seen on the St. James's Park terraces. AC won 2-0, and the match was fairly entertaining, although their presence around the box could have been a bit sharper.


The highlight of Milan (for me) was the Last Supper. The history of this painting is brilliant. Da Vinci fucked up his painting material, and as a result the work has been unstable since he finished it. It's on a wall, so it's kind of stuck where it is, but it's survived flooding, bombing, and someone cutting a door through the feet of Jesus. It underwent major restoration in the late 20th Century, and the fact it's still visible is a huge achievement. I'm not an art buff, as we've covered in previous posts, but this image earns my respect purely from the amount of shit it's went through. The picture below isn't the real deal - no pictures are allowed of anything remotely famous in Italy.


The hostel is pretty quiet here, but I want to give a final shout out to the lift. It's the smallest lift I've ever been in:


postscript

I'm heading back home tomorrow, so this is the end of the content. I do, however, have another competition, so stay tuned!

Just One Cornetto...

Venice is everything I expected it to be: expensive, touristy, dirty and sinking. I loved it.

The place is like a maze. On our first night there, we tried to find the train station off the island to our hotel for the night. It took us an hour and a half to find it, compared to only half an hour getting to the other side of Venice on the way out. Part of this is cause it was dark, and Venice is situated exactly halfway between peaceful and creepy at night, but part of it was the navigation signs.


The signs point you in the direction of landmarks, but there's way too few of them. To make up for this, many locals have put up home made signs to help the tourists, or simple drawn them on the walls. However, there is a third type of sign. The final type looks identical to the local, home made signs, except they point in the wrong direction. I'm sure this frustrates many people who visit Venice. I found it fucking hilarious - kudos to whoever makes them!


As you probably know, there's a lot of water about. There's also no cars, all the streets and paths are for pedestrians, and the only other transport is by boat. There's also gondolas. I didn't get one, but there's plenty of people who did. What excited me most was that singing gondolas actually exist!

One thing that did surprise me was the number of shops from big name brands trying to integrate themselves with the islands. The Disney store has a big picture of Mickey on a gondola. I think, however, the best thing I saw was this:


Who the fuck goes to Venice for a McDonald's?

David and Florence

A lot of people say that when they see the Mona Lisa in real life, they're surprised how small it is. You definitely wouldn't say the same thing about Michaelangelo's David. David is seventeen feet in height, and he's brilliant. You can see the veins running up his arms, the tendons on his neck and the ripples on his stomach. To someone with my level of knowledge about sculptures (fuck all), David does what the Wire does to other TV shows. It makes everything else seem a bit shit. Photos were not allowed in the room, so you may need to take my word on this...


That was one highlight of the three days we spent in Florence. The city itself is somehow even more stunning than Rome. There's incredibly detailed, huge buildings everywhere, and a really relaxed vibe about the place. The centrepiece of the city is the Duomo, a giant cathedral that took something like 200 years to build. You can climb to the top of about 3 different parts of it, but we chose the highest one - the dome. The dome is the reason why the Duomo took so long to build. It was the first unsupported dome of it's size when it was created. Structurally, they managed this by creating a false dome within the outside dome (there's a reason I'm telling you this - it'll come into play further down).


We started the climb, and about half way up the steps suddenly stopped. We then came out on the inside of the dome on a walkway. The path hugged the inside of the dome, which was painted with these incredible images of heaven and hell. It wasn't an experience for people with a fear of heights though - the path appears to be unsupported from below. Once you get past this, the rest of the steps are climbed in cramped conditions between the outer and inner shells. At this point the stairs seemed to go on forever, but eventually I came out to a view of the whole city. I counted 466 steps from top to bottom - it was a hell of an adventure.


The hostel we've stayed in has been a bit more lively too. We've made a few friends here, and there's a much more cheery atmosphere. Friday and Saturday nights were free sangria nights! As you can imagine, the results of the sangria were mixed at best. Baldie did pretty well, as he got invited on a group picnic. I, on the other hand, had someone tell me in a very kind tone of voice that they were planning on stealing my organs. Another person simply pointed at my throat and told me they could kill me. I think they were joking, but if you don't see another post here in the next few days, could someone tell my family?

James vs. The Leaning Tower of Pisa

We all know what's expected from this post. I've written some stuff below, but here's the pictures:













Hopefully they amused you a fraction of the amount they amused me. It certainly seemed to amuse the people walking past as I posed for these things.

Pisa itself is a bit of a shithole - there's nothing worth seeing outside of the tower area. It's still worth the trip out though, as it's very damn impressive. The tower juts out at this bizarre angle, and the last thing you'd think to do is climb it. So I did.

As soon as I stepped on the entrance to the tower, I wasn't sure I'd made the right choice. It's really disorientating walking on a slant. What's worse is the spiral staircase going up. Because the tower goes over to one side, the stairs vary in tilt as you walk around them. I found myself bouncing off the walls slightly. We made it up about two thirds of the way before the first viewing platform. I tried to take pictures, but I'm not (too) ashamed to admit I was nervous. When you walk around to the side facing the ground, you just don't feel safe.

After a ten minute stop, it was time to continue. Two more staircases followed leading to a secondary platform with bells under maintenance and some workmen amused at how scared the tourists were. There's some steps going up to the bells, but I didn't make it past one of them. I stuck to the railing, edged my way around and headed for the final staircase.

The last part was the hardest. The staircase wasn't as wide as me, so I had to climb at an angle. Once at the top though, it was worth it. The view was spectacular, and I was proud to be atop the leaning tower of Pisa! I just wasn't able to take a good photo to celebrate this moment.


The way down was almost as stressful as the way up. After I came off the top staircase I realised my feel were level with the top of the railing, and a slip could end rather badly... Like a trooper, though, I made it to the bottom with no drama. It was a slight relief to be back on solid ground.

When in Rome

Over the first few days in Italy, I've seen many things that kind of confirm some preconceptions I'd had. The police drive Alpha Romeos and wear designer uniforms. The food is freaking amazing. Street vendors tout handbags and purses. The street vendors are great to watch actually. They lay their bags out in a slow, methodical manner. They then stand over them, making small presentational tweaks to their stock, while keeping a keen eye out for potential buyers (and I assume the police). They are true professionals. I didn't see a single one of them make a sale.

On our arrival, we went for a wander through the city. It may have something to do with the (incredibly) cheap wine, but my jaw was scraping the pavement as I walked around. Rome is beautiful. It's not just the Colosseum - there seems to be stunning buildings, sculptures and fountains all over the place. The whole city is surrounded by history, stories and brilliant architecture.


The Colosseum was still the clear highlight. Much of it has decayed, but you can see where the hidden pits that lions and tigers used to spring up from were kept. The shape slightly threw me - it's oval rather than round, although that hardly matters. The place also seems to be a romantic hotspot. By this, I mean we saw a good half dozen newly wedded couples turn up for a romantic photo-shoot. It does kind of raise the question of how special your special day can be when you see other couples doing the exact same thing, but they seemed happy enough so I didn't mention it directly to them.


Another highlight was the Trevi fountain. It's slightly hidden away, but needs to be seen for you to appreciate it's complete insanity. Coming out the side of a large building, the fountain features god-like men and giant galloping horses, all spurting water out in a rage. We left here in a daze for the Spanish steps - a famous meeting point for lovers. It became pretty apparent that turning up here without one left you looking a bit stupid.



Rome made for a nice start to the trip. We were heading deep into renaissance territory afterwards, so it was good to start out with some old Roman stuff. Having said that, it was quite wierd seeing loads of stuff related to Hadrian. If you're not aware, I grew up near Hadrian's wall, so it was quite surreal seeing statues about a guy who had such a big impact on my local area so far away from home...

The Pope always flies on Papal Aeroplanes.

We're in Rome for quite a bit, but it makes sense to me that I do a separate post on the Vatican for a couple of reasons. Not least of these is that the Vatican is a separate country...


I was brought up catholic. I went to catholic schools for a large part of my education, and I used to pray every night as a child. Then for various reasons (that fall way outside the remit of this blog) I stopped believing. Despite the fact I'm now pretty much athiest, I still identify myself as being Catholic (much to the annoyance of certain friends, who protest I can't do this). As Dara O'Brien says, once you're catholic, you're always catholic. So I guess that added to the excitement of me going to the Vatican.

As soon as we arrived I was shocked at just how much there is in the Vatican. From the famous stuff like the Sistene Chapel and the Basilica through to some hidden treats. The place is huge.


The Sistene chapel is as awesome as you probably would expect. Paintings on all sides with the famous image up the top. Unfortunately cameras are banned in there, probably to stop me doing a comedy picture for this blog (a wise move). They keep it towards the end of the museum tour, and you get ushered in and told to be quiet in this cavernous hall. The experience was ruined slightly by the guards, who kept loudly shushing everyone and telling them to be quiet. They somehow managed to make the act of asking people to be quiet into the one thing stopping the room from being quiet.

Another highlight was a room we found with all the Popemobiles from down the centuries lined up in a room. It was kind of like something you'd expect to see in the batcave.


I sorted out a postcard for my nana (the catholic one) and headed back across the border to Italy. Well, I say border... Any hopes of a pope stamp on my passport were dashed when I realised there was no border check. The Daily Mail would be outraged.

[Update: I realised I'd said the I used to 'prey' every night as a child. I've corrected this, because I'm not really the hunting type]

New Trip, New Posts.

Hello there. Long time no speak...

At the start of last year, I went around America for 3 months, and left occasional posts on where I went, what I did, and some really nonsensical stuff too.

I never finished the blog, mostly due to extreme apathy on my return to the UK. In the months after arriving, my life changed enormously. In rapid succession a long term relationship ended, I got a big job, and I moved to London.

So why the post now? Well, I'm in Italy! I'm on a 2 week trip that's quite similar in terms of content to the US roadtrip, so I thought I'd start up again. I'll be doing a few posts over the next few weeks on places like Rome, Florence and Venice, amongst others.

There's another difference as well - I have a friend with me! He goes by the name of Baldie, and differs from me in that he has actual organisational skills. As a result, there should (hopefully) be less last minute desperate searches to find a hostel, and more sightseeing and drinks.

I hope you enjoy the next few weeks with this blog active again! I got loads of goodwill and feedback from the last one. As a result I'll be aiming to keep the spirit of the Grayhound alive, even if I'm travelling by train this time...

One more thing. I do believe I set a competition question that never got resolved. The answer was that I visited 24 states in total, and the winner was Andrew Stothers! He was notified of this not long after I got back, and he won a history of the US in chocolate, and an 'I love new york' mug. I think. It was a long time ago.