Positano --> Ancona

Positano - The Beginning of our Journey

The Drive

Croatia always seemed like a tough place to get to. While I was planning this segment of my trip it was surprisingly hard to find inexpensive flights; even for expensive flights the dates were a bit sporadic and unpredictable. The group and I planned a ferry from Ancona and so we had to travel from P

ositano to Ancona. Whoever did the research on this missed a pretty key piece of information, namely the distance from Positano to Ancona. Google maps suggests a 6 hour drive but we heard everything from 5 hours to 8 hours when speaking with locals.

The Drive

We left our hostel in Positano at about 10am to get a bus to Sorrento where we had arranged to rent a car from Hertz. After waiting for about 20 minutes after the scheduled arrival time we decided to ask someone why the bus was taking so long. We found a traffic officer and learned that the bus would not be coming for another hour because of a transit strike across Italy (naturally it would occur on this day). Our ferry was scheduled to leave Ancona at 7:30 and so

we had just over 9 hours to get from Positano to Ancona. Running out of time, we hopped into a cab with two other tourists who were also trying to get to a place just past Sorrento. After a windy 45 minutes we passed Sorrento and unfortunately the cab driver misunderstood our instructions and drove to drop off the other two tourists before us. After dropping them off we headed back towards Hertz in Sorrento and, after the driver got lost brieftly, we arrived at our first destination. We were coming up on t-8 hours now and rushed into Hertz. We were then informed that Hertz had some computer problems and lost our reservation. After sorting that out we rushed through the paperwork and handed over our license. I gave mine in but unfortunately it was expired...next up was one of the other people I was travelling with and she handed her license over. Hertz then proceeded to inform us that they do not rent to people

under the age of 23 (slight oversight by the organizing committee). This was our first moment of despair

After recovering from the knowledge that we had to car and only about 7.5 hours to make the 5-8 hour drive we began problem solving. In the end we learned that Avis does rent to 22 year olds and so we rushed out to find a cab to Avis (which is located on the other side of town). Once there we went through more paperwork and they told us that they only had a Fiat left. Mark went down to check out the car and noticed that it was shockingly small...there was no way we could fit 4 people and 4 backpacks (plus day bags) into this thing; Moment of despair number 2. Fortunately for us the manager remembered a Ford just in time. We signed everything with about 7 hours to go and jumped in. I was elected the driver even though it was under another persons name because I had the most experience driving standard...lucky me :s.

On the way out of the parking lot I started the trip off right by stalling across two lanes. With Italians approaching fast on either side I quickly pulled the car back together and jolted into the correct lane; good thing they drive on the right side of the road here.

Sorrento to Napoli

We drove along the winding roads from Sorrento through many construction zones and behind ever slower contingents. It took us about a 45 minutes to get to Napoli and from there we got onto the A1. As we watched the clock tick away the minutes we got increasingly more and more stressed. I was just trying to focus on keeping a good clip without endangering anyone else. We were trying to drive with traffic initially at about 150kmh and watched as several cars

wizzed by at about 160kmh. For a while we were trying to figure out whether the signs were in mph or kmh since they all said 80 and traffic seemed to be going ridiculously fast for the signs to be in kmh.

Napoli - Ancona

Once I settled in we found a comfortable average of about 160kmh and began to notice quite abrupt changes in the speed of traffic every 10 or 15 minutes before speeding back up. After the second or third time this happened Mark and I noticed speed cameras which just so happened to correspond exactly with the 40% reduction in speed; hopefully those first few don't result in a ticket....

We sped up towards Roma and then onto Florence before getting off the major highway. Once on secondary highways we stopped once for a quick snack and toilette break before moving onwards. We were only lost once before finding a sign for Ancona. Once on this road we raced through tunnels and onto the final straight away (the road into Ancona sufficiently straight to meet this cliche). We arrived at the Airport with a full hour before our ferry, dropped the car, and then went to look for a taxi. Our last moment of despair (third time's the charm) occurred here when for about 15 minutes there were no taxi's and the phone line to the local taxi company failed to provide any value. Finally a lone taxi pulled up and we pilled in for the 20 minute drive. The driver informed us that we had to actually check in at a different locatio

n than the port thus constraining our remaining time even further. It should be noted though that there are really nice fields of sunflowers on the way into Ancona.

We made it to check-in, registered, and then rushed towards the port. Finally after clearing customs (Croatia is not in the EU yet - not till 2011) we clamored through the door to our port and into the ferrry; we made it with 20 minutes to spare.

The View from our Ferry

(about the time our friends were getting into port)

Our friends

Unfortunately the other half of our contingent was not quite so lucky. They had elected to take a ferry from Positano to Sorrento, missed the ferry, took a later than planned connecting train to Rome, didn't catch the planned train from Rome to Ancona, and finally arrived in Ancona to watch our ferry sail out of the port...quite unfortunate. They were able to make a ferry the next day but at considerable personal expense.

The Ferry

Our trip overnight ferry was quite pleasant and uneventful after our previous days experience. We got to Split early on the morning of July 11th.

Morning in Split Harbor

Italy

Venice

Venice was our first stop in Italy and we had a tame few days here. We visited S. Marco's square, listened to music at the cafe's each night, and visited Murino one day to see them blow glass. Venice is a great city to walk through and we saw markets, shops, and even took a short gondola ride to the Guggenheim museum here. It was really hot though and we were happy to only be spending two full days in Venice. We left to Florence in the afternoon.

Sunset over the city

Florence

I left Malta and headed back to Milan. After a day or two I left for Florence with a big crew of friends, all of whom graduated with me. Florence was great but it is one of those cities that you can't spend too much time in unless you really know your art and history. I visited a cool palace with Mark (one of my friends from Ivey) and had a great lunch. There are lots of these little sandwich shops around with cured meats, cheeses, tomatoes, and bread. You get to pick whatever you want in your sandwich and the shop owner slices your meat and cheese and then builds your sandwich right there. I think this sort of concept would work really well back home.

The lunch spot

The picture below is of the Duomo in Florence. The Duomo here was huge and really beautiful. We went inside as well as climbed the adjacent tower which has 414 stairs from the bottom to the top.

Florence Duomo

Florence - The Palio in Siena

On our last day in Florence we were looking for something else to do. At first we wanted to do a wine tour but because of logistical issues that was out...Another option was the Palio. I didn't know anything about the Palio before this but we went to find some more information about it. As it turns out, the Palio is one of the biggest events in Italy. There are many regions around Siena and each has its own history, coat of arms, flags, and rivalries. Twice a year there is a race in the center of Sienna where 7 of the clans race bear-back on horses to complete three laps of the course with no rules. There are 50,000 standing in the middle of the circular course and another 30,000 lining the buildings and balconies surrounding the massive square.

We decided to head out to the event and see what it was for ourselves. The hostel sent a bus and we all booked a spot for the trip. We were given Orange shirts, along with everyone else from the hostel, to help us identify each other (although it would also prove a liability later on). Once inside the city we walked straight into a parade. Each clan marches its horse around the city and sings chants. We saw one clan (Lupa) with Orange in its colors and jumped on their bandwagon. We bought bandanna's and a big flag to associate ourselves with Lupa. The city was loud and everyone seemed to be jovial until we noticed that many of the marching clans gave us extremely long stares. We would later learn that Lupa is the clan with no ally's and only enemies...For now at least we decided to keep our Lupa apparel on but the looks were making us all a little bit more nervous.

We had to wait several hours before the actual event but once it started the crowd was insane. Our clan was left out of this race and we had to support the only other orange clan (the Unicorn clan). Once the race started we noticed our new rider was in second place. This didn't last long as he slammed into the railing on the first lap and flew off his horse. One the second lap that same horse (our riders horse who has kept running after losing its rider) clipped the fence on the same corner and stumbled into a heap. Unfortunately it brought down another rider and his horse at the same time. One of these horses would end up dying as a result. We were so caught up in the spectacle of all this that we didn't even really notice who won the race (I believe it was the Caterpillar clan).

After the race we pushed through the crowd and tried to find a way out. We took the first footpath and had a general idea of our direction. It wasn't for a few minutes though that we noticed a consistent path of blood on the road that we selected. We ended up in the Unicorn section of the city (entirely by accident) and were yelled at by extremely emotional Italian men to get out. When we finally got out and regrouped we decided to lay low for a while. I can only assume that the blood we saw was from their rider and that we stumbled upon an extremely emotional group of Sienese citizens. Our affiliation with the Lupa clan certainly did not help us in the situation with the Unicorn clan.

Palio Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC1fiv07Fr0

Our next stop was Rome...

When in Roma...

Although we went out the first night, I got up early to attend the morning mass at the Vatican with Mark Vasey and one of the other girls who is actually Roman Catholic. This was a very cool experience and although I didn't understand the Italian service, I am glad I experienced it. For the rest of the day I slept and recovered from the night before.

Spanish Steps at Night

Pantheon

On our second full day everyone wanted to go to the Vatican Museum. I elected to sit that one out since I had already seen it and I looked up one of the best coffee shops and gelateria's in Rome. I spent the day walking around, visiting the markets for lunch, and actually ended up seeing each of the obelisks in Rome (entirely by chance).

My Gelato Spot

From Venice to Rome was great but the part of my Italian trip that I was really looking forward to was Positano and Amalfi coast.

Positano

We trained from Rome to Napoli and then took a taxi through the somewhat derelict city to the port where we left for Positano. I can't even start to describe how amazing the Amalfi coast is. The best I can compare it to is a Cinque Terre with much more dramatic and stunning cliffs. We stayed at the top of the hill overlooking the bay. I went for a run up the side of one of the mountains one morning and when I ran out of trail I turned back to run along the curvy cliff side road. The rest of our first two days lying on the beach and kayaking along the massive cliffs and caves that make up the shoreline. One our last full day we took a day trip to Capri.

Capri is where the Caprasi salad was invented and is very similar to Positano but is an island and has even taller cliffs. We took a chartered tour of the caves, grotto's, and towering cliffs. The driver stopped in a bay and we swam in front of an amazing backdrop. The water was clear enough to see 50 or 60 feet down quite clearly. We snorkled around the cliffs for a while and then headed back to Capri. The town proper is located on the top of the island and we took a sort of gondola on rails to it. Capri is really expensive but we still enjoyed the views and shops in the town.

Positano

Capri Coastline

We left Positano after 3 nights and aimed to get to Anaconna to catch our ferry to Croatia. This travel day would turn out to be one of the most intense so far but I will save it for the next post.

Malta

Finally it is time for my next long awaited Blog post (I know I have countless followers who have been on the edge of their seat for a while now).

After Greece I flew to Milan where I met up with several classmates who were finishing up their exchange term. After a couple of days of shopping and eating amazing meals I flew to Malta with one of those classmates (Lauren Luxenburg) and a couple of her friends from Milan.

Malta is a bit of a strange place. I was surprised to find a culture which seemed to mix British, Arabic, and African influences. Everything from the buildings to the Language was totally foreign. The Maltese language is derived from Arabic but it has huge Italian and English influences. Even more interesting is that the written language uses Latin characters. While we were in Malta we sampled the local wine (left something to be desired) as well as the food such as rabbit stew (a big improvement on the wine).

Aside from this unexpected mix of cultures, the beaches and landscape totally surpassed our expectations. We spent a few days on beaches like Golden Beach and St. Peters Pool (actually a limestone formation). St. Peter's was amazing. This place has sheer cliffs ranging in size from several hundred feet to 15 or 20 feet. The smaller ones were perfect to jump into the crystal clear water from.

St. Peter's Pool

Golden Beach

One of the coolest things for me was a day trip to Comino and Gozo. The water in Comino was shockingly clear and I was able to walk over to the cliffs on the other side of the island where the building that appears as the prison in the Count of Monte Cristo (CMC) overlooks the Mediterranean. I really liked this little side trip because CMC is one of my favorite movies. When i went to Gozo I saw a pretty amazing limestone cliff called Azur's Window as well as a cool old town. The human history on Gozo runs back 7,000 years and the oldest free standing structures in the world are on the island.

Azur's Window, Gozo

To wrap up my Maltese adventure I visited the Medina (a really cool fortified city and of the oldest in Malta) with one of the other girls I was staying with. I flew out of Malta and headed back to Milan to regroup before I head to Venice, Florence, Rome, and Amalfi.