John: Hello Florence.

Yet again I am writing this while I am actually somewhere else. I am stretched out on the bed in our little apartment in Paris.

 I tried writing this blog on the plane, but thanks to Air France's dodgy technology (I'm going to blame them anyway) it disappeared. But I can more or less remember what I wrote word for word, so here it is/was.

Thanks to the media, everyone has some image of Florence in their mind.

 They are always elegant and beautiful and having spent some time there, these images appear to be correct. We were fortunate to stay in a very cozy little boutique hotel in a tree lined leafy suburb. Even the taxi driver was impressed.

After the sprawl and chaos of Naples, our hotel in Florence was a: clean, green, tranquil heaven. But not quite! Neither Julie or I could get the toilet to flush. After the trials and tribulations with our room in Naples the first thoughts were OMG not again! but all was not lost. The plumber whilst repairing it was giving me a running lecture on the principles of: water pressure, forces of gravity, and pounds per square inch, or something like. All the while I was thinking that I really SHOULD have paid more attention to the tour guide when she was talking about lead piping and plumbing B.C. in Pompeii. 

However back in our hotel room in present day Florence, the problem was fixed and would not re-occur, (it didn't) if the following course of action was followed. 

"Sir this is Italy. If you want something to work the first thing you do is pray! When youa done this you push the (flush) button in hard, and let go quick. You try" 

I did ... it worked. So with that problem solved we could look forward to or first day out in Florence the next day, The Uffizi gallery.

Couple of extra Graffiti theme in hotel

Here are a couple of shots that I missed which how the hotel architect had carried the graffiti theme into the hotel. Linda I thought you would really like the real chair with the painted walls.

Lots of Neopolitan stuff here: pizza, washing, spaghetti, and the little man with the bowler hat and vest is Toto, a famous comedian from Naples.

John: Goodbye Naples.

As I am writing this the train has just pulled into Rome's main station on the way to Florence. I really like these fast trains. Because of the pouring rain on the way up the train had to slow down to a crawl at a mere 220km per hour!

So Naples has come and gone. Originally I wasn't to sure about visiting the place,

       "The place is piled high with rubbish" Most of the time it was. 

       "The place is covered by graffiti" It is.

       "As soon as you go into the street you'll have your pockets picked or be mugged." We weren't. 

       "The city's run by The Mafia,"

Maybe, I don't know for sure. I had read somewhere that The Mafia had the contract for the (non) collection of rubbish. Also the only time I felt some presence of the above mentioned organisation was when a gentleman with silver hair dressed smart casual gave me the death ray stare (which was a bit scary) when I took a photo the view from the restaurant. 

I had failed to notice the partly obscured African man sitting behind him who was built like a couple of mountains put together. But probably my interpretation of the scene came from watching too many Italian movies.

It's the people that make Naples. They are quick to smile, and as you have seen from the photos they are not backward in coming forward. They are also generous and warm hearted.

I was told by someone from Southern Italy that the place is a little crazy. I was told not to worry if I thought I was going a liitle crazy because the next step was the last one. It's when you know that you  are going crazy but you don't care ... That's when you fit right in!

Would I go back? Although I wrote this in Rome's station, I am typing it in our hotel room in the clean, green, quiet, more refined, more restrained atmosphere of Florence. Literally just round the corner is the Arno river, the Uffizi gallery, and the Ponte Vecchio. So would I go back? Perhaps it's too soon to tell. But I'm certainly glad that I went the first time.

        

John: Part Two, Trip to Amalfi Coast.

On the trip it was again just one picture postcard view after another. Again another A list, jet set, film festival red carpet location.

       "On the right is Sophia Loren's villa, with private beachfront and elevator up to the road."

         "On our left is the Amalfi's backpacker hostel. Basic room rate for this hotel is €1000 plus 

          a night ... excluding breakfast."

On the way up we stopped at a lemoncello factory. Lemoncello is a lemon drink which is either left as a juice, brewed into an alcoholic cream textured beverage like Bailey's, or a REALLY STRONG liqueur. All of them delicious. The guide must have known I was Australian (she probably read the label on the front of my yellow hat!) because I seemed to end up having more sample than the others. 

          "Because the bottle is shaped like a guitar."  was Julie's indisputable totally rational reason for buying a €10 bottle of the cream version. 

After the factory there were more picturesque views, more quant little villages, and more international A list name dropping. Which took us to lunch, and you dear reader to part three. 

John: Part Three Trip To Amalfi.

Lunch was everything it should have been: a beautiful pasta and salad, film location view across the bay, and no yelling waiters or ones trying to pick up Julie.

It must have good been good because I had pushed back my chair from the table ready to settle back, when sadly it was time to go. On the way out our guide took me aside for another lemoncello, to aid the digestion. Because Julie had been chatted up I compensated by telling myself that this would be the only time in my life an attractive Italian woman would be "plying" me with drinks. I knew she was doing it to drum up a bit of trade fo the locals but us old blokes have earned the right to delude ourselves!

After lunch more James Bond/Jason Bourne elegant film locations before the trip home.

What a superb day it had been, and that lunch time view across the bay will stay with me forever.

John: Part One. Trip To Amalfi Coast.

Another trip to admire the: coastline, sea, and villages of Southern Italy. I remember this one much better than the Capri one. 

Rise and shine at around 7:30am. This is the painting I have been waking up to for the last week or so. It isn't your usual vase of flowers is it? I'm sure the painter is trying to tell me something.

We get this view just walking to the lift!

Breakfast for me as usual was its normal (un)healthy self, and it was always nice to see if there had been any new additions to the blackboards. Let me explain. Naples is notorious for its graffiti. The designer of the hotel, a Neopolian architect named Alessandro Cocchia had brought the graffiti theme into the hotel. Some of the walls were made of ... I don't know ... "Blackboard!" and on each table was a little bowl of chalk should you feel so moved to express your thoughts in words or drawing. Some other Australian had drawn up the Australia Mate on the board and I added the arrows and words. We have to keep the flag flying and be loud and proud.

I'll leave you with a couple more examples of the graffiti theme in the hotel, then on to part two and the trip.

John: Trip to Capri

First I must start with an apology. As I have mentioned elsewhere, everything is starring to blur into one beautiful big memory. So, even though this trip was only a few days ago, I can only remember bits of it, and even then not in the correct chronological order, but here goes.

We were picked up by our just about organised guide Domenico and transported to the dock, to catch the hydrofoil across to Capri. The trip over was fine except for some salesman endlessly spruicking his wares. By half way across I was hoping he would fall overboard, but he didn't. Sadly he was twice as annoying on the way back. But let's move on. 

The bus ride iinto the town of Capri was just one beautiful site after other. Julie has photos of it on Tripcast.

An option which we took was a chairlift ride to the top of the island to see and photograph the views. The trip took thirteen minutes up, and thirteen minutes back. As Julie would say, it was wonderful. I could have floated around on the chairlift all day, the views were sensational and the feeling of flying through the air was very pleasant.

After that came lunch which was mediocre at best. I'm sure the spaghetti came out of a can. (I should know because I had eaten enough of it before I got married.). However lunch did provide some amusement. There was an older waiter who was the stereotypical Italian, yelling and shouting orders to I'm not sure who with no one appearing to listen to him. 

AND one of the younger waiters started to chat up Julie. She will tell you he wasn't, but he was!!!! He told her that she looked like a Roman and 

"Roma wasa a very importanta city." So Julie has been mistaken for a Parisian and a Roman. What a cosmopolitan lady!

After lunch my Italain (Roman) wife and I went for a boat trip round the island. It was magnificent. The views were breathtaking, and the sea was so blue. The yachts that passed by were more than up to the mark, for an international A list resort that Capri is. 

The Villa of Dolce of Dolce and Gabanna.

After the trip it was time to catch the ferry back to Naples. As we got closer to the coast there was a big thunderstorm with lots of rain, which didn't stop until after we got back to our hotel. 

Looking back it was a lovey enjoyable day. Capri IS as lovely as the hype says it is. I am so glad we went.