firenze

ciao i tutti!!

we are writing to you from Firenze - home to the Uffizi, the Duomo, and Michelangelo's David. Needless to say, we have trekked around the city today like natural tourists, checking it all out. V.expensive, but totally worth it. We have also squeezed in a bit of shopping. Not too worry, we managed to fit in some relaxing time in a cute little trattoria near the uffizi for some handmade ravioli and tagliatelle - followed by parmagiana melanzane. Buonissimo!!

To back track a little from our last post -

Berlin was amazing! Totally diverse and a welcome break from small towns in Italy where the nonna's look at you strangely if you wear thongs in the street. The history of the place is crazy -especially considering its all so recent. we hired bikes over a couple of days and self toured around town to see the berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, the east side gallery and some old watch towers. we also checked out some holocaust memorials and museums - v.moving but emotionally exhausting - v.interesting but highly confronting.

em and I also hit the olympia stadium to experience the bundes liga first hand - akin to serie A in italy, but german style. the crowd was amazing - 90% of the fans were going for Hertha BSC - the local Berlin side (blue and white). over the other side from us, and cordoned off from the rest of the crowd were the Dortmund crowd in yellow and black. the chanting was crazy and the atmosphere was just as exciting as a massive AFL game but so different. the fans have to work harder here because they have set chants led by one guy on a microphone, and they keep it up for the whole game. easy for aussies to get lazy with a pie and beer.

We returned to italy on a 6am flight (!!!) to bergamo, from which we trained it to Padova, 1 hour out of Venezia. We both really loved Padova - a great town - our timing coincided with the end of the uni year - there is a really interesting tradition for gradutes to get down to their underwear or similar in the middle of the main piazza, get eggs and other gunk thrown at them, while reading a massive A1 caricature of themselves throughout uni (somewhat similar to a really embarrassing 21st speech i think). prior to being egged etc, they have to run through a human tunnel while everyone slaps them on the back (hard for the boys) and yells 'dottore, dottore ___something in italian blah blah ___ dottore'. all the oldies love it and lots of tourists (like us) stop and take photos. I am planning to introduce it to Australia at the end of the year when Em finishes her physio degree - will let you all know the date and time!! Ha.

While in Padova we checked out the massive church of St Anthony (I prayed for Nonni and families) and we also enjoyed a great dinner (we were shouted by a few older canadian couples our parents age after we spent a couple of hours sharing the long table together). We spotted a great bar to chill out in afterwards, as by this stage i had consumed about 3 espressos and about150gm of dark chocolate - needed some sedatives to get to sleep! V.cool spanish music that we managed to get the name of and hope to track down to share as well. Would def. return to live in Padova if ever the chance arose.

We headed to Venezia from Padova for a few hours - very touristy of course - but totally unique. Amazing to visit a city built on water. although we didnt splash out in a gondola, we hit the grande canal on the water bus to Piazza San Marco (so many pigeons - yuk!!) which was well worth it. the small cobbled streets were also really cute to walk through. glad we chose to stay in Padova and just visit however, as it was far less touristy.

the next morning we took a long trip to Carpi, a largish town near Bologna/Modena (region - emilia-romagna) to visit my relatives (my nonno's brother's daughter - Elisabetta (also a Gianfrotta) and her family) at their home. I was quite nervous given the language barrier, but really excited to visit family over here. Elisabetta and Eros picked us up from the stazione (us not knowing what they looked like and vice versa), they found us out the front and we had our first car trip in italy. its very strange to be on the other side of the road, and also to be in a car where the driver is on the left side. We went back to their house for pranzo - amazing and delicious traditional meal including a beautiful lasagne (primo piatto), and fantastic meatballs and melanzane for secondo piatto, followed of course by salad and buffalo mozzeralla and then sweets that we had brought from the pasticceria in Bologna, plus a cake that Elisabetta had made, and then (!) frutta, and then (!) un caffe. We have both tried and are now converts to the taste. The lunch was fantastic and tasted amazing - such a warm welcome. We rolled into car afterwards to visit my nonno's brother and his wife at their home about 200 mts away. Following this, we went into the town piazza for the evening passeggiata and then back to the house to eat some pizza from the pizza place that my second (or is it third) cousin, Fabio, works at.

The following day we spent the morning with Fabio in town checking out the market and the local pasticceria. We then headed back to the house where yet another magnificent feast awaited us. it was really great to meet all of the family. while it was difficult to understand everything, i think we came out of it with a little more italian than before. Fabio and his brother Claudio were really patient with us, especially when they were called on to interpret for us to talk to Elisabetta and Eros, and vice versa.

We should probably go now, as we have to catch the bus back to the ostello and still need some time to post some photos too!! will update shortly - we hope!! from here, we are hoping to head to Spello, a small town in Umbria, although accomodation not looking good at this stage - not to worry, we usually find somewhere. then onto Napoli on the 1st.

Cheers, love Sim and Em xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx