Three days on the set of "Life is Beautiful"

We have been in beautiful Arezzo, in the lesser touristed area of Tuscany for three days. It was the location for the first part of the lovely film "Life is Beautiful" and is a wonderful city. We would have enjoyed just wandering the winding stone streets, admiring the beautiful sandstone buildings and popping in to the churches to see some amazing frescoes.... but our time here has been made more enjoyable because the town is in the middle of a festival to lead up to a major jousting competition next weekend.

Piazza Grande as a jousting track

Piazza Grande has been transformed into a track for the horses and the riders gallop up to a dummy (The Saracen enemy) and clobber it with the lance, earning points depending on how close they get to the bullseye. The competition is between the four quarters of the town and yesterday morning we were entertained for an hour by all the pageantry and procession, in full mediaeval costume, of all the bigwigs, standard bearers straight out of BlackAdder, drummers, trumpeters, jousting team members, all heading to the Duomo Piazza for the draw to decide the order in which the teams would compete. Then everyone, including us but not the horses, processed into the Duomo for a blessing and lots of noise reverberating through the Cathedral.

Our local Piazza

Part of the festival involves street food stalls every night then music and dancing all over the place until very late. It has been party central. We are staying at Bibi Arezzo, having breakfast on the roof each morning and not getting much sleep becasue our neighbourhood Piazza, 20 metres down the road is rocking its socks off each night until late (very late, actually). Do we care? Nup - we're on holiday!

Bibi Arezzo is sumptuous

Three days with in the playground of the rich, famous and beautiful.....and hoards of package tourists

Anyone for the beach? Sorrento

Three days on the Amalfi Coast! Visions of the toned and tanned, beautiful coastlines, colourful houses clinging to the cliffs, sleek yachts, beds of flowers, old stone walls and buildings.

Yes....but! Unfortunately glorious places in the world get invaded by so many tourists and so many touristy shops and restaurants that they quickly lose their appeal, especially in mid-summer, and this has certainly happened on the Amalfi Coast. The buses and ferries and towns are all horribly crowded, albeit beautiful.

View from our room at Ai Bastioni

Salerno waterfront

We are glad we opted to stay in Salerno, and have enjoyed its authenticity. It was a direct train journey from Taormina and also on to Rome. We are staying in an Airbnb that is run really professionally by its resident owners, Ai Bastioni, right on the edge of the old city, so we benefit from local knowledge and help. Lester even had his hair cut at the local barber for 10 euro.






Salerno has been a pleasant surprise and an oasis from our forays by crowded buses and ferries onto the Amalfi Coast. It has an amazing cathedral (which houses the tomb of St Matthew), an Italianate garden of medicinal plants, winding narrow streets with good shops and a pleasant waterfront to make a "passegiata" in the evening.

Positano

Amalfi and Sorrento were just too touristy, we quite liked Positano but our favourite was the hilltop town of Ravello, albeit after a nightmare bus journey up the hill (Standing on an over-crowded bus, racing around hair-pin bends is not my idea of a good time).

Positano

Ravello

Bello Ravello

At Villa Ruffolo, Ravello

Would love to attend a performance here..

but not so sure about being on the stage

Bus ride from hell

More Sorrento

Gardens of Minerva in Salerno

Italian barber and the resulting haircut

Taormina and Mt Etna

This has been one of the times when all the travel experiences have worked well - apart from almost missing the train to Taormina from Messina because we didn't know that it was ours!

Kitchen for guest use - opens onto terrace overlooking sea

We are staying down there

Staying in a lovely B and B, Sottocoperta, which is on the coast below Taormina hilltop town. Chose it because it is across the road from the station and it was a good choice. It is spotless, beautiful and run by a lovely friendly, helpful Italian family. We breakfast on the terrace overlooking the sea each morning with fellow guests.

great view for dinner

After a perfect grilled seaood dinner overlooking the sea and a great sleep, we spent the morning topping up the tan, then explored the town, taking the local bus up the hill. Pretty but lots of people. Caught a cable car to another part of the coast, enoyed a drink at a very chic hotel, went back up for dinner at a restaurant run by an Italian who used to own a restaurant at Glebe in Sydney. He looked after us very well and the pasta was the best we have ever had.

Isola Bella

Narrow street in old town

Greek theatre with Etna smoking in background

Then it was off to performance of Il Volo, and Italian pop opera group who did really well in Eurovision this year. The real reason for going was to experience a performance in the old Greek Theatre - an amphitheatre on the top of the hill, overlooking the town and sea with Etna smoking in the back ground. The lighting highlighted the stone columns and pillars and the effect was stunning. The performance was also delightful. We were in the cheap seats (ie benches - no cushion) up high but not too high and right in front. An unforgettable experience.

Then today it was Etna - a drive, a cable car, a four wheel drive truck and a walk around some craters - very lunar and very, very high! Amazingly people still live relatively close and there are hotels right up there for the ski season.

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Aeolian Islands

view from Hotel room

This trip seems to have turned into our UNESCO World Heritage trip - not that we planned it that way but we keep finding out that many of the places we have chosen to visit are on the UNESCO list. The Aeolian Islands are no exception. Off the North East Coast of Sicily are seven volcanic islands and we decided to stay on one of them, Salina, for 4 days of relative rest after 17 days of quite busy travel.

Hotel Arcangelo - bliss!

It proved to be a good choice. Salina is the least visited by tourists but has a good local population so there are plenty of services. Hotel Arcangelo was a bit of a hike up the hill from the port (8 mins!) but rewarded us with wonderful views and a beautiful swimming pool. Out room had sea glimpses including a view of smoking Stromboli and Panarea (both of which we called into on our return trip).


On the way out we dropped into Alicudi and Filipudi. We also spent a day visiting the most touristy island, Lipari, and hated it! Huge tour groups (100+ people) dropped off one by one and marched through, no swimming beach at the port, commercial shops, expensive food.....

Path up to our hotel

We walked past the tomato lady

Eating in, Salina style

Salina SM main street

Salina has a local bus so we caught it one day to see the island, which is very lush and to spend time at another lovely beach, Rinella. It was a dipping beach rather than swimming, although the water was clear and clean, because there were jellyfish around - providing lots of fun for the locals who watched out for the dippers and caught the jelly fish on shoes, in nets and buckets.

Beach at Rinella

Catching jelly fish

Pane Cunzato - one is too big for two people!

One evening we also walked 3km around the coast to another small village with some good restaurants, and indulged in the local delicacy, pane cunzato, a cross between pizza and bruschetta - and absolutely huge.

Lipari - momentarily away from the hoards

Lipari - two tall blokes in a tiny electric car, a Fiat of course

Audience participation at a concert

Another highlight was happening on a cultural evening where we were staying, with street food, music, drama, exhibitions, churches open and lots of locals out having a good time. The highlight was sittting in someone's front courtyard, listening to a group - singer, saxophonist, keyboard player, with the audience joining in on a range of percussion instruments and singing (some songs in English). Great fun, given the exuberant nature of Italians. Lots of kids and old people around too, no one drinking much and everyone very well behaved but really enjoying themselves. Australians could learn a lot.

Farewell Salina - we loved you