Italy's Not-So-Wild West

Still in the Alba region in north-west Italy, we moved onto Cuneo, a lovely town. We had a fabulous modern apartment with - wait for it - a washing machine! I went crazy and washed everything!

We checked out the town and found more beautiful churches, more absolutely amazing food and we wandered around exploring the old streets.

I have no idea what this sign is about. I'm guessing this is some sort of local tradition. How this fits in with the Ku Klux Klan is anybody's guess!

John went for a bike ride out of town and I went for a walk. We drove to a certain spot where I dropped John off. As soon as he left, I stalled the car in the middle of the road but managed to roll it to a clear space off the road. Then, no matter what I did, I couldn't start the bloody car! After 15 fruitless minutes, I flagged down a passing cyclist who started it on his second attempt! I'm still not sure what the issue was. Anyway, I drove through the next town only to find that there was a huge agricultural fair on. Sheep and horses blocked the main street and all traffic was diverted through the tiny back roads. It was stressful squeezing the car through tiny gaps but I got it through without a scratch so all was good. Tutto bene!

I parked in the next town and just headed up a hill where there was a track. The walk was great! I started alongside an old castle of some sort then climbed up past stunning scenes of waterfalls and trees in their autumn colours.

There were some amazing clouds above the mountains.

This weird scarecrow would scare anyone off!

I loved wandering through the gorgeous old town on my way back.

John had a good ride and I met him at a cafe. Bruce the bike had a little rest while we ate yummy panini.

We moved on to a town called Tivoli, near Rome. We had a great B&B there - simple, clean and cheap. We immediately set off to explore the 16th Century Villa d'Este. This is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed mansion and gardens. I think the famous Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen were named after these.

The 'Villa' was amazing - colourful frescoes lined the walls and ceilings. The place was huge!

Not quite Botticelli's version but still Venus on a seashell nonetheless.

This one's for you Courtney!

The gardens were mind-blowing. Fountains were a huge feature.

This is a statue of Mother Nature apparently. The poor woman!

There were many carvings that featured animal or human heads. Many of them were individually crafted.

We then headed to Pompeii, well aware that the tourist hoards would also be there. Sure enough, the traffic chaos started just before the town. After some faffing around, we found a car park where we felt safe enough leaving our car with all our gear in it. With John's bike in the back of the SUV, we have to lay the seat down which means all our bags are on show. We had to sandwich in between a bus and some machinery but at least the car park was monitored and it was all fine.

John doesn't cope well with crowds and there were certainly plenty of people at Pompeii. The worst thing about crowds is the tour groups that just stand right across the paths, blocking them for everybody else. It's rare that a tour guide will ask their group to move and let people pass. Anyway, thanks to the crowds it was a rather quick look at Pompeii but it was certainly interesting.

Pompeii is like a time capsule. Nearby Mt Vesuvius erupted one day in the year 79 and completely covered the town in ash. Every living thing within that city at the time died. People tried to get away but they couldn't outrun the fumes, ash and intense heat. The only fortunate part is that there was a huge earthquake about 17 years earlier and the town had been abandoned. Of the 10,000 original inhabitants, only 2,000 had returned by the time of the eruption.

Pompeii must have been huge in its time. This is the main square with Mt Vesuvius looming ominously in the distance.

There were streets and streets of houses and shops. Among them were some very fancy homes that belonged to noblemen.

The thing that brings the reality of what happened home is the bodies that were found preserved under the metres of ash. These were real people who died pretty awful deaths.

This person was found sitting up against a dead-end wall.

Nothing was spared - not even the dogs.

What makes Pompeii unique is that everything was preserved as it was on that day. This is a loaf of badly burnt bread.

We wandered through various parts of the town and checked out the large theatre.

There was some music coming from inside one section of the old theatre and, to our complete astonishment, there was a display on Pink Floyd! Apparently, Pink Floyd held a concert here in the early 70's. There was no audience, it was all done for a film. Apparently the acoustics were amazing.

A couple of the images on display....

We left Pompeii and drove to the Amalfi Coast. We were prepared for the crowds here. It is one of the most popular destinations in Italy. On Sue Baum's recommendation, we decided to stay in Positano, a town perched on the edge of the dramatic Amalfi cliffs. We were in for such a pleasant surprise!

Our accommodation took some finding. Our GPS kept saying we had arrived at our destination but we were just driving along the cliff road where there were no houses. It took us a few minutes to work out that the place was below us! We had a fabulous apartment with our own balcony. I love it when you can open doors like this onto a balcony with a great view from your bedroom!

The views from our balcony were superb.

It was a bit of a walk into town from our place but we had more great views of Positano along the way.

Positano is renowned for the hundreds of steps that lead up and down the town. I counted the steps from our place to the bottom of the town one day. There were 792! A lot of those steps are very steep too. John's showing his bum-shimmying style in this pic!

 We headed into town for dinner on our first night and someone we met on the track recommended a restaurant that had views and would give people a free ride home at the end of the night. Walking back up all those steps late at night wasn't tempting so we took their advice. The restaurant was good but what made it special was that we met some fantastic people there. We got talking to Heather and Rob from the US who were sitting next to us. They had just got married in Rome! Then a Canadian couple, Jill and Dusan, overheard us and joined in. Then an Aussie couple, Cindy and Phil, heard us as they walked past and they soon joined in too! By the end of the night we were eight rather merry and very loud people having a ball together! It was fantastic night.

We explored the town the next day.

Ceramics are a big thing in Sicily and I love the way that houses and hotels had their own ceramic nameplates.

Two middle-aged brothers ran our accommodation and their mother lived there too. Actually, it was probably her place. It was olive-picking season and we came outside one day to find one middle-aged son picking the lower olives while his ancient mother was up a ladder picking the higher olives. Now I know that Italian boys love to stay at home with mama but something's not right here!

We had had such a great night the night before that we arranged to catch up with our friends again the next day. Sadly, Jill and Dusan had to leave but the rest of us met at the same restaurant and had another fantastic night. (Cindy took this photo so she's not in it). It was one of those nights where you suddenly realise it's late and there's nobody else left in the restaurant. After a while we realised they had turned the music off. Then they turned the lights on. Eventually they gave up dropping hints and just told us that our lift home was going now! 

Thanks for the awesome memories guys!

We left the next day and opted to take the scenic route along the Amalfi Coast. It was stunning but very challenging driving!

There were old castles, little old men smoking outside shops and small cruise ships floating on the turquoise water. We even saw some donkeys carrying loads along the road.

There were many tense driving moments but there were also a few lighter ones. They have these tiny three-wheeled cars in Italy and this one had two large people squished inside it!

We had a long drive this day and we had to go through a town called Pizzo (not Pizza!) which is the home of tartufo ice-cream! I love ice-cream and the gelati in Italy is fantastic. It doesn't seem to matter if I get my fix at the best shop in town or just some little obscure place - it's all sensational!

We found a huge shop in Pizzo that was solely about gelati. I was in heaven! They had ice-cream on sticks, in cones and in balls. If there was a possible way to have gelati, they had it.

With tartufo being the thing here though, we had to have one. It was heart attack material! Chocolate and hazelnut gelati was wrapped around a liquid dark chocolate centre. Rich chocolate sauce was then poured over the creation. I'm a chocoholic and even I struggled with this one!

After our long drive we arrived at Tropea. This town has an unusual claim to fame. Apparently its red onions are incredibly sweet!

There was a nice historic old town but our room was hard to find and was really noisy so our memories of this place aren't great! Oh well - we always expect things like this to happen occasionally.

It did have some lovely looking beaches though......

Ciao for now!

Heather and John