Fast Cars and Not-So Fast Women

We're two weeks further along in my language course, and I think it's high time for another brief hiatus. A couple of weeks ago I dealt with amusing things, now I'm going to look at something quintessentially Italian: the motor car. After being in Italy for seven weeks I had begun to notice the art of the motor car and the Italian obsession with it. I appreciate everything with an engine and therefore seeing some of these vehicles in their native environment was quite special. So if I saw something of interest, my coursemates would be taking pictures of pretty buildings and spectacular views, I would be looking the other way, taking a picture of the interesting car that was parked up a side road somewhere.

This first example was seen in Sanremo at the hotel that boasted, amongst other things, the laughing seagull. You can't tell from that picture, but it's actually a British Italian car, that is a Lamborghini with British plates. On the other side of the makeshift turning circle is a Porsche, also with British plates. It's sights like that one that make me proud to be British, knowing that my countrymen have such a good taste in cars...

This was seen just outside the Frassassi Caves. My coursemates were still walking round with beautiful stalagmites and stalagtites seared into their brains, but I was attracted by something of a much different nature. I confess to not knowing a great deal about bikes other than if they look pretty or not. I'm not a great lover of Harleys, but this one (which I believe is a Yamaha) was a pretty special specimen.

If I were able, this would be my car: an old style Fiat 500 Arbarth, souped up with silly additions almost everywhere. The boot doesn't close and there are scorpion badges painted everywhere. Italy is really the only place you can get away with driving a car like that, or else I'd have one over here. I saw it on our tour of Camerino and while my coursemates were admiring the view, my attention was taken hook, line and sinker by this extraordinary motor.

I found this ostentatious motorbike at Porto Recanati on the Rimini coast. I have no idea what it is, but I fell in love with it. It was big and orange and shouty and in-your-face - it was everything I had wanted to be in life (well nearly). I felt I had a certain connection with it, so convinced my friends to take my photo together with it. There's even a Vespa in the background to make things 1. even more Italian and 2. even better.

A little while later, we found another Fiat 500 - maybe the beach is where all the cool people with cool motors end up (ignore the Fiat Multipla in the background). As you can see I like people to think that it's my car, so I pretended I was snapped nonchalantly getting into my retro but classic wheels. Smooth.

My last picture also comes from the day I had at the beach - what can I say, it wasn't that great architecturally so I decided to take lots of pictures of other things of interest. This was particularly interesting to me. As a person who is challenged when it comes to parking, this was impressive. Very impressive.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

During our language course, Sundays were our days off; there were 'voluntary' excursions to places like Siena, Urbino and Venice, but in this particular case 'voluntary' means 'expensive'. Don't get me wrong I really wanted to visit those places, but not for 60Eur a time - especially when I was moving to Verona in about six weeks where I would be a 6Eur train ride from Venice and you don't need a degree in maths to work out the savings...

The first Sunday of the language course Bree and Gaby decided they were going to go to Venice, and because I didn't know many people by that point I decided I was going to chill out and, for those of you with a good memory, Skype the family in the main piazza.

There were two more Sundays on the language course and I think the general consensus on at least one of them was to go to the beach. My experience of the Rimini coast had, up to that point, been a little disappointing: shingly beaches and expensive sun loungers. This didn't really appeal to me and I really begrudged paying to not enjoy myself all day.

I shared my musings with Susan and Lynette and I was surprised to hear that they thought the same and were considering staying around Camerino too. Susan and I had gotten really close as we were sharing Wendy's class time banter. I had also started spending a lot of time in their apartment to avoid Hurricane Gaby.

They lived in a much more central apartment, but to be honest in Camerino no two places are that far from each other. They lived opposite the cafe from the first morning and always got a rude awakening when the locals would descend to read the papers (and then discuss them very loudly) at 7am.

It was a much older apartment to mine and Gaby's, but where our living space had a small table, a fridge, and a tiny television, they had sofas and a proper place to relax. If we'd had that in our apartment I might not be going so loopy about Gaby because I could leave her to hurricane about in our room and I could have shotgunned a sofa so that I could lie down in peace and think about rolling hillsides and gamboling lambs.

Anyway, so I tended to spend some of my time there, some of my time upstairs (in Bree's apartment) and then a teeny-tiny bit of time in my flat, rocking in the foetal position.

Fortunately for me (and for her), Gaby went to the beach with her 'new' friends. Bree went too because of the large number of Portuguese-speakers so she could have a day-off from speaking [very good] English and Italian. So that left the three of us to enjoy our Sundays by spending some quality time together.

Lovely.

Ever since the international dinner, Susan had developed a bit of a thing for my scones (no euphemism intended). I don't think there's a Croatian equivalent and so understandably this little slice of England had wormed its way into her heart (even if they were like pellets due to the lack of self raising flour in Italy).

I invited the girls round for lunch - we did it Italian style in that it was our main meal - and then I baked some scones for pudding. We only had a week of the language course left, but I would have been more than happy to study with these girls all through my year abroad. I was actually facing the real possibility of never seeing them ever again and that was something I didn't really want to happen.

I thought back to the month previous where I'd waved goodbye to my friends at Sanremo train station, and if you remember, I never saw them again. Obviously I didn't know that then, or even when I was thinking about the last week at Camerino I didn't know that it would just be so hard to keep in touch with people and that they really can be friends for a season and nothing else.

Still, I decided to make the most of the moment because I wasn't going to have very many more with these girls, in Camerino at least. We ate very well, shared some great times, and then for some reason I sang 'Lost?' by Coldplay very loudly and a bit too low - there's even a video to prove it (I'll spare you that one though).

Rejoice Florence and Take Some Stupid Pictures!

Now you may have been bitterly disappointed with my last post about my visit to Florence. Where was the banter? Where was the back-story? Well readers, I love Florence for its architecture and I wanted to devote an entire post to its beauty before I launch into how I abused it by taking a plethora of ridiculous pictures along the way.

If you remember me saying that I couldn't tell you any of the little pearls of wisdom we were told on our tour, then you're about to find out why...

So the day started by the Uffizi - the most famous art gallery in Florence (the one where David isn't). I found a statue of Neptune and with a bit of clever positioning, managed to ruin the iconography of Renaissance art in about thirty seconds. Job done.

At this point in the language course, inter-group relations couldn't have been any better. To be honest it was the peak - we'd spent all that time climbing up to this point and in the final week with the test and goodbyes pending, things started to wane a little. Oh well, that's to look forward to in a future post...

The 'Desperate' gang - me, Bree, Lynette, Susan (and some tag-alongs) decided to take on the city together (initially at least) and soaked in all the sights together. For those of you who are interested, Gaby didn't join us because she was meeting up with a friend in Florence and, understandably, she wanted to see her and not us.

So we hopped aboard the banter train and went to another part of the city - another sight to see, another old thing to take a picture of - there really isn't any rest for the wicked...

At this magnificent sight, the amusing picture of the hour was using the Obelix thing to make us into majestic unicorns. Score.

Our tour guide was sensing the lack of focus and thought he'd give us a break before he lost us completely to deface other important sights in Florence. This break gave us another photo opportunity...

I've always wondered what I'd look like with dark straight hair.

Now I know.

What was more entertaining was how the rest of the gang looked with blonde curls. Now that was entertaining - especially when we tried it on our tour guide (a sweaty, slightly pervy Italian bloke called Carlo).

After that excitement we calmed down a little and ventured over the the Boboli Gardens via the Ponte Vecchio: name-dropping a-go-go.

In front of the Boboli Gardens is a building that is important though I forget what it is - the only reason I remembered about the gardens was because of their funny name.

Anyway, in front of that is a large expanse of, well, nothing. It's just a large patch of gravel with a funny sculpture on it, but we'll get to that later. First, Susan and I decided to declare our love for each other.

Once that was done, we turned to the sculpture that I think was supposed to be a cat: if you're blind and don't know what a cat looks like. Or feels like. Or really if you don't know what a cat is.

Because of this comtempt towards the stupid piece of modern art spoiling my favourite Italian city, I decided to mock it in an amusing picture. Check.

The last picture is my favourite. It intends not to mock, but to admire, to appreciate and open a discourse on contrasting cultures and how they impact on society. That and it's just darn funny...

After that the Fantastic Four split up and Bree and I went off in search of scarves and 'Ciao Bella' t-shirts and Susan and Lynette went off in search of coffee. That job completed, we met back up at Neptune's bottom and left the city.

In my previous post you may recall we stopped off for one last sight to see on our way back and the photo-fun didn't end there, but you can read all about that here...

Rejoice Florence!

Florence is one of my favourite Italian cities. The only real competitor, in my eyes, is Venice, but Venice isn't really like anywhere on earth so I tend to put it in a category all its own making Florence numero uno! I'd been to Florence once before in my life when I visited Italy on a family holiday back in 2005. To be honest, I wasn't bowled over: it was a cloudy day, but still really muggy; I resented having to walk such a long way; and to be honest when you're 16, Renaissance architecture just doesn't quite float your boat, Valentino Rossi, yes, the Duomo from goodness-knows-when, not really.

We were nearing the end of our third week in Camerino and I'd reached the point where I was bored of visiting churches and quaint Italian towns. I freely admit to hating myself for that, but it didn't change the way I felt about it all.

Saturday was to see us all go on a mass-outing to Florence. We'd done Assisi and Perugia on the first Saturday, we'd done Rome (in a big way) on the second. Finally it was the turn of Florence - home to Dante (before he was exiled), the old Duomo thing, and the bridge with all the shops on. Nice.

We had a really early get up - in fact the sun hadn't quite risen when we left Camerino, but was giving us a spectacular show nonetheless. It was a bit of an arduous journey, but despite my previous encounter, I was really looking forward to going to Florence and making a better fist of it this time around.

We arrived at about 11'o'clock and started walking into the centre of town. The day was much nicer than the one I had been greeted with during my first visit, but there was a beautiful breeze that made the intense heat a little more bearable.

What I noticed very early on was that Florence was very Italian. I know. Well done for stating the obvious, but let me explain. What I love about Italy is the fact that they have never heard of Barratt Homes plc. - they are completely oblivious to the fact that you can create uniform housing estates which are kinder to the eye aesthetically, but how many Japanese tourists do you see taking pictures of housing estates in Surrey?

Italy has real character. The buildings are like people hemmed into a small space - each one is different and no-one seems to care. In between all this chaos you occasionally find a bit of architecture that makes your jaw drop to the floor and pull out the camera.

This is the relationship I have with the Duomo in Florence. From every angle it's magnificent - you can't take a bad picture of it. Don't believe me? I'll let you make up your own mind...

You can tell that I spent a lot of time getting intimately acquainted with this building. I wasn't quite at the stage where I wanted to marry it (like the lady who married the Berlin Wall) but I was in awe of its beauty.

This was just one of the many stops on our journey. As per usual we were having a guided tour so that we could see all the best places in the city and learn a little about them as we went.

The tour (after a break for lunch) went on into the afternoon and ended at the Boboli Gardens on the other side of the city. I can't remember anything of what was said on the tour - no facts, no nuggets of information, but I remember loving it. I was loving just being in Florence, being in such an amazing city. There was nothing about it that I couldn't explain away as character, or charm.

We had a few hours to ourselves before we had to meet for the bus and we decided to wind our way back into town via a bridge that would give us a view of the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge with all the shops on. It is such an iconic image of the city, and it was good to see it again close-up, but this time appreciate it a little more.

The day ended too soon in my opinion and we all piled onto the coach to go back to Camerino. There was, however, one more stop that we had to make before leaving the city. There is a piazza above the city with one of the replica statues of David and an incredible view of Florence down below. The sun had started the day by giving us a stunning sunrise, kept us warm throughout, and gave us a parting gift as I waved goodbye to the city I wouldn't return to for a number of years...

 Florence, Italy, 2009