Living here in Italia has shown us that Italians are amazingly generous and friendly… once they know you. Like in any other country, when you wear the camera, bum bag and hat that screams TOURIST you are fair game.
Even given our best efforts when we go touristy we travel expecting to be ripped off and are suprised when we aren’t. As such we have complied a rough guide for people comming to see the beautiful people and sites of italia. (more…)
Two weekends ago now, James and I went to Florence, the second time for me, but first for him. We again stayed at Hotel Cestelli and had a great time there (Say hi to Asumi and Alessio for us!). By the end of the wedding I think they’ll have met most of our family and friends!!!
We came to Florence for a few reasons, the main being that James hadn’t been, the other… to continue the never-ending hunt for wedding shoes. To cut a long story short I found the shoes 
That left us with plenty of time to visit a number of museums, and to take some nice long walks. (more…)
A very quick post to tell you about some very random things that have happened recently:
1. It snowed in the outskirts of Genova last week - yes in March - Spring!!!! Ahhh, global warming!!
2. Last night, close to midnight, we’d just come home from the cinema, and all of a sudden we heard these huge explosions! We looked outside and were treated to the most spectacular fireworks display on the Port that we’ve seen in years. We have no explanation as to why we were treated to this display, its not a national or local holiday, so ??? But here are a few pics.
We’re off to Florence this weekend so that should be GREAT 
We’ve been pretty busy over the last few weekends trying to get more sightseeing in before our time is up. Two weekends ago we finally made it up north to Brescia where a friend of ours (also from Melbourne) is living. Marco (who we spent New Years with) moved to Brescia about 3 weeks before I came to Italy so it was high time we visited. (more…)
Life has been busy recently so it has been a while since we have updated the blog with what we have been up to.
Starting with the weekend before last we had a dinner with about 8 of us in the name of learning to cook “Italino”. A few weeks before this we had been talking with Chiara and Ottavio about a Risotto that we had made. The recipe we followed was a little strange, for example you added the cheese at the beginning. It turned out the Chiara had seen the same recipe and agreed that it was unusual. As such she kindly offered to teach us how to make a “TRUE” Italian risotto and hence the purpose of the evening. (more…)
For a while James and I have had a small list of things we wanted to see whilst we are here in Italia. This list included Venezia, Roma, etc… and Pompei. Pompei is one of the most memorable things we studied in Roman history back in primary/secondary school.
Given that we were in Roma, it seemed silly to us to ignore Pompei given that it was within easy reach of a day trip and we couldn’t confidently say that we would be back in that area any time soon, if at all. So on Sunday (New Years Eve) we dragged our tired behinds out of bed early and off to Termini train station. (more…)
About a week and a half ago, we received an e-mail from James’ dad with a message from a family friend (Rod). Rod had worked with the MSO and generously arranged tickets for us to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in the last of their European concerts in Milan. Incredibly surprised and excited, we organised ourselves to go and see the concert. We estimated that the 4.19 train from Genova on Friday afternoon should deliver us to Milan with 2 hours to spare. Once there we would go to our hotel room (the last train for Genova left too early), get ready and head out. Well, thanks yet again Trenitalia, we arrived an hour late. Managed to navigate the Milanese public transport system to our hotel, got dressed in a world record time of 5 minutes and were out the door and in a taxi on our way to the concert across town. (more…)
It would be nice to say that we are now fully recovered after our trip to Roma. We are both back at work now and life is pretty much back to normal other than a persistent cold that I have. We can nearly celebrate our three week anniversary! Between you and I, though, the relationship is starting to wear thin. This week, the cold and I enjoyed each other’s company with a hearty cheasty cough. It was at its worst last Thursday where I had most of my colleagues at work fitting ear plugs. Without wanting to jinx myself, as of this evening I think I might be winning. I am weaning myself of cough syrup and even managed to go swimming this morning with Vilija.
One thing that quietly passed under the radar was the official 1 year anniversary since I arrived in Italia last year. The 6th of January is La Befana here in Italia. A public holiday where a nice witch on a broomstick brings lollies and sweat things to kids throughout Italia. Though after a year here, I didn’t make it onto La Befana’s lolly list. 
Maybe next time? (more…)
Having finished our day trip to Pompei we were sitting at the Pompei train station exhausted after another long day and lots of walking. As if we should have expected anything else, the regional train that we needed to take back to Napoli for the connection through to Roma was running late. This significantly reduced the chance that we would make our connection in Napoli. When it did arrive and took us to Napoli, we were two headless chickens running through the train station in search of the ticket office and then our subsequent train. With a stroke of luck we were on the correct train, complete with tickets in time. Anyone of the bemused locals who had bet on the crazed strangers missing their train lost their bets.
The reason we were keen to be back in Roma was that we were meeting a friend of Michaella’s from Australia who is also living here in Italy. Marco currently lives in Brescia, north-east of Milano and had spent Christmas visiting family in Napoli. Marco has had a lot of the same experiences as us including battling unsympathetic bureaucracy etc… It turned out that we were both planning on being in Roma for NYE and made plans to meet up. (more…)
Some handy hints for those of you planning a trip to Rome: (more…)