Italy – Travelling Leila

Venice – Day 2

Posted on March 8, 2026 by travellingleila

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October 26 – Sunday

The second day started very early, but luckily the clocks changed today, so I gained an extra hour. I ended up waking at 6am – earlier than I needed to, by the way – and packed my suitcase, since I’m moving to another hotel today, closer to the airport, to make things easier for my very early flight.

To kill some time before breakfast, I decided to take a short walk in the area, especially since I hadn’t actually seen St Mark’s Square yet. I have a tour of St Mark’s Basilica (and a few other landmarks) planned for today, but I wanted to see everything in the morning, before the crowds and before the marathon – which is the reason today’s island tour meeting point was moved.

Breakfast at the hotel didn’t strike me as anything special, but it was fine. After breakfast, I left my suitcase in the storage room and set off along the route I already knew toward the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni. It was a very pleasant walk through early-morning Venice, before the city got too crowded.

I found my group and our guide very easily. The guide – a very nice woman named Serena – shared lots of interesting facts about Venice throughout the journey. For example, that Venice, built on rather marshy terrain, has actually been standing on wooden piles for over 15 centuries, and due to the anaerobic conditions, these piles haven’t just not rotted, but they have basically turned to stone.

She also mentioned that the “fish” shape of Venice on the map is actually not a single island, but a multitude of smaller ones, each separated by canals, many of which are manmade.

During high tide – the so-called acqua alta – the city sometimes floods, and we’ll come back to that later. But for now, here’s an interesting fact: in 2019, there was one of the worst floods in recent decades (only once in history has the water been higher), which caused significant damage to St Mark’s Basilica. As a result, a super-expensive flood defence system was built, made up of gates and dams – but it’s so costly to operate that it’s only used in absolute emergency cases.

Apparently, in recent years there’s also been a trend of residents moving out of the city to the mainland and renting their homes out on Airbnb, because, firstly, it’s become expensive to live in Venice; secondly, it’s overcrowded with tourists; and thirdly, it’s simply inconvenient to live on a massive pedestrian-only territory, where you can’t even get close to your house with e.g. heavy shopping bags. So, there’s a real risk that in the near future, Venice will essentially turn into a giant open-air museum.

Meanwhile, listening to all these fascinating stories, we arrived at the island of Murano, world-famous for its glassmaking – I think everyone’s heard of Murano glass.

On the way, Serena pointed out some tiny islands – some with abandoned monasteries, one with an active monastery (where you can stay overnight, but only for spiritual purposes), and another with a Michelin-starred vineyard that produces the very expensive Venissa wine from slightly salty local grapes.

As for Murano glassmaking, the glass furnaces were originally moved here from Venice proper, both for fire safety reasons and to maintain strict secrecy of the techniques. We were taken to a workshop – on Sundays, the industrial furnaces don’t operate, but they still do demonstrations for tourists. First, the master glassblower (yes, he actually blew glass using a blowing pipe) made a vase for us – and to show how hot it was, the guide threw a piece of paper inside and it instantly burst into flames. Then, without blowing, the master made a small glass horse in under five minutes.

We were told that most shops in Venice claiming to sell Murano glass are actually selling fakes, whereas here, at their showroom, everything is authentic and comes with a certificate. Well, who am I to resist buying a couple of pieces of jewellery?

With some time left before the boat, I tried walking to the centre of the island, but there was nothing interesting there at all, so I quickly returned.

From Murano we went to Burano. This one was a much more picturesque island. Originally a fishing village, it’s known for its colourful houses. One theory says the houses were painted bright colours so fishermen could easily find their homes; another says it helped distinguish between families with the same surname. In any case, all houses really are painted different colours, and you’re not allowed to repaint them.

Burano is also famous for its lace, but sadly this craft is dying out, because the youngest lacemakers are already over 70, and the new generation isn’t interested in such painstaking manual work. We were taken to a lace shop where we saw one of these elderly lacemakers at work. We were told that each lacemaker specialises in a specific type of stitch.

Then we had about an hour of free time. Serena strongly recommended trying the local biscuits, but I didn’t feel like biscuits – instead, I treated myself to a big coffee and hazelnut gelato, had a coffee, and went for a walk and took photos.

We came back to Venice around lunchtime, and I went to a well-reviewed pizzeria – but to be honest, I can’t say it was the best pizza I’d ever had. Maybe pizza just has to be eaten in Naples, or maybe I just ended up in an overrated tourist spot.

After lunch, I headed to the Basilica to make it in time for my tour. And good thing I went early, because I saw firsthand what acqua alta actually looks like! I’d already noticed on Burano that the canals were starting to overflow, with water coming out of manholes.

Well, the same thing was happening in St Mark’s Square, which is the lowest point in Venice. It was seriously flooded – the slowest marathon runners were still finishing the race, while in some parts of the square the water was already ankle-deep or more. And all this without a single drop of rain, purely from the tide. It was impossible to reach the Basilica without getting your feet wet, and I couldn’t get across the square to the tour meeting point – I had to go around the perimeter and still got a bit soaked.

There were quite a few kiosks on the square where enterprising vendors – the ones normally selling scarves to visitors who forgot to cover their shoulders for religious buildings – suddenly pulled out some kind of plastic overshoes or knee-high boots (clearly, this is a common occurrence!) and started selling them. Our guide said we’d have to walk through water to get into the Basilica, so we’d be better off either taking our shoes off or buying those covers – I did the latter.

I saw the Basilica, with its amazing mosaics, and went up to the second-floor museum, displaying various relics, Byzantine artefacts, and fragments of older mosaics. I also stepped out onto the terrace and watched the last marathon runners down below.

Next on the tour was the Doge’s Palace, right next door, where I looked at different rooms. The ceilings were truly luxurious, covered in gold leaf, paintings, and genuine masterpieces by famous Venetian artists. The palace also includes a prison, connected with the main building by the so-called Bridge of Sighs – named for the fact that prisoners would see the outside world for the last time through its window and, presumably, sigh.

I finished the tour earlier than expected, so I had some time before my visit to the bell tower (Campanile) of St Mark’s. I strolled along the promenade, where the marathon barriers had already been removed. The crowd was enormous – apparently a mix of marathon finishers and other tourists.

I ended up getting into the Campanile half an hour earlier than my booked slot – fortunately, they let me in. The whole attraction is the viewing platform at the top, which you reach by lift. I happened to be there right at sunset, and got to see Venice from above in the evening light, taking some beautiful photos.

In the evening, I had to move to a different hotel near the airport, as I have a very early flight tomorrow, as mentioned, and running around pedestrian-only Venice at 4am looking for transfer options didn’t seem like a great idea.

Before that, I decided to have dinner – something light, after the pizza earlier – and I wanted to try local cicchetti. This Venetian speciality consists of small tapas-like bites with all kinds of toppings, the most famous being a paste made from dried cod, called baccalà.

I tried two types of cicchetti with cod, one with salmon, and one with salami – and I liked them all!

Then I picked up my suitcase from the first hotel and set off. First, I took a vaporetto (water bus) from near the Rialto Bridge, and then a regular bus from Piazzale Roma to the airport area. Initially, I thought I’d walk to Piazzale Roma, but then I found out I’d have to take a boat partway anyway, so I ended up just taking the vaporetto.

The hotel’s location was very odd – I had to get off the bus right in the middle of a highway, with no pavement or footpath in sight, and then walk for about 10 minutes. But at least tomorrow at 4:30 a.m., the shuttle will pick me up and get me to the airport in just 5 minutes.

English, Europe, Italy, Venice

Venice – Day 1

Posted on March 7, 2026 by travellingleila

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October 25 – Saturday

Well, my two-day trip to Venice began early on Saturday morning at Heathrow Airport with a (fortunately, the only) negative moment: due to a full flight, non-priority passengers were forced to check in their hand luggage (apparently, British Airways does this quite often – although before, I had only encountered them offering this as a voluntary option).

So, upon arrival I had to wait a bit for the suitcase, whereas otherwise I would’ve been out in literally seconds. I asked at the airport how best to get to the San Marco area – and got sold a ticket for the Alilaguna water bus. Marco Polo Airport is located on the mainland, and Venice is essentially an archipelago of more than a hundred islands. On board the water bus, munching on protein bars so as not to waste time on a very late lunch afterwards, I studied the route and realised it would take me a whole hour and forty minutes, as the water bus circles all around central Venice, and San Marco is one of the final stops. Whereas if I got off at one of the early stops in the Cannaregio area, about 30 minutes in, I could reach the hotel on foot in about 20 minutes. The city centre is pedestrian-only, so taking a taxi to the hotel wasn’t an option at all.

That’s exactly what I ended up doing, and right away I was able to enjoy the beauty of Venice, with its canals and gondolas. Of course, dragging a suitcase through crowds of people and hauling it over countless canal bridges wasn’t exactly convenient, but it wasn’t a disaster either. First impressions: beautiful, crowded, and a bit smelly (from the canal water).

For the evening, I had a gondola ride and dinner planned, with about an hour of free time between hotel check-in and those. I decided to walk around the centre – first, to find the meeting point for tomorrow’s morning Murano and Burano island tour (it was supposed to be just five minutes from the hotel, at St. Mark’s Square, but, as “luck” would have it, there was going to be a marathon in Venice tomorrow, so I received a message saying that the meeting point had been moved somewhere near the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni about a 20-minute walk away). Second, I’d downloaded a walking route through the centre that crossed the Grand Canal twice (Venice’s main waterway), including over the famous Rialto Bridge.

Everything was, of course, beautiful – the bridge, the views – I took so many amazing photos! The only “but”, as I said, was that the crowds were really, REALLY huge – and this isn’t even high tourist season (although I’m not so sure).

Eventually, I walked to the gondola tour meeting point – basically a kiosk. There were already other people waiting there with questioning looks, and we all came to the conclusion that we were in the right spot – which turned out to be true: soon a guide arrived and led us to our gondolas.

This should have been the time to enjoy the Venetian canals and life in general, but, as usual, I couldn’t avoid some anxiety. I checked the website of the restaurant I had booked for dinner – Gio’s at the St. Regis – and to my horror saw that their dinner dress code was “elegant.” I wasn’t just not dressed elegantly, I hadn’t even brought anything but jeans and trainers.

In the end, I decided to focus on the gondola ride for now and later go to the restaurant in person to see whether they would let me in – hoping that, even if not, it wouldn’t count as a late cancellation for which I’d be charged €100. The gondola ride was lovely, the canals were very pleasant (even though somewhat smelly), and the gondoliers were shouting something to each other along the way (in Venetian dialect, by the way – totally incomprehensible). Naturally, Venetians themselves don’t ride gondolas – those are purely a tourist attraction now, though in the past they were the main mode of transport around the city. These days, there are water taxis and water buses (called vaporetto). Incidentally, by law passed back in the 17th century, all gondolas in Venice are traditionally black – although before that, they came in all sorts of colours.

I arrived at the restaurant well in advance to find out whether I would be able to get in. When I asked about the dress code, they said, “No problem, don’t worry at all.” And since it wasn’t dinner time yet, they seated me on the terrace with a view of the Grand Canal and the Santa Maria della Salute church on the opposite bank, and offered me an aperitif. I really enjoyed this very expensive aperitif – it cost me €40.

But that was just the beginning, because then came the dinner itself, which cost me whopping €160 including wine. But… what a dinner it was! For me, it was completely worth it. I chose the five-course tasting menu (calling them “courses” is a bit of a stretch – the portions were tiny, as expected in fine dining).

The service was impeccable – every dish came with commentary and explanations, and when I asked where the bathroom was, they walked me all the way to the door. At one point they even brought me a book with Monet’s Venetian paintings, which he had painted from this very hotel – just like that, “Here, take a look.”

The first course was carpaccio of raw red tuna in some kind of tomato sauce – I don’t usually like raw tuna, so I don’t even know how they managed it, but it turned out to be a masterpiece. Then there was pasta with blue lobster – it wasn’t actually blue, but apparently is when raw – not bad, though the pasta portion was tiny. The third course was pieces of sea bass – according to the menu, in some anchovy-based sauce, with chicory – and that was a true masterpiece, I’m not afraid to say. Then came a pre-dessert made of fermented grapes and fennel sorbet – quite original. And the actual dessert was a variation on tiramisu, also very tasty.

After dinner, I walked back to the hotel to rest. By the way, one observation – Venetians speak pretty good English. I had previously mostly been to southern Italy, and my impression from there was that few people spoke English in Italy. But Venice completely disproved that impression.

English, Europe, Italy, Naples

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Naples

Posted on January 19, 2014 by travellingleila

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The transfer to Naples also started with quite a bit of a hassle. The first contributors to this were the Ischian hotel personnel. Not only couldn’t they figure out how to fill out our check-out documentation, demanding our fiscal codes, which of course, we’d never had, they also messed up our transfer – having made us pay a tidy sum for it, they sent us to the taxi stand on foot, promising to take the care of our luggage and have some hefty chaps deliver it to the same taxi stand in 10 minutes. But as 10, and then even 20 minutes passed, the luggage still did not appear anywhere in sight. Even the frail elderly driver – the one who had driven us here when we just arrived – started getting nervous. We called the hotel reception – just to hear the deadpan response that the hefty chaps were just about to leave the hotel (!). Goodness, we only had half an hour before the ferry departure, which was almost as long as necessary to get to the port in Forio! We also had a terrible suspicion that we would need to spend a lot of time to buy the tickets, but fortunately, the driver had already bought them. This somewhat smoothed out the situation, and we made it to the ferry.

The Neapolitan part of the transfer took place without incidents. But the hotel, quite frankly, surprised us – the entrance to the promised historical palace was through some dilapidated gateway, leading to a tiny elevator. But for every negative there is always a positive: it turned out that the rooms booked for us were being renovated, about which we had been notified via email – too late, though. Therefore, we were kindly moved to another hotel of their chain, a better one, and, most importantly, with a much better location – in particular, the tour bus stop was just around the corner.

After a nice lunch in a small trattoria (we had Neapolitan fried pizza – at least some diversity!), we rushed to the bus.

Surprisingly enough, initially we didn’t perceive Naples as too much of a coveted place to see. We were even saying that if our next day’s flight to Rome hadn’t been so early we would have had time to catch the very first boat directly from Ischia and would not have needed to move to Naples. How very wrong we were! Naples is an amazing city, with magnificent palaces and stunning views of the Gulf of Naples. However, our Amalfi tour guide Lena had been right in saying that it was a city of great contrasts: you can easily see piles of garbage, chipped walls, fluttering laundry – and then, just round the corner, a palace and a park of exceptional beauty. So, we happily rode the tour bus to the sounds of great Neapolitan songs – such as ‘ A Serenata ‘E Pullecenella, Marechiare, Piscatore’ E Pusilleco, and of course , the most famous one O Sole Mio.

As usual, our tickets were valid for all the routes, and we had the time to take two out of three: to historical sites and along the coast. And there were so many tempting places we could have visited if we only had had more time: the Aquarium, all those palaces and museums; even walking on those streets a bit more would have been lovely. Not only is the city beautiful, but it also has some sort of a special spirit and charm, so Naples became the truly magnificent completion of our trip to southern Italy, and even gave it a special meaning.

English, Europe, Ischia, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Ferragosto

Posted on January 7, 2014January 7, 2014 by travellingleila

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As we were planning our trip, we had no idea that we would have a chance to see a big holiday of Ferragosto on August 15. This day is celebrated everywhere – particularly, every hotel arranges a feast for their guests. Those restaurants that are not closed, also host parties. Of course, it would be absolutely foolish of us not to participate.

We were treated with very good live music – it was basically kind of a concert of old and new Italian hits. The food was really good as well and consisted of an aperitif with appetizers; assorted antipasti (ranging from ordinary bruschetta to exquisite oysters); pasta for entrée (spaghetti with seafood and ravioli ); a main seafood course (swordfish and king prawns) and a large variety of traditional pastry and fruit for dessert.

By the way, speaking about pasta for starter – this is not the know-how of our hotel. We were surprised to find out that the local cuisine (i.e. southern Italian) was totally devoid of liquid dishes, and meals very often start with pasta. Even the so-called mussel soup, popular in local menus, is essentially steamed mussels with a very small amount of liquid at the bottom.

The dinner ended with magnificent fireworks: right over our heads at 11pm, and then – somewhere in the distance at midnight. On this cheerful note, we said goodbye to Ischia – Naples awaits us tomorrow.

Amalfi Coast, English, Europe, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Amalfi Coast

Posted on December 17, 2013December 17, 2013 by travellingleila

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The “cool” guy despising group tours seems to have jinxed us. At first everything went very normal: the bus punctually picked us up at 5.15am, while it was still dark, collected other participants of the Amalfi Coast tour from their hotels and delivered all of us to Ischia Porto, where we boarded a ferry. In Naples we were met by a tour guide with a Baltic accent, and got on another bus.

I must say that Naples hadn’t made much of an impression when we arrived from Rome, but, as we drove through it, Lena the tour guide spoke of it with great passion. She was telling us about its status of the capital of the kingdom, its magnificent palaces neighbouring with sunless narrow streets with colourful linens hanging on the balconies, just like in the movie La Ciociara.

We drove out of Naples, past Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here we were told that everything around was pretty much sitting on a powder keg – there are lots of extinct and dormant volcanoes, and also the active Vesuvius. It erupts every 60-70 years, and the last time was just 69 years ago. Thus, on the one hand, the next eruption is anticipated with fear, but on the other, it is awaited, because the longer the interval between two eruptions, the more destructive disaster it turns into – for example, the eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD occurred after 300 years of inactivity. However, people continue to settle right at the foot of the volcano with careless perseverance: the climate is too favourable and the soil too fertile for these places to be left. Officially construction within a radius of a few kilometers from Mount Vesuvius is prohibited. But people here seem to live with the if-you-mustn’t-but-want-to-do-it-then-you-can-do-it principle – especially that the law does not permit to destroy the buildings, even at the stage of one wall built only, and only makes the owners pay a fine of 20-30k euros.

At this point already we noticed that the traffic was very slow on our side of the road, we were basically in a traffic jam. But Lena suggested that this was due to tomorrow’s holiday of Ferragosto and had to do with everyone flocking to the resort coast. The reality was much worse: and we had the chance to fully appreciate it, as well as the “evil eye” of the New Russian, when we entered a two-kilometre tunnel. Here the column of vehicles literally froze, although the opposite lane was absolutely empty. We spent exactly an hour and a half in this tunnel, and the whole way from Naples to Sorrento took us a good four hours, while it barely should have taken 90 minutes. The people in the bus got extremely frustrated, the most radical ones were demanding to turn around, get on the opposite lane, return to Naples and get the money back, but this was absolutely impossible, because there was no opportunity to turn around, and besides large buses are allowed to move in only one direction along this coast. The most impatient ones left the bus at the exit of the tunnel, as the situation outside was no better, and walked around to stretch their legs.

Our tour guide talked to the Carabinieri driving past us, and found out that a terrible fatal accident had happened somewhere ahead and a funeral car was already heading there. Why it took almost two hours for the Carabinieri to get close to the scene remained a big question to us. And anyway, even to us (not quite knowing the intricacies of the case, of course) it seemed pretty logical that the traffic in the tunnel should have somehow been regulated in order to avoid such a disheartening and unsafe congestion in it.

It seemed that the whole tour went awry. However, the situation was saved: Lena promptly got in touch with their “headquarters ” and agreed that we would be allowed to board a different ferry at a different, nearer port an hour later than initially planned, which therefore allowed us to save an hour, and then one more – by cancelling the set lunch planned originally and giving the tourists an opportunity to eat on the go during town walks. And finally, exhausted, but happy, we ~~returned~~ arrived in Sorrento. What can I say, it is indeed a very beautiful town. We were told that it had been visited by Gorky (again!), Feodor Chaliapin, Sylvester Shchedrin. Everything here is all about lemons and olives – lemons reach monstrous proportions (up to two kilograms) and have a distinctive flavour, the whole town smells of them! The mountains slopes are covered with olive trees, with rows stretched underneath them. We were told that the olives for the best first press oil must be collected directly from the tree and not from the ground, which is virtually impossible to do manually on steep slopes – and that’s where those nets come in handy!

Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast are considered traditional wedding places for couples from all over the world. We saw an English wedding, with guests walking on the streets and taking photos.

The views here are just so breathtakingly beautiful, in the truest sense of the word! In general, a drive on the mountain serpentine feels, to put it mildly, quite exciting. The bus is driving on a narrow ledge along the cliff, at a height of up to 300 metres above sea level. The road, however, had not always been there – it was constructed by Mussolini. Prior to that, people used to walk on foot or ride donkeys on the mountain paths.

Despite the fact that these places are declared heaven on earth (it’s even said that righteous Amalfians will return home after death), life is not that comfortable there. Of course, it probably is for Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, who own luxury villas along the coast, as we were shown, with helipads and elevators that can take them right down to the beach. For ordinary mortals, though, every simple thing turns into a difficult issue – they have to walk a hell lot of steps (and I mean that – really a lot!) every time they want to go to the beach or to work. If you ask someone where they live, they will tell you the number of the step rather than the street name! And imagine them having to do something more serious, such as painting the house! That’s what they do in this case: a van brings a couple of donkeys to the closest possible place, where the specially trained animals get loaded with buckets of paint and rush up the stairs.

We didn’t get to visit the very beautiful town of Positano, although we did fully appreciate the view over it from the observation deck: pink, white and yellow houses, literally built into the rocks. Very picturesque, but it looked even more inaccessible and impractical.

Another town where we didn’t stop either – Praiano – is less well known than Positano. It is interesting that the traditional Christmas nativity scene includes the model of the town itself. This is the ending point of the Christmas procession on December 25, carrying a miniature figuring of Christ the child. We drove past this model and had the chance to take a look.

Amalfi, despite being so celebrated, looked to us like one more replica of the previously seen towns. It is famous for the majestic Cathedral of St. Andrew, where the relics of the aforementioned saint lie. Lena was persistently urging us to see them but honestly we weren’t too enthusiastic about this idea, even though the cathedral was really very beautiful from the outside.

Speaking of holy relics: it appears that in the Middle Ages they were extremely fashionable and prestigious to have in any city, so they were then subject to barter in the best case and theft in the worst. The relics of St. Andrew appeared in Amalfi as a result of the latter actually. Sometimes they would steal not only whole relics, but also parts of them. Robbed monks were ashamed to admit being so careless, therefore, they would replace the missing parts with fake ones (surprisingly, these fake relics still went on working wonders!), and as a result, a saint could end up having three or four arms or legs.

Thus, the walking tour around Amalfi did not satisfy us, but the boat trip along its coast was very pleasant, allowing us to see all these magnificent mountains, bays, hotels and villas from the sea. We sailed in the direction of Maiori, Minori and Ravello, where our bus arrived to pick us up. By the way, on top of all the transportation troubles we had had, the bus somehow managed to hit a parked car when manoeuvring to enter yet another busy tunnel, so while we were happily enjoying our sea trip, the driver had to deal with the frustrated owner of that car.

Ravello is a small town located even higher up the cliff. We didn’t go up there, and only saw it from aside, while listening to our guide’s comments about Wagner festivals that are held there and are so popular that tickets must be booked almost a year in advance.

The town of Ravello is also a proud owner of relics – this time those of Saint Panteleimont, and every year on the day of his execution the Saint, as if to demonstrate his full consent to be in this place, arranges a miracle – liquefaction of his blood. A similar miracle, but with even more rapid boiling of the blood, is arranged by Saint Januarius, the patron of Naples. It is very important for Neapolitans, as a pattern has been traced: if the blood liquefies duly, the Vesuvius does not erupt during this year and any other ills also bypass Naples. Therefore, on this day – namely September 19 – all Neapolitans are very nervous and can’t wait for the coveted event. To guarantee it happening for sure, the oldest old ladies are sat in the first row in the cathedral (who are jokingly referred to as the “relatives of Saint Januarius” for their age), and start praying to the saint. Then, if the miracle is delayed, they switch to exhortations – gently at first, then more and more angrily until they literally end up swearing. Instead of taking offense, the Saint, either stimulated by, or scared of such attitude finally performs the long-awaited miracle!

The last town of the Amalfi coast was Vetri Sul Mare, and rounding the hill, we saw the city of Salerno in the distance and hurried back to Naples, to get to the port. On the way back, Lena told us that the Neapolitans were very superstitious , believed in destiny and tried to find signs in any event for the game of bingo . In every house there is a booklet that translates any unusual event into the language of numbers. Lena said half-jokingly, half-seriously, that upon returning home she would check that little book and find out which numbers corresponded to a traffic congestion, a corpse on the road and other events that happened to us today, and then place bets on these numbers.

Europe, Ischia, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Baia di Sorgeto

Posted on October 31, 2013December 16, 2013 by travellingleila

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Whoop whoop, it finally happened – the bustling Larissa’s efforts overcame the passivity of the Italian side: they managed to find the tour operator conducting tours in Russian, and its representative came to our hotel to provide all kinds of guidance to its Russian-speaking guests.

A small group of the latter gathered in the pool area, dominated (or at least, so he thought) by a man from St. Petersburg, with traces of heavy drinking on his face, not speaking any foreign language, and trying hard to show everyone how rich and cool he was: he expressed the desire to have only individual tours, was only interested in Michelin-starred restaurants and said something like “One should use a choke chain on the tour guide, to make sure they only do what you tell them to do”. His aspiration for ‘separatism’ was actually quite convenient for us, as this specimen would be extremely unpleasant to be around on any tour. His wife, by the way, looked quite simple and seemed to feel uncomfortable with her husband’s statements.

As a result of the conversation with the representative of the tour operator we got vouchers for a tour on Wednesday, and also learned about the Sorgeto bay located right here, near Sant’Angelo, and Le Fumarole beach located on a volcanic basin, heating the sand up to a hundred degrees centigrade. It sounded, though, like all you could to at Le Fumarole was baking potatoes and eggs in the sand, so we decided to abstain from a trip there and visit Sorgeto. As we were explained, the beach there pretty much consisted of natural stone beds with trickles of thermal water at 90-100 degrees Celsius flowing into them from under the ground. Combined with sea water, it results in overall temperature of around 35-40 degrees.

We took a water taxi to Sorgeto. The sailing was very pleasant, and we saw the “Elephant” rock on our way. However, Sorgeto itself, where we had been even encouraged to go at night, did not impress us that much: it was basically a jumble of huge boulders, looking scary to even step on (to us, at least), and even more so to try to lie on – it seemed absolutely impossible. Therefore, we returned to Sant’Angelo on the very next taxi.

Europe, Ischia, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Ischia Porto

Posted on October 20, 2013December 16, 2013 by travellingleila

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All this sightseeing is nice and interesting, but who said one shouldn’t be shopping when abroad? We’d been thinking for ages how to do it, and were first planning to travel to Naples, but then realised it would take us two hours to get there and two more to get back, especially that the opening time of the shops wasn’t very clear. Due to summertime many places here are closed from 1pm till 4pm, working a little in the morning and till midnight in the evening. And besides, August is the month of holidays, culminating on August 15 , the holiday of Ferragosto, which is an ancient pagan festival of the sun and harvest , adapted in Christianity as a day dedicated to the Madonna. Therefore, the working hours of shops (if at all? ) were under big question.

As a result we compromised . We had already mentioned that in general shopping in Sant’Angelo is virtually inexistent, so we were taken to Ischia Porto, the “capital” of the island. We were told that under the order of Mussolini each Italian city should have its own Via Roma, that is the street of Rome – usually it is the main street with all the shops concentrated on it. Ischia Porto is no exception . We arrived there at 6pm, and the street was crowded . However, we saw very little brand shops as such – most of them, just like in Sant’Angelo, contained a hodgepodge of several items by various brands. Still, after walking along the street till 10pm, each of us ended up with some new clothes .

The taxi driver, which was supposed to take us back to our hotel, told us that the price was not negotiable, but would rather be calculated based on the meter. We were pleased with the idea of not having to pay 40 euros this time. Well, indeed, we didn’t have to – the meter counted 60! We tried to argue, but the driver’s reply was that this was the night fare. Why 11pm had to be considered as night already – is an altogether different question, but arguing any further was simply pointless.

Europe, Ischia, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – La Mortella (Ischia)

Posted on October 13, 2013December 16, 2013 by travellingleila

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From time to time we are promised that a Russian representative of some travel company will come to the hotel to “tell us everything” and organise a tour. But we do not believe in anything any longer and try to entertain ourselves as much as we can. Having gone through the available booklets, we decided to visit the La Mortella gardens.

These gardens were planted by an Argentinian gardener who was the wife of the famous English composer Sir John Walton. They settled in Ischia in 1949, and, for the inspiration of her talented husband, she created the lower garden, full of the most rare plants from all around the world, including the giant Amazonian water lily Victoria amazonica, a leaf of which, as we all remember from our school books, can easily hold a month-old baby (dedicated to those lilies is the Victoria House, where water pours into a pool out of a the ‘bocca’ (mouth) bas-relief); the Chinese paper tree, lotus, bamboos, Araucaria , bromeliads (that’s all I could remember, although there were lots more).

The upper garden was created after the death of Sir Walton , in his memory. He is buried right here (and so is Susana – his widow, who died later and who is referred to as the soul of the garden). Clambering up, we saw the Greek theatre , a pool with a bronze crocodile, the Temple of the Sun, the Thai pagoda and a concert hall, where they show a documentary with Lady Walton herself talking about the garden. We did not watch it all, but caught the moment where Prince Charles of Wales was admiring her replicated version of the Victoria House at Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Capri, Europe, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Capri

Posted on September 26, 2013December 16, 2013 by travellingleila

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We got our Capri trip almost with a fight. Poor Larissa was really struggling to arrange it for us, but all her efforts met a “brick wall” of the complete apathy of her Italian colleagues. Her requests were passed from one to another, delayed by half an hour, then by another half an hour, and it looked like the trip was about to burst like a soap bubble, when finally, totally desperate, she explained to us how to get there pretty much on our own: take a taxi, then board a boat and then find a tour at the port. She didn’t possess any maps of Capri or guide books, so just had to draw some directions using pen and paper.

The boat took about an hour to get to Capri. Fortunately, the day was more or less cloudy, and there was a delightful breeze at the top deck of the boat. We boarded it in Forio and sailed around the whole Ischia, stopping to pick up passengers at all the Ischian ports: Lacco Ameno, Casamicciola and Ischia Porto.

Larissa had promised us that there would be Russian-speaking tour guides chasing tourists right at the port, but we didn’t want to entrust ourselves to chance and signed up for the Italian/German/English language tour offered directly on board.

Having got rid of this concern, we immersed ourselves in observing other passengers, and were not generally too impressed by their looks. There were quite a lot of sweet couples, gently kissing and hugging, however some of them seemed just plain unattractive. The men looked like a mixture of Julius Caesar with Danny DeVito or Savely Kramarov and the women looked sloppy, scruffy, ready to become coarse in a few years – I’m not trying to be mean here, but you just so imagine them in hair rollers and robe, yelling at their screaming kids!

For reference – the area of the Capri island is four times smaller than that of Ischia, making a total of ten square kilometres. The island is essentially a limestone mountain (as opposed to the volcanic Ischia), so it doesn’t have beaches per se. There are only two towns here, the lower one being Capri, and the higher one is called Anacapri. The water washes away the limestone, which results in the formation of grottos. We took a bus to visit the most famous one of them – the Blue Grotto – once we got off the boat.

We turned out to be very lucky: the Blue Grotto can be entered only forty days a year (at least, so we were told!), at low water, and we just made it before it closed for today. This is how this all worked: the bus drove us right up to the stairs running down to the water, where there was a myriad of row boats with rowers. We had to wait in a queue; then manage to climb into the row boat, which was not that easy at all; then sail on it to the floating box office and pay there; and then lie down on the boat floor, as the entrance to the cave was very low. We entered into absolute darkness, lit only with occasional camera flashes, and accompanied by many-voiced rendition of “O Sole Mio”. We understood why the cave was called blue only once we turned back: illuminated with the light coming through the inlet, the water and ceiling coving got an amazing blue colour.

After seeing the grotto, we were taken to the central square of Anacapri. Here our opinion differed with that of Larissa, who had been convincing us that there was nothing to see in Anacapri, and praising Capri – we actually liked Anacapri better, with its magnificent view from the observation deck and a lot of very nice shops. It seems that the symbol of the island is lemon: there are loads of lemon-related souvenirs; there is a lovely refreshing drink made of lemon juice with crushed ice sold everywhere, and the crown of all is the famous limoncello liqueur. Unfortunately, we only had time to catch a glimpse of all this beauty, as most of the free time we were given was taken by lunch, which our guide Cecilia was so ardently advocating to have right there, that we thought she was receiving commission from the restaurant for referring clients.

Later we were taken down to Capri. Here we saw (from the distance) the house of the “stormy petrel of revolution” Gorky, and Cecilia told us that in 1907 he had been visited by Lenin here – there is even a monument to the latter in Capri (which, by the way, no one thought of destroying!). We were told that here is where he was planning the revolution.

How did we find Capri? Very cramped, too posh, bristling with villas and gorgeous boutiques with crazy prices. On the narrow roads of what is assumed to be the pedestrian zone there are electrocars constantly scurrying around – we have them in Sant’Angelo too, but there they are not flowing continuously and are therefore not so annoying.

By the way, all of this splendour functions only from April to October – in winter Capri becomes dormant, and any connection with Ischia stops. Therefore, as Cecilia said, most Ischians have never been to Capri – in summer they are employed in the tourism sector, and in the winter it’s difficult to get there (via Naples), and there is hardly anything to do as well.

If Anacapri was cool and pleasant, in Capri, despite the occasional drizzle, and perhaps because of it, it was very hot and humid. In this swelter we visited the Augusto Gardens and took numerous pictures of the famous Faraglioni rocks. This stuffiness made the above mentioned lemon drink (la granita) the main highlight of the garden visit. Oh, Larissa, Larissa, we thought, this is where we should have been sitting on a terrace of some restaurant, staring at sauntering tourists and scurrying electrocars, instead of doing so in Anacapri, which instead was perfect for walking.

The drizzle finally ended with a magnificent rainbow that we saw on our way back.

Europe, Ischia, Italy

Adventures of the Azeris in Italy – Ischia

Posted on September 16, 2013December 16, 2013 by travellingleila

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On our first day in Sant’Angelo we took a look around. At first glance our hotel seemed small, labyrinthine and beachless. We stared in disbelief at a small stone slab under our balcony with a couple of sun loungers and pool ladders leading into the sea. Look, we were saying to each other pointing into the distance, that hotel there has got a magnificent sandy beach. Had Booking.com simply duped us like that? It hadn’t, as it turned out. A huge spa area, covering the entire hillside, with a variety of pools – with thermal water, sea water and fresh water, hot and cold – and also part of the same beach which we had been drooling over – were all part of our hotel complex. Then we faced another problem: in order to reach it, we had to walk quite a long way up and down the stairs and paths under the baking sun. Looking ahead, I can say that in the following days this road did not seem as painfully long, as for me personally, I sometimes swam all the way from the stone slab to the sandy beach instead of walking there (about five hundred metres across the sea).

The Tyrrhenian Sea is clear, blue, moderately salty (not as salty as the Adriatic), the only problem is going in and coming out: the sand here is quite different from the dense and compacted one we have at the Caspian Sea, on which one can walk without falling through, the local sand actually looks more like tiny pebbles.

So what can I say about Sant’Angelo? It is a village, situated in the south of the island and is connected by a thin isthmus with a small peninsula, which is basically a lava formation. In the very heart of the village there is a pedestrian zone comprised of a square and a few adjacent streets, dotted with restaurants and shops. The shops look tempting at first glance, with closer examination, though, it turns out that a lot of them sell very cheap trash or the same kind of trash, but at exorbitant prices.

The food here is quite good, but rather unvaried: seafood, pizza and pasta. Interestingly, there are virtually no soups. The atmosphere in this area is very Italian with music playing, people dancing, children screaming, their mothers yelling at them, someone fishing and small mongrels barking furiously. Somehow the children are mostly girls: it’s either that a century of peace awaits Ischia, or for some reason boys are kept at home.

The vacationers here are mostly Italians themselves, there are also a lot of Russians, some Germans, French and British, and that’s pretty much it. There are no Chinese or Japanese tourists, which is surprising – I think you’d agree that places without crowds of either, cause some suspicion.

Here our observation of the locals’ laziness got developed and validated. To begin with, the vacationers swim surprisingly little – if you see someone swimming in the sea, most certainly they’ll turn out to be French, or Russian, or those writing these lines. Italians prefer to float lazily on mattresses, or not to go down to the sea altogether, lying around the pool instead. As for the staff, it is astonishing that any simple request grows into a big problem requiring a vigorous discussion between a few people.

For instance, on our very first day, as we usually do arriving to a new place, we tried to book tours and excursions, naively believing that this should be an easy and usual practice for the hotel. We came to the reception, and the girl working there readily laid out several maps and brochures, noting the places which she would recommend to visit, and considered her mission completed. We let her know that we weren’t going to call any tourist organisations or taxi services ourselves and clearly hinted that we expected these services from the hotel, in accordance with the notices on the walls. The girl was surprised and puzzled, and called a colleague to help. He pulled out a few more maps and brochures, and, in his turn, showed the places, which, in his opinion, would be interesting for us to visit. We stood our own and tried to persuade them into organising something for us. Finally, he remembered with relief, that they had a Russian lady named Larissa working for them, and she would come in the evening and help us.

Unlike the Italians, Larissa took up the matter enthusiastically. She told us that only the day before she sailed to the Amalfi coast on a private yacht with a Russian couple for 1,500 euro. We asked her to take us at least on a tour around Ischia – and a cheaper one preferably! – and agreed for the next day. Larissa had been living in Italy for the past seventeen years, so had perfectly mastered the talkativeness of the locals. However, these talks ended with zilch: she didn’t manage to get the day off.
Then we went back to the reception and importuned the girl until she finally called us a taxi. This is how we literally wrung out of them a trip to Forio and Ravino Gardens. Gino, the driver, turned out to be a nice fellow, who couldn’t speak a word of English, though – however, he knew a couple of phrases in German and for some reason was using them every now and then communicating with us. Here it’s worth pointing out another feature of the Italians – they are normally nice and willing to help, unless they are playing the big boss. So Gino voluntarily offered to take us not only to Ravino Gardens and Forio, but also to drive us around the whole island, for just a little extra payment.

The Ravino Gardens are basically a small botanical garden dedicated to cacti and succulents only, which are more numerous and diverse than in the famous glasshouses of Kew Gardens in London. The specialty of these gardens is their own very tasty cactus cocktail.

Driving us around the island, Gino still somehow managed to give us explanations in his Italian-German and diligently stopped in the most beautiful panoramic places for us to take pictures. So we pretty much saw almost all of the towns of Ischia: Forio, Lacco Ameno, Casamicciola, Ischia Porto (where we took a look from afar at the Aragonese Castle, a local landmark on the top of a cliff), Barano.