Going out with a Bang

The term "fire in the belly" has been tossed around a lot these days, but I know someone who lives with her head in the clouds, and she might make you think twice next time you use the term.
Let me introduce you to her... her name, is Etna.

She is red headed with a fiery temper.
She is the liveliest wife of a guy I know named Vulcan, god of fire.

Meeting her was the highlight of our whole trip.

Etna is the biggest volcano in Europe and is still erupting, not dormant like Vesuvius, but erupting.
Click on this photo to make it bigger and try to look for the rocks exploding out of Etna close to the centre of the screen. We took this photo.

Etna is huge, unlike Vesuvius, Etna is well over 3,000 metres high that is over 11,000 feet high.
11,000 feet is nearly 3 times the size of, say, Mt Bulla.

Etna completely dominates the eastern coast of Sicily, the island that big booted Italy kicked into the Mediterranean.

We went to the top by a drive, a trip on a cable car, and another drive on a four wheel jeep (unimog).This is the view from inside the cable car.
We were only 500 metres or so from the top of Etna.

Being on the top of Etna was like walking on a black snow field, and it is hard to believe that in the winter there actually is snow there.


When it was 30 degrees Celsius at sea level, it was close to 15 degrees on the top of Etna, except the clouds, which were 30 degrees as well because they absorb the heat from the sun and are therefore very hot.

The clouds were easily within touching distance of us but they don't, I'm afraid, feel like cotton wool or something, they feel like air, you don't feel anything.
Etna was formed gradually over the last 500,000 years and has erupted unpredictably so many times in so many different places that it has 300 or more craters on the entire mountain.


The first photo I showed you on this post was one of Etna exploding, but it is a pity I can't let you hear what the sound is like. The sound is absolutely deafening, I saw a couple of people wearing earplugs up there. The sound is like thunder booming at the same time a fireworks display is happening, in fact you wouldn't be able to tell whether Etna was erupting, or fireworks/thunder were/was happening if someone recorded the sound.

The thing that makes Etna different to Vesuvius, is that:

1. I think Vesuvius is only a quarter or a fifth of Etna's height.
2. Vesuvius has only one crater, Etna has 300 or so.
3. Vesuvius builds up and releases (predicted to blow soon)in a massive devastating explosion, where as Etna is constantly releasing pressure.
4. Etna is so high up the ash is relatively harmless to neighboring towns (Taormina, Catania, Naxos and Zefferina) because the ash has a long way to fall, and by the time it reaches the ground, it is cold and clean, like dust. Vesuvius is so close to the ground the ash is lethal.

We stayed at Taormina and at night could see the red glow of Etna 50 km away.
Taormina is more than 2000 years old.

What is believed to make Etna so violent is that Italy is on the European Continental Plate where as Sicily is on the African Plate. By astonishing coincidence, Etna is on the crack in the earth's crust separating the two plates.

In 1669 was the most major eruption in recent history where a 14 km crevice opened spewing lava out of it like a red-hot river. The red-hot river reached the city of Catania and flowed into the water off the coast where you could after see boiling black foam.

Other major (not as major) eruptions have happened since then like the one in 1991, which lasted for 471 days. The years 2001 and 2002 also had major eruptions.

What I find irritating is how there was another major eruption 11 hours after we were there, we saw it on the "CNN News".


The airport in Catania was not destroyed, if it had been, we would have missed our flight to Athens...

Pisa

Some of the places we go to really make me hungry; Hamburg, France, they have French Fries, Francfurt and now Pizza, I mean Pisa, where we had a pizza before climbing the "Leaning Tower of Pisa".It really is on an obvious lean, not just a minor slope.

The leaning tower is actually a bell tower for the next door cathedral.

Construction work on Pisa's tower went on for nearly 200 years starting in 1173.
It's lean was imminent from the very beginning when they built a foundation on a soft sandy ground.

Recently the tilt has increased, except for a stabilizing mechanism that was put in that stops it from falling any further than it's five degree lean.
We booked our tickets and set off into the tower... where I fell over when I got in. Someone had tilted the stairs.

The stairs were circular, narrow, and off balance.

When I was climbing, I could feel the lean.

When we (mum and I) got to the top of the 360 or so stairs, mum was scared of it having such an open balcony which had a handle bar of only 1.5 metres.

That was all there was that stopped you falling off the tower.

But I convinced mum to let one hand free so we could wave to dad who was down the bottom ready to take photo's.

Portofino / Cinque Terre

Portofino (yeah we're still in Italy) has the smallest harbor and the biggest boats. Portofino is on the Italian Riviera, not far from the border of France.

One day we went to the harbor and we saw a large number of boat crews trying to park a multi-million dollar boat.

And after, look who he parked next to...
...The guy with the helicopter on top.

After our six days there we drove along the coast all the way to Cinque Terre, which means five lands, actually, they were five small villages.

We went to villages; 1,2,4 & 5 but could not get to the third because boats would not be allowed to dock there.

To get to Monterosso, the fifth village, we had to walk, from our hotel in Portovenere, to catch a boat, to where we can catch a train, to where we walk, to where we catch a boat back home.

Lago di Como

Bongiorno, questo e' il vostro capitano che vi parla.

Oh, wait, sorry.

G'day, this is your captain speaking.

ALL ABOARD!!

That'll be fifteen Euro each for this tour around Lake Como (Plus Tip).

We are now departing Villa d'Este, a lovely old Italian palace where the world famous Jake Colman is currently staying.
The first Villa we are sailing past is Villa di Versace owned by Donnatella Versace of the famous Italian Fashion house.Gentlemen, if I could ask for your co-operation, I need you to balance the boat by moving to the starboard side (right side).

Ladies, now that the boat is balanced, on the port side (left side) we have George Clooney, Hollywood superstar's Villa.I do have spare cameras, but photo's on them cost 50 euro cents, each, to develop.
This is the same villa where George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wrote the script for "Ocean's 13".

You can tell he is not currently living at this villa because there aren't several hundred screaming women trying to get a look at him.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats so we may continue the cruise.

We are now approaching a villa that has been rented, twice, for movie scenes.
One of these scenes was in James Bond, Casino Royale.
The other was the final scene in Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones.

The final villa we are coming to, was bought by Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Mega stores, two years ago.
We are now arriving at our final destination, Bellagio, the real village, which was copied by the Las Vegas casino.I hope you enjoyed your voyage and keep in mind that tips mean a lot to me.

Milan

You call Milan, "Milano" in Italian.

Milan, I was glad there was more to it than shopping.

Our hotel was very close to the symbol of Milan... The Duomo.

The cathedral is mounted with Gothic statues, gargoyles, pinnacles and soaring spires.

Me eating lunch with mum and Tess (my cousin) in the square in front of the Milan Duomo, which is currently undergoing restoration.

Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Einstein, or, "The Italian renaissance master" did a lot of his work (25 years worth) in Milan.
This photo of and old da Vinci, stands in the square that is outside the world famous La Scala opera house which we visited.

We also visited Milan's Museum of Science and Technology, which has a Da Vinci exhibition.

The Museum houses about 100 machines that were designed by da Vinci and built by modern engineers.

Some of his designs were: trench diggers, revolving bridges, weight reducers, an aerial screw which is an early version of a helicopter, assault battleships and even a revolving crane.

I read a particular artical that stated that in 1485, da Vinci wrote; "A man supplied with a linen covering 23 feet long, wide and high over his head, can jump from any height without getting hurt".
In July 2000, an Englishman, Adrian Nicholas, took these words literally.
He launched himself from a hot-air balloon in South Africa wearing Leonardo's pyramid-like parachute that weighed 85 kg's from a height of 3,000 metres.
Nicholas used a traditional parachute for the last third of the jump, just in case, and landed without a single bump. He commented, "It took more than 500 years to find a man with a small enough brain to put into practice the theory of the greatest mind of all time".

Something that you may remember da Vinci by, could be his painting of "The Last Supper".
We visited the Santa Maria delle Grazie church, which had the original painting of The Last Supper in it.This, once again, is a photo of a photo, for authorities would not allow you to take a photo in there.

The painting is so extremely fragile that the humidity from more than 25 people can damage it.
You also cannot enter the room with the painting in it without the doors behind you closed, to prevent heat from outside circling inside the room.

The Last Supper took Leonardo from 1495 to 1498 to finish.

Isn't that a good way to spend three years of your life, painting?

The problem about having a 20 year old female cousin and a mother in Milan, is that chains to tie them up with are extremely expensive these days.

Tuscany

I am going to talk, once again, about Emperor Nero, I have previously stated that Nero was not in Rome when it was burning, but he was somewhere else, that somewhere else was a castle in central Italy; it was the Castello del Nero. Castello del Nero in the 1100's was glamorous but evil, like it's owner, now, in the 21st century, it has become something far, far worse, young children should be tucked in early to avoid the horrors of what Castello del Nero has become...

A HOTEL!!!

Which is where we stayed, it is in the Tuscan hills, surrounded by grape vines and farmland and is so quiet, and peaceful, that not even birds twitter much.

In the photo on the right, I had just gotten out of the pool and I had a towel wrapped around me and my wet bathers.

This is me in Castello del Nero's pool.

Castello del Nero is a half hour or so away from; Florence (Firenze), Sienna (Siena), San Gimignano and Pisa.

We went to Florence and we saw the Florence Duomo (cathedral) and climbed its 463 steps to the very top of the Dome.



















Also in Florence we saw a copy (the real one had a 80 minute queue) of Michaelangelo's David, the outstandingly famous statue with his pants down.


That covers Florence and David appropriately.

Now onto Sienna, which holds the "Palio di Siena", which is a horse race not unlike the Melbourne Cup.

It is held in the Sienna town center. The race is held twice a year - in July and August.

This is my dad and me at one entrance to the town center.

This is a photo of the race.

Or, actually, it is a photo of a photo that was taken of the race.

We also had a half day trip to San Gimignano.

A Mysterious Place...

It was a dark and stormy night,
all the roads were flooded,
and water lapped upon doorsteps as if seeking victims to wash away...

No, wait, it was noon on a hot sunny summers day... in Venice.

Where cars are boats;
where buses are ferries;
trucks are barges;
motorbikes are jet-skis;
and where push bikes are gondolas... except with champagne instead of a water bottle.

Speaking of gondolas, we went on one ourself, a lovely, calm trip through the canals (backstreets) of Venice or Venizia, as it is more commonly known.

Our hotel, The Danieli, was on the Grand Canal.

We had wonderful breakfasts on the rooftop terrace overlooking Venice and part of the Italian Alps.The highway seems to be a little crowded today.
Numerous cruise ships, like the Arcadia sailed close to the Grand Canal.

One of the places we visited was San Marco's square which can flood to above ankle height but we saw only a few puddles.
Among the many things we did in Venice, we took a "Car" to Lido island crossing 2 km of water to go to the beach there, and on another day, to play golf.

We also went to another island, this time Murano island, where we visited the famous Venetian glass blowing factory which I found very, and I mean VERY interesting. Seeing how glass and chandeliers have been made since the 1300's.






























Then he put the horse that you can see, on a table within touching distance of us, and it looked liked it had cooled down, and he said firmly in an Italian accent, "No Touch!" Then he picked up a piece of paper, touched the horse with the paper, and the paper caught fire. Three seconds later, there was no paper, just ash.

But the highlight of our Venice trip was the bi-annual (once every two years) fireworks display, in order to commemorate the end of the deadly plague.















It was the biggest fireworks display I have ever seen and it was right in front of our hotel.

It was not only fireworks, they (the people organizing the celebration) had music on loud speakers.

It is a funny coincidence that we seem to have fireworks everywhere we go:

Barbados (although that was because of the cricket)

Rome

Positano

Venice

Lake Como (future post).