Category: italy

And here we are, the last post for 2012. Seems like the time passed by so quickly … or I’m just plain slow.

Anyway, here in Italy, especially in the South, there is this charming custom where you throw away your old things out of the window on New Year’s Eve to symbolize your readiness to accept the new year. Which is why it’s best not to walk, or park your vehicle too close under the window unless you want to be hit with random old things!

Another custom is to eat lentils on New Year’s Eve :

Usually, they are made into a type of soup. Eating lenticchie (lentils) is supposed to bring you fortune on account of its round shape which looks like coins. So it’s like filling yourself up with richness! I should eat a lot of these then :p

The next custom is to light up fireworks :

These colourful and noisy things are fun to see and even more so to play with. Last New Years Eve, I was in Gianicolo and it was really exciting! You could smell, see, hear the fireworks … (and I think its really something to experience) Unfortunately, it is slowly becoming illegal due to the amount of accidents inflicted to fireworks.

Another custom is of wearing red underwear

For luck … if you know what I mean 😉

In any case, I wish for all my dear bloggariffic family for all the prosperity, luck and happiness to us for the new year as we say goodbye to 2012. And thank you for sticking around all these years 🙂

On a whim last weekend, Cart and I went to Gianicolo where we saw such a beautiful view, we were in awe. It was that breathtaking.

The sky was amazingly clear. You could see from such a distance away up to the snow on the mountains. It was as if a giant took a huge sponge and wiped everything clean and shone a sort of torchlight to make it brighter.

It’s funny how I’ve lived here for some years now, and yet have never seen Gianicolo this clear before. Cart hypothesised that it was because of the colder weather, it decreases humidity which causes mists and clouds.

But comparing it to the picture below of the same spot in February, the cold isn’t the only reason for the clarity.

Nevertheless, it was such a beautiful and peaceful scene to see and just melt into and think of nothing.

Sidenote : It’s 12/12/12! Six years since I posted an entry about 06/06/06. Sometimes it’s odd looking back at past entries, it’s like another person altogether.

Solfatara is a shallow active volcano in Pozzuoli, Napoli and it was a short walking distance away from the camping site Il Vulcano Solfatara where we stayed at for the past two nights.

It’s not your typical touristy accommodation as it is very Spartan. This was the bungalow that we stayed in.

You could also choose to stay in your tents, campers and trailers.

Inside, our room was literally just a bed and a small bathroom and that was it. And it was really small. Probably smaller than our living room. No towels. Not even rugs on the floor.

At first, I was a little let down. Nevertheless, it’s a cheaper alternative. Rugged people would prefer this anyway as all one’s basic accommodation needs is just a place to sleep and shower in.

And slowly, the place grew on me because of the rustic feel that it gave me. Thank goodness that I grew up with yearly camps in school so it wasn’t too much of a shock.

I’d still recommend to bring your own fans, your own mini fridge, your own towels, your own portable stove and such to make your stay more comfortable.

The camping area is an interesting place nevertheless.

I liked that they have their own swimming pool, a communal area to play chess, checkers, play ping pong, street soccer … you could even use the sauna here, everything included.

If you’re hungry, there’s a bar and a mini-market in the camp-grounds. There was also an area for internet surfing, although I didn’t manage to spot it.

There’s also a communal shower and cleaning up area which was right behind these recycling bins. I actually preferred showering here as it was larger and more comfortable.

But there must be something in the water though, because after shampooing, my hair looked especially fluffy as it dried.

We went for the Solfatara volcano tour in the evening. Led by our guide, Pepe, he showed and explained to us a lot of interesting spots and facts about the volcano.

For example, this heated mud pool below. He explained that mud pools like these are the cause that there were fewer needs for pharmacies in the area because of the medicinal properties of the mud and also the sulphur gasses.

Not sure if you could see it bubbling in the picture there, it’s supposed to be escaping gasses rather than boiling mud.

There were reports that the gasses here were really good for couples wanting to have a better sex life. It was said that a man stayed here the entire night to strengthen himself.

Pepe also explained how during the revolutionary times, the enemy Christians were thrown down the caverns – Which was why there were legends of constant sighs and moaning in the area.

Here was where the Patron Saint of Napoli, San Gennaro was said to be beheaded.

The guide also mentioned about a funny story where Coca Cola tried to ask the original owner of the volcano ground, to have a giant advertisement around the volcano. But the owner thought that it was a bastardization and so, when the Coca cola representative came over, the owner used his stick and hit his head with it.

I’m really not sure if it’s true or a legend as it seems like such a tall tale.

Here, there was also an ancient sauna, but I think it’s more of a reconstruction as Pepe mentioned that they had to fix it every 10 years as the gasses are strong enough to corrode it.

In the original sauna was built U shape where you could go from one opening and exit in the other. He called the openings, “Hell” and “Purgatory”

Honestly, I wouldn’t want to get too close to it, as the steam itself was really hot. Like boiling water hot. Plus the pungent smell of sulphur makes it twice more uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, I found the formation of the crystals and rocks really interesting. I’m pretty sure any geography enthusiasts would be thrilled to be here. Those yellow parts should be sulphur crystals while the white ones area salt (If I’m not wrong).

Pepe also gave a demonstration about the rocks, but my Italian wasn’t very fluent, so I didn’t really caught what he said.

And then, we headed to the Grand Fumarole, an opening to the volcano, which is the hottest area that we could traverse to safely.

Believe me, it was extremely hot here. The ground where I was standing on, literally smoked! I can’t imagine how it was for those who were one wearing rubber slippers. I didn’t want to stay in one spot for too long, for fear of ruining my shoes.

Here, we were given a cooking demonstration using fresh anchovies. Pepe placed them in aluminium trays, covered and tied them and then put them on top of a mouth of a volcano like the one below, and he let it cook for several minutes.

After that, each visitor had a taste. I thought that the taste was really good. I didn’t detect the sulphur as Pepe probably layered the trays tightly in numerous amounts of aluminium foil.

There was also the part where Pepe showed us that by throw a big rock on the ground and you could hear and feel a sort of seismic effect. I’ve put it up in the video at the end of the post, but it was much more impressive in person!

After a round in the volcano area … my shoes are completely ashen covered and smells like sulphur. But it was worth it, seeing the interesting sights that I saw.

To end, come and see a video montage of the tour :

I’m going to start this post by putting up the song Napul’é by Pino Daniele to set the mood :

Recently, Cart decided on a whim to join his friend who was already vacationing there, in Napoli for a short getaway. I’ve always adore Napoli. Despite it’s issues, I find it a very charming and enchanting city.

So, on Wednesday, so we hastily packed our bags and got ready for our road-trip. It took roughly about two hours drive from Rome to Pozzuoli which is a town in Napoli. And for those who are curious, the toll costs about 13.90 euro in total.

We reached the Solfatara camping site by nightfall, so we couldn’t do much sightseeing and could only have dinner before our trip the next day so we stopped by a restaurant called Taverna Viola, which I remembered from my trip while dating Cart many years back!

It was dark, and while we had candles, we could hardly see anything – not even the menu! So we had to improvise and use my phone flash-light feature to illuminate what I was eating.

This is my wonderful l’insalata di polpo. Boiled octopus sprinkled with olive oil and some herbs. Deceptively simple but really delicious!

Unfortunately, my appetizer alone was so filling, I could hardly touch my main course. I ordered pizza as it’s something to has to be eaten in Naples.

I could only managed to eat 1/8 of it before asking for a doggie bag.

We then went back to our lodging and the next morning, we got ready to go to the island of Procida and parked the cars near the port, where I noticed this interesting crossing.

I saw people walking in and out casually. People with babies, walking their dogs … etc. When the light turned red, there was be a person blocking the entrance when the train was about to pass by. I guess this is interesting for me because of the barriers that are made for the SMRT.

We got our ferry tickets at one of the vendors called Gestur. It’s always a good check the timetable so that you could plan your trip or risk to be left stranded on the island.

It costs about 7 euro one way by ferry.

Something which I found interesting about the ferries is that you could bring your own transportation on board. I saw mainly cars and vans and this makes me really want to get a better scooter so that I could do a road-trip on a two wheeler.

It’s a dream for me to do a road-trip around Italy. Imagine zipping around places and sightseeing on your two scooter. I find it more convenient, and it’s such a liberating feeling.

After we boarded on, soon we were off!

It was a beautiful day. And all throughout the ferry trip, I was enjoying the scenery and the breeze.

And 40 minutes later, we reached Procida! It was so cool seeing the bustling of vehicles exiting the ferry.

Prodica to me, is like the less glamorous cousin of Capri which I visited in 2007 and in 2011. Nevertheless, it’s still a lovely and charming place to be.

You could take the autobus to get around the island, but as there were 7 of us, it makes more sense to take a taxi.

We planned to go to the Ponte Vivara beach, and to get there, we had to pass through a small and windy road. I am always amazed at how Napolitan people drive. Take a look at how close our driver is driving near the wall!

At length, we entered a restaurant where they also rented out umbrellas and deck chairs and we starting to lounge.

As we were surrounded by volcanoes, the sand is black here, filled with iron and other minerals. It was always extremely hot there as it was August. I was yelping each time I had to walk around barefooted.

The sea on the other hand was really cooling and quite clear. I didn’t take any picture while I was swimming, as my camera isn’t those waterproof type. But believe me, the deeper I went, the clearer the water – I could see my feet even when I was half way submerged in the sea.

When I got tired of swimming, I headed back to the deck chairs. There were loads of eye-candy to be seen and I made a game of trying to spot out men in speedos 😉

But I really am not a beach-bunny, and it was really uncomfortably hot for me. So randomly, I toss in a picture of a Torta Caprese that Cart got for me. We were quite famised as we didn’t have breakfast prior to that.

The picture below sort of reminds me of a set from a music video.

It always amuses me at how dark Italians can get when they tan themselves and turn the same shade as me.

It was time for lunch and we headed back to the Vivara restaurant where Cart had paccheri with eggplants, tomatoes and mozzarella.

Alessandra had grilled mixed seafood

This is Fabrizio’s sword fish with agrumi

And this is my grilled Tuna with tomato concasse. It was medium done, but it was absolutely delicious. I’d like to try this myself. Shouldn’t be too hard 🙂

For dessert, I wanted a cool treat, so I gave this a try. I’ve never seen kit-kat ice cream before and was curious to give it a try.

It’s kind of weird eating an ice cream with a hard chocolate bar right in the middle of the cone that though. I was indecisive to bite through it or lick around it.

While Cart and Fabrizio had a fig cake with honey and cherry syrup on the sides.

We lounged and hanged around later for a 2 hour coffee until it was nearing our time to head back to Pozzuoli.

While waiting for the ferry, I saw a family of cats. A little scrawny, but they are adorable nevertheless.

I was so tempted to bring this little kitten home as it was so cute and affectionate. It wasn’t afraid to follow me around. I was sorry that I didn’t have any treats for it.

Time really seems to pass by quickly when you’re on vacation.

And we were back at the Port of Pozzuoli again.

I end this post by showing you a picture of the Vesuvius volcano in the foreground.

Watch out for the next post where I head to the Volcanoes 🙂

It was the eve of Epiphany so Cart took me to Piazza Navona last night. There were still lots of stalls where you could play carnival games, stalls selling candies, toys and Christmas decorations.

But what catches my eyes more are of these :

This is the Befana. She’s an old woman with a shawl, and goes down the chimney on the eve of Epiphany to fill the socks and deliver presents to good children and coal to the bad. Kind of like Santa Claus. She also flies around on a broom, but Cart is adamant in telling me that she’s not a witch.

I find her quite cute and I always get amused when I see Befana figurines for sale. Her laughter is infectious!

Well, Befana or not, we got for ourselves some chocolate and I’m gonna eat it now … OM NOM NOM NOM!