Driving in Italy - not for the faint hearted
Over the past couple of weeks Olivia and I have had the pleasure of travelling around northern Italy. I’ll write about the holiday itself another time. For now I’d like to take the opportunity to briefly write about driving in Italy.
We started out doing a round trip from Venice to Udine and back - which we did by train. After we got back to Venice and spent three days there - we picked up our hire car - a Ford Focus.
Over the two weeks we had the car we (I) drove approx 2200km - the map of where we covered is below.
It was a bit tricky.. ah, who am I kidding? It was terrifying at first. Previously I’d had little experience of driving a left-hand drive car. So driving what for me was the passenger side, changing gears with my right hand, and of course driving on the “wrong” side of the road was quite scary at first. Having said that, over the course of covering 2200km you do learn a thing or two and a couple of days in I was more or less OK. Thankfully my one moment of true stupidity - entering a roundabout and trying to go against the flow of the traffic - happened in Seveso - an quiet-ish outer suburb of Milan - I got honked, a couple of drivers stopped and gestrured at me wildly - but in the end all was good… Aside from that I’d say my performance as a driver in a strange country was nothing short of admirable.
The most trying aspect of driving in Italy was putting up with the Italian drivers. Please allow me to make a sweeping generalisation when I say that they are truly on another planet and deserving of their reputation as total nutters.
What was it that bothered me in particular? I suppose the total lack of regard for all others on the road would be the main thing.. These people don’t indicate.. a frightening thing when you’re on a freeway (legally) doing 130 km/hr.. and boy do they like to speed..
Imagine a three-lane freeway, you generally have the “slow” lane, the “middle” lane for the faster drivers, then the “nutso” lane for overtaking and general mayhem.. It was in this nutso lane that I had my most harrowing experiences.. There are so many trucks on the road that you need to constantly move between the middle and fast lanes just in order to keep moving. I could not believe how closely the Italian drivers tail each other at high speeds. If you’re in the fast (nutso) lane - you want to be getting the hell out of there as soon as possible lest you get in the way of the truly nutso drivers, those in their BMW/Mercedes Benz/Audis that hoon along at min 150km/hr and poor you if you’re doing a measly 130km/hr doing all the necessary trick overtaking. These people seem to delight in ignoring the numerous “maintain a safe distance from the car in front” signs that are all over the place. It’s truly scary in that you have this Merc zoom up your rear from nowhere, then they plant themselves no more than a metre behind you - getting closer - and wait for you to get out the way - which of course requires you to speed up to overtake the car in the middle lane - bringing you to a speed which is mighty uncomfortable - and because of the trucks in the middle lane you simply don’t have the option to slow down.. This has been a very inelegant description - but I hope you get the picture.. This scenario simply doesn’t allow for anything to go wrong - if you so much as tap your brakes - disaster.. Makes for very stressful driving conditions. It left us thinking - with people tailing each other so intensely - there must be SOOO many accidents on the Italian highways..
Then, on the second last day of our trip, we were 25km into our 400km drive from Gubbio back to Venice. We were driving along the freeway, and noticed that the traffic ahead had come to an abrupt stop. There was a man in a fluorescent orange uniform flagging traffic to slow down..
We stopped.. and stayed stopped for an hour and a half.. It was strange being completely stopped on a freeway… people getting out and having a wander.. Check out these photos..
When the traffic finally started to move we passed the scene of the accident after about a kilometre. It looks like a car had been trailing a truck and for whatever reason had gone underneath it.. It was not a pretty sight. It was quite … yuck. Made me feel a little better for driving a little slower and keeping my distance from the cars in front. This is definitely not an “I told you so” moment - but COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!
I breathed a deep sigh of relief when we (and the car) arrived at Venice airport to return the car - all of us in one piece.. Driving through Italy gave us a great chance to see lots more of the country than had we travelled by train.. but there’s a certain degree of agro that comes along with it.
…oh, and regardless of whether you’re in Italy or not - only a fool would try to reverse park back up a steep downwards slope… so I learned…
Oktoberfest
3 weeks ago I had the great fortune to go to Munich, Germany for a supplier meeting. A meeting that happened to coincide with the Oktoberfest beer festival :-) It could be argued that the meeting was setup so that we could attend said festival afterwards - and you’d be correct.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Beer? Obviously… but what was the setting? Well, it’s basically a big carnival.. Lots of rides and food stalls (kind of like the Royal Melbourne Show but without the animals - well, perhaps a different breed of animal..).. Visually it was incredible.. Lots of pretty lights on the rides.. The smells were really strong and wonderful - a mixture of roasting pork/chicken, grilled sausages and onions, sugared nuts and fairy floss. Sweet, savoury - and one wanted to devour the lot..
One of the first things I noticed was that despite the wholesale beer drinking going on, I felt incredibly safe.. You wouldn’t have a similar festival in the UK - it simply wouldn’t work - not least because the dominant smell would be that of urine - but I can imagine it would turn very ugly, very quickly..
After about half an hour wandering around the festival, passing all the food stalls and massive buildings that turned out to be the beer “tents” (a very loose use of the term - these are buildings not tents) we entered our tent, which turned out to be the wine tent (ironic, huh?).. This was more of a corporate tent, beer was served until 9pm, and then wine until 1am when the tent closed. The first thing I noticed when I entered the hall was the Kiss cover band playing “I was made for loving you” - and the crowd going nuts..
We were seated at our table upstairs, and the beer started flowing right away.. Being a corporate type tent they didn’t serve the monster one litre steins of beer - 500ml glasses was the beer measurement of choice. And all of it wheat beer - a good thing since I love the stuff.. Before you ask, my intake for the evening was modest - 5 x 500ml glasses. Not a lot by any serious beer drinkers standard (sorry Adam, I feel like I’ve let you down) - but I’m hardly a serious beer drinker so I consider it a fair personal effort..
As with the afternoon tea described in my previous post, the event was far greater than the sum of it’s parts. You can eat a great meal anywhere (well you can in Germany), you can get pickled while listening to a bad cover band anywhere. But the combination of all elements really made for an amazing experience. Everyone was simply having fun - eating, drinking, singing, dancing. Lots of clinking glasses everywhere.
Let me point out, people on most tables got around the “no beer served after 9pm” situation by ordering up big at around 8:55pm and drawing from that for the rest of the evening. You would think that the beer would go flat and disgusting - it didn’t. Perhaps it’s something to do with the wheat beer - or perhaps we were too merry to notice..
Great atmosphere, great company, great food and drink (I had roast suckling pig with beer sauce, red braised cabbage and potato “knodel” - yummo!!) - I felt extremely preiveleged to be there.
The morning after? Let’s just say.. B B B B B B B B B Berocca gives you back your B B Bounce..
Here are some of the photos.. I sincerely hope I get the chance to go again some day.
A spot of afternoon tea
I remember when Jason first told me about going to Afternoon Tea at a fancy schmancy London hotel - I thought - “You paid THAT much for sandwiches, scones and tea?” Well folks, I now been there, done that and have officially seen the light.
Olivia’s parents were recently in town and we thought it would be a nice treat for all to see what thing whole afternoon tea thing was all about.. We booked The Dorchester three months in advance (the Ritz was already booked out even this far out).
The afternoon tea room “The Promenade” is delightfully beautiful..
Our waiter Ramon (at least it was a suitably swish name along those lines) was attentive, pleasant and far from pretentious (which let’s face it would not be altogether out of place in a setting such as this). The table settings were beautiful, as you would expect.
The afternoon consisted of champagne, finger sandwiches, tea from a 10 page tea menu (I chose Earl Grey), scones with the obligatory clotted cream and jam, and finishing off with a round of dainty but delicious cakes/pastries. On their own, all these components of the meal were very nice - but as per my original reservations about afternoon tea - not necessarily ground breaking. The clincher is that the experience of an afternoon tea like this is far greater than the sum of its parts. It was awesome to spend a couple of hours in such a lovely room, in great company, being served excellent produce by staff who are no strangers to showing people a good time.
It was a great afternoon. Here’s a link to the small photo collection. A most enjoyable experience - and one I’d heartily recommend to anyone visiting the UK. (Having said that I’m told the Windsor in Melbourne does a mean afternoon tea also…)
So thanks Jason, inspired suggestion.
Finally, a bit of English summer… and it hursts
It appears that the weather gods have cottoned onto the fact that we’ve only got a few short weeks left in the UK, and after a distinctly lousy summer, autumn has been really lovely so far.
Over the past few weekends we’ve made the most of the sunshine and made a couple more trips to National Trust properties. In this installment - we’ve been to Wakehurst Place and Sissinghurst Castle Gardens. As with all the National Trust places we’ve visited - both were extremely beautiful and provided me with plenty of photo fodder. No, there is no deliberate connection between these places despite their names both ending in “hurst”.
Here’s the view from the tower at Sissinghurst.
And here’s one of the many flower/plant shots I took in the Sissinghurst gardens.
Nice, eh? And since I know you’re hanging to see more photos from these days out… Here are the links to our photos from Wakehurst and Sissginghurst.
The trip to Sissinghurst was made all the better by the company of good friends Carlo and Cathy who were visiting from Oz.. It’s nice to be able to say “see you soon” and it actually being true.. I can’t believe that in three months I’ll already have been back in Melbourne for a week…
Home for christmas
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be arriving in Melbourne 12th December. Back for good..
Can’t wait to see you all!
