Category: Italy

Milan Cathed­ral

While in Milan, I also bought a tick­et to the cathed­ral and attached museum.

San Donato Milanese

When you say to people “I’m going to Italy for work” they think you’re going to go to some sun-kissed medi­ev­al tour­ist spot to live la bella vita, when the real­ity is often more like San Donato Milanese.

Milan 2021

In Septem­ber 2021 I returned to teach­ing EFL abroad. I had come home from Austria in March 2020, and then not taught at all for 18 months. It was a last minute trip, because the Itali­an govern­ment had suddenly decided to allow school visits

60s slides: Costi­era Amalf­itana

Here’s some more 60s tour­ism slides from my grand­par­ents’ house (you can see others here). This time from the Amalfi Coast in south­ern Italy, now a UNESCO site. Again I have posted all 36 images. It looked pretty much the same when I was there about 10 years ago, minus the annoy­ing coach party of loud Texans who kept appear­ing every­where you looked and complain­ing there was no Taco Bell and you had to walk places. Further along the coast in Sorrento I bought a very fancy waffle-knit towel that still serves me well for trav­el­ling. The shop assist­ant seemed very confused that I wasn’t buying a whole match­ing set of them like the major­ity of their custom­ers. Afraid I could only afford one small one. 

60s slides of Hercu­laneum

When clear­ing out my grand­par­ents’ house a couple of years ago I found seven pack­ets of these 60s tour­ist slides of vari­ous places around the Medi­ter­ranean. I’ve been scan­ning and restor­ing them. First up, these from Hercu­laneum.

Hercu­laneum is a smal­ler coastal town near Pompeii that was also destroyed by the volcano. It’s not as well known, but there are some magni­fi­cent villas there in a simil­ar but smal­ler archae­olo­gic­al park to the one you can visit at Pompeii.

Torbole

After Malces­ine, Limone sul Garda and Riva del Garda, I present to you Torbole. I went to Torbole just because the boat from Riva del Garda to Malces­ine stopped there along the way, and I’d never been there before. It was a weird little place. Like Riva, it used to be in Austria until 1918. Every­one except the staff of the restaur­ants seemed to be German, and really into intensely star­ing at you in the street. The light and the way the water looked along the harbour front was beau­ti­ful though, and I spent most of the hour before the boat back sitting on a bench soak­ing it in. I don’t think this is a real place, I think it’s a screen from one of those new-age computer games from the 90s like Myst.

Riva del Garda

So far I’ve shown you Malces­ine and Limone sul Garda. I also took the boat to Riva del Garda at the north­ern end of the lake (which is also in a differ­ent province- Trentino). It was rain­ing all day, so I figured I might as well go to the colder, rainy end of the lake and visit the museum, and save the outdoorsy stuff on the south­ern end like archae­olo­gic­al sites for a sunny day.

Limone sul Garda

Now I’m head­ing over to Limone sul Garda on the other side of the lake. I didn’t spend much money while I was in Italy, but a hefty chunk of the (tiny) budget went on ferry tick­ets. Boats constantly criss-cross the lake to all the towns, and it’s the most scen­ic way to see the area. If you’re in a hurry, you can take the bus on land, but I was on holi­day, so by defin­i­tion, not in a hurry.

Malces­ine, Lago di Garda

At the end of May I went on a last-minute trip to Italy by myself. I had given up my tenancy in London, because I was fed up of paying a small fortune to a land­lord who was unwill­ing to fix the seri­ous leak in the ceil­ing that was prob­ably going to bring the plaster down some­time soon, and a relat­ive asked me to house-sit. The house-sitting date then changed, but it turned out to be cheap­er for me to visit friends in York­shire, and then go on holi­day for a week than it was to extend my tenancy, which shows how ridicu­lous the prices are in London now. As it was a last minute thing, I had to go on my own. I don’t mind trav­el­ling solo though, I used to do it regu­larly for work, and trav­el­ling alone is better than going on holi­day with someone who doesn’t want to do any of the same things as you. (In my case, wander­ing aimlessly for hours and hours, taking hundreds of photo­graphs and eating a lot). I also got to re-read The Name of the Rose in peace.

Lago di Garda in the late 90s

I was tidy­ing up recently and found these photos of Lake Garda. I’m not sure when I took them, because I’ve been there a few times, but it must have been between 1998 and 2001 when I was 13-16.