Riomaggiore

With the locals looking oddly but with interest I crawled across the rocks in nothing but swimmers and a snorkel. No sand just worn down rocks to balance on and then the water batting lazily against Riomaggiore. This was harder than I thought.

With humiliation now in full view of the fishermen and a knot of Japanese tourists I threw the fogged up mask onto the rocks and sat waste deep in water, washing myself and submitting to the sun’s late Autumn glow.

I slept fitfully in the afternoon – everyone else was napping but I was somewhere between them and slumber. The una bierra grande por favour helped but the foccaccia did not.

The sun melted into the Tyrrhenian sometime between 4.30 and 5 – I was strolling the Via Dell Amore and perched on the cliff to watch the final embers be cooled by the ocean. Local men with walking sticks and moustaches sat on benches like they had been there 50 years, each day to watch the end of light and then I walked with them back to Riomaggiore for Sunday night.

Bar Centrale was one of the few places left open, I perched there hoping for a soccer match to be shown on the 17 inch black and white TV but instead met an American and an Australian who have been stuck here sometime now. The American had decided to ride a bike around Italy but after two days of riding and not having left the suburbs of Rome with his 20kg pack he locked the bike to a dumpster and got the first train to La Spietzia. He’s been here six months now, the Aussie looks like he might follow that lead and has been here six days paying €10 a night for a seven bed apartment no one else is sleeping in.

From The Snow to the Sea

The day started too early after too many beers last night – the fire swelled my eyes and the sweaty sickly stench of Swiss marijuana wafted and lifted through the flames. Americans tried hard to find the reason for sitting around a fire when it was almost zero and climate control was in full swing 20 paces away.

It was a good night left and forgotten in the haze and fresh air. I watched the sun rise one final time above Gryon, from the train station where the only one awake was the postman who had come to know exactly what I wanted before I asked in broken French – it was always half a dozen air stamps for Australia. I wrote a note before I left, promising to return and trying my best to say thankyou for what had been given me in six short days.

Heading down the mountain to Bex I tried not to look back but found myself scanning the cliff face for the chalet, wondering if anyone had risen yet to read my note.

I jumped aboard for Sion and deliberately sat in the empty first class, waiting to be told to move. I got all the way to Martigny before anyone bothered to move me – the chairs are so much comfier there but an empty carriage is no fun. At Sion a beggar dressed better than me extracted 10 Francs from empty Americans swapping stories about condo buying in Manhattan.

“I have an interesting question for you – do you have one Franc,” I was still trying to figure out what was interesting about that while the women, giggling, handed over a Franc each and then the short cut blonde with the navy blue skivvy was offering more in Euros, feigning to ask whether he would take the coins.

I fell asleep to Elliott Smith and awoke at Milan.

It rained, it rained real hard in Genova as an educated multi-lingual man from Benin left me his address in the hope I would find him an Australia wife. Ibrahim Mousta is 6ft’1 and 85kgs, carries two mobile phones. He has been living in Italy for five years and can speak French and English – interested applicants should write to him at pha-via-e, Mattei 7, Albino or call him direct on 3207149564.

The Polizia inspected my passport at Genova and then escorted a beggar from the warmth of a waiting room. It was still raining hard, falling down. I waited for the train to Riomaggiore – Cinque Terra.

Now I’m here, watching an electrical storm over the Tyrrhenian Sea after pizza and beer for €11, too much I know but my legs were tired.

Hiking Beyond Civilization

The effect this place has on you is so beautifully gradual. Walking to Sololea yesterday I glanced up for a moment and found myself staring out through the canopy of a pine forest onto a sheer cliff face where a glacier slid off and then further up were snow capped peaks, the only trace of civilization the yawning jet streams criss-crossing too blue skies.

I will be sad to leave tomorrow but part of me thinks my time here is going, it feels like it will be right to leave tomorrow. The weather is closing in for Winter and the hostel is about to be overrun with American exchange students, we have been comrades tightly knit over meals and shared missions.

When Pat lost his backpack over the cliff above The Cross it was a personal mission for us to watch his back, feed him and make sure he got the insurance paperwork from the police. When Dave lost his camera we fanned out across the hostel looking for it, only when we sat down to think for a moment were our eyes opened – it was hiding in a pile of clothes he’d just washed. We’ve washed dishes together and talk shit around the fire nightly.

The mission for today hasn’t been decided because I’m the only one up yet – I’ve made it a rule I have to watch the sun rise every morning, I change a little for the better in doing that every morning. There was a yarn going around last night that the mountains have been hollowed out by the Swiss Army to give their people a refuge if war was to come and a couple of the boys say there is a door in one of the cliff tops near by – bloody good urban myth until I see that door.

Peace

I am above the clouds here – I’m watching their thick white bodies lick and lift from the valley floor below.

Here in Switzerland nobody waits for the train, there is no need to because everyone knows it will arrive on time, workers, students and travellers just leave home with enough time to walk or cycle to the station and they know the train will be there. It is dictatorial but so beautifully benevolent nobody realises.

The cog-train pulls and pushes up and down the mountain between Bex and Villers from early to late and tiny students yank themselves aboard in Gryon for the ride to school in Villers. Bex is one of Switzerland’s poorest towns, dominated by Senegalese refugees and Villers – a resort town – is one of its richest. The train ride should be a struggle between classes but it just does not happen. Refugees sit side-by-side with grandmothers sit side-by-side with the conductor who knows everyone by name, even me after just three days in Heaven.

Gryon, a village of maybe 500 people, is under Europe’s flight paths so when the fog burns off to reveal so blue almost green skies the jets leave yawning vapor trails like a game of norts and crosses. Their engines resound off snow capped finger tips and pin peaks.

As I watch the sun rise over these Alps I wonder about going home, about walking to work each morning and punching in – about answering questions: “how was your trip”, “did you get Armani glasses,” “how was Paris”.

I can’t find any answers right now so I doubt I will find them once I’m removed from this place. They say travelling lets you find yourself, but I have lost myself up here – in perfect peace above the clouds.

Vevay Markets

Switzerland is so bloody neutral they have different power points to the rest of Europe so I packed my laptop up and took a ride to Lausanne.

I was offered the ride when I went into a ski shop in Villiers and presented my accent for inspection. Kirsty and Mark-Andre have been running the store for 18 months now after flicking between Australia and Switzerland for the better part of the last five years. Kirsty’s parents live half an hour from Bathurst – let the cliché about the size of this planet rear its head.

They were going to an annual market in Vevay, on the shore of Lake Geneva, about 40 minutes from Villiers. Traditional this market lasted for as long as a week and was the annual pilgrimage for farmers from throughout the Riviera to bring their food to town. Nowadays Gipsies hock fake Juventus shirts and Chinese sell dagwood dogs from caravans. But if you leave the main square there are tiny nooks of hand made jewellery and local jams, school children raising money by selling cakes and patisseries by the dozen.

One pastry I delighted in literally translated as “a salt” and I’m still desperately trying to understand why every man, women and child in Vevay doesn’t have diabetes, blood pressure and marinated limbs by the time they’re 21. It is a pie covered in a lightly melted cheese with the texture of quiche but its predominant flavour is salt. The locals were having them for lunch but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, especially after having pizza for breakfast at the Vatican.

We left the market and followed Lake Geneva along one of the world’s most expensive stretches of freeway, it is a bridge linked by tunnels all the time fooling you into thinking you’re actually locked onto the side of the mountain. Lausanne is firstly the capital of the International Olympic Committee so there are hotels and shops to match the marketing. It is a service centre and not the prettiest piece of Switzerland.

Kirsty and Mark-Andre had to pick up a mischievous alarm clock so I thought I’d try my luck for an adaptor. I watched as Mark-Andre explained I was from Australia and needed an adaptor – the guy initially laughed at my prospects – there’s not exactly a huge market for Australian-Swiss electrical adaptors. But here’s an idea, the sparky came back with a euro-swiss adaptor so now I’m carrying two adaptors – one will be a souvenir from the neutral nation.

He gave me the adaptor for free – for him it was nothing for me it was a very welcome gift.

Kirsty and Mark-Andre are bloody good people and they gave me a tour of their region I could have got no other way. I’m very thankful for the insiders perspective.

Meat

Meat
Originally uploaded by peterveness.

When the Swiss do meat, they do it big.

The Next Morning

The Next Morning
Originally uploaded by peterveness.

When I woke up the next morning I couldn't believe it.

Late and Frightened in Bex

P1000353
Originally uploaded by peterveness.

I arrived late in Bex after getting not impossibly lost and had no idea how much further it was to Gryon - if only I could have seen the view right then.

The Difference Is In Pronunciation

There’s about two hours difference between Lausanne and Luzern – that’s if you realise early enough, say Chiasso, any further along and you might not be getting off ‘til Luzern.
Well Chiasso was as picturesque border town as I’m likely to get and the Swiss Guard spoke the most useful broken English this side of Florence.

So back to Milan and get on the right bloody train this time – the proverbial could still hit the cliché if this train to Geneva doesn’t get moving on me soon. I’ve still got two more trains to catch it’s 4.20, the sun is going down and according to the world atlas well over 250ks to hump tonight to my bed in the Alps. So a few nerves and my first steps on Swiss soil – just when I was mastering Broken Italian 101. You see, the language does change dramatically once you ride through that tunnel, sure they know Italian but they ain’t about to go rushing to speak it to some grubby Australian who didn’t realise the lingua franca had changed.

So now out the other side of Milan – there are men in black leather jackets disposing of concrete boot bodies in the rain and children kicking footballs along train platforms. A woman sits across from me, begging to weep but too proud. Her classical Italian stylings, black leather come hither boots, boot cut tan cargo pants and black wool blend turtle neck light weight jumper all belie her soul but her body language doesn’t.

Even though she sits looking at me her whole body points the other way, disappearing inside her self worse than clouds on an overcast day.

She keeps making alternate phone calls, one to a lover in English, one to a parent or a landlord, maybe both, in Italian. Now she wants to share the table, women always want it both ways. Ignore the ciao but demand her fair three quarters of the table. Her split ends hair rips back over a scalp poisoned with peroxide and tiny diamonds in her ears onset everything – they neither pass nor fail – they’re just there the same way You Am I are at the Annandale.

Bearded and Maniacal Beggars On The Edge of Tuscany

I don't know where I am, maybe the edge of Tuscany.

Thin fog sticks like cheap toilet paper to rolling hills and now the train genuinely whizzes via ploughed fields and brick bridges.

"Grazis, gratzi, senor por favor," - no matter the language the maniacal beggar is the same - hollering snotty nosed gruff like three days of whiskey and late night TV. He's standing in front of me, pleading, no really freaking screaming at me. GRA ZZZ EEEE.

I shove my fists down in diagonals, nothing from me good senor. Castiglion Del Lago by the time the ticket inspector comes crashing through the carriage - "hey hey" and then two claps of his hands and nothing more for the bearded rainbow poncho but to stumble back from where he came.

All of this time I'm listening to the calmest of folk music, bells and banjos in my ears.

Terontola - three platforms, three police. The doors snap shut and the train shunts off the police aboard. I'm sitting across the aisle from my backpack and one officer returns to ask if the almost unattended baggage is mine - "sei senor," it's my best performance in Italian yet.

Now likely on the edge of Florence, blocks of low rise flats share streets with corn plots share streets with aching tractors. The sun is rubbed out like a bad high school drawing - the orange ocha blown across the skies comes from industry, itself fading into the middle distance.

The Greatest Building I Have Ever Seen

P1000275
Originally uploaded by peterveness.

This is the tomb of the unknown Italian soldier, surely one of the grandest buildings in all of Rome - it includes a cafe on the balcony and armed riflemen guarding the tomb.

Italians deliver it a special respect and tourists are warned to do likewise.

Getting Lost Is Desireable

Today. Rome came alive. Strike out early and get beautifully lost, the rough black cobblestones and piazza after piazza – surrounded by monuments from BC and AD.
Churches are meeting places for the young, begging places for the old and show little sign of being used save for the superstitious burning candles for healing.

Stand high above all of this and you get entertainment. Italian police chases, numerous and humourous – are each proceeded by a poliza car, usually an alfa, screaming to each intersection and demanding traffic stop so the poliza behind him can actually do the chasing. I never can figure out exactly what it is they’re chasing – their tails? Lost tourists? Fun?

There is something astonishing missing from Rome – advertising. There is none. Public spaces everywhere are dominated by people not posters. There are no billboards, little bill posting – just graffiti. The graffiti, from what I can gather, is almost entirely political, usually accusing the Prime Minister of selling Italian culture out. Water is free on every corner, running from gushing fountains and there are no vending machines. The people are genuine and eye contact is permitted, even in a city of 2.5 million.

Tonight – spaghetti, meatballs, salad, grapes and beer all served by the best Al Pacino circa Taxi Driver impersonation I am ever likely to see - €15.

We Forgive, If There's A Market For It

And now I want to sleep.

I’ve never seen so much art and yet been so singularly un-moved as I was at The Vatican. Large bosomed women gnashing their teeth from the edges of hell while crusading white men ride triumphantly over the whole universe. The directed tour of Musei Vatican forces you through no less than five gift shops offering mouse pads signed by John Paul II and photocopies of letters from the Vatican’s secret vaults – but my personal favourite was the Galileo pen for just €10, it’s good to see all can truly be forgiven once a buck is in their eyes.

The real emotion came from the beggars plying their trade outside the enormous brick walls of the Holy See. One woman had the most hideous affliction; her hair falling out and being replaced by a weeping puss and a scalp the colour of freshly dropped blood.

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was the only exception to the cluttered and garish – little has changed in all the years since he and others went to work on that room, with it’s simple architecture yet exquisite artwork. There are so many stories but it is the centre of the roof that pilgrims, families and the purely curious come to stare at. There, man reclines lazily as God and his angel’s strain and stretch to touch the peak of creation. It’s a perfect study in the folly of man and the lengths to which God is willing to go.

Greek Salad and a beer for dinner and bed for me.

Rome

Rome: 8.15am, November 2, 2005

I sit with my feet perched on the cobblestones of the Colosseum entrance, having wanted to go to the Vatican but having got the wrong train. Everything is so real, so very, very real. The flight was, my mum wont like me using this word, surreal.

I studied the flight plan and it showed an arch running from Bangkok through the southern edge of the Himalayas and then straight across Iran and Iraq - not so I was told mid-flight. Instead I saw little light for 11 hours and even when I did it looked suspicious and out of place.

The trains were wonderful, until I discovered Rome's metro. Sydneysiders, never whine again, you have it wonderful {even when it's 35c and you're stopped between Redfern and Central without air conditioning.

Almost Bangkok

Bangkok International Airport - 11pm, Tuesday November 1.

It's so humid my kneecaps are sweating, I just spent 250 bhat for this Internet connection and the only word I have managed to understand on the PA is Frankfurt - that, incidentally, is not where I am going.

The Thai customs officials act out the stereotype we and they have created, the only surprise was one of them looked like a 12-year-old. There are nuns going to Rome, monks to Seoul and a cowboy going to Paris. I feel compelled to walk to ward off the DVT, what a pathetic death that would be. I forgot to mention the poms still gloating in some cricket match from half an eternity ago. The nuns are truly sacrifical, wearing too much clobber when it's 29 and 80 per cent.

I have crossed four time zones and one equator, must go check to see if the toilet really does spin the other way.

I feel no fear, no nerves, I feel at home.

PS: what a race

What a mare, what a jockey - what a place to watch the Melbourne Cup.

Standing in the international terminal with leaving and coming Australians and a Reschs in my hand and Glen Boss must surely have felt us roaring him home.

Thai airlines were telling their customers we had to book through customs at 3.10, half the group (the Australians) mutined and they had to change their mind, insisting we would be free to pass through anytime before 4pm.

Bangkok by midnight.

Leaving on Cup Day

Sydney International Airport – 14.14, November 1, Cup Day.

Are airports spiritual places; I saw the ghost of Jack Kerouac collide with a Virgin hostess just this morning. The Republican Party would have liked a snapshot for their files, I’m sure.

Yellow and black lines circle white arrows and the pilots seem to ignore them all – their machines too big to worry with thin lines on tarmac 20 feet below.

I leave my country for the first time as an adult in 2 hours and 43 minutes; I have placed a bet on a horse’s name I won’t recall until it wins. We would all like to see Makybe win, drunken nights could be filled with reminiscing her mighty trifecta rather than the dim sepia images of Phar Lap lapping the Flemington field 75 years ago.

I am not nervous, I am curious, I am not frightened, I am in love, I am not a body, I am a soul.

Amongst the hurlygirdyburdy of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Airport – I find myself wondering about the people who work here. It is a purgatory, filled with McDonalds and Irish pubs and bottle shops urging you come be an alcoholic with us, you need five litres of red wine and two magnums of champagne and we haven’t even begun to mention the beer – all of it tax free! The staff of this heavy breathing callosus must stare out at the fields of departure gates wondering when it might be their turn to leave – I don’t feel any shame. I am patriotic.