Sightseeing in Southern Italy

We travelled through a few lesser known regions like Le Marche, Basilicata and Molise as well as Puglia,Calabria and Abruzzo. There are many national parks to visit and beautiful mountain passes to drive, some pretty hair-raising. The landscape is dotted with hilltop villages, some clinging precariously to mountainsides and always topped by a castle or a church. Agriculture is still very widespread with vineyards,olive groves and wheatfields predominating. They produce 80% of Europes pasta in Puglia apparently!There are also many historic gems and plenty of Unesco World Heritage sites to see. Among the highlights for us were the mountain city of Ascoli Piceno, the stone roofed Trulli houses in Alberobello, the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna and the medieval city of Matera. We also went to San Marino, a tiny independant principality surrounded by beautiful farming landscapes.
Italians love food and each little place or region has there own specialities,which of course we always have to try. Sadly the urban sprawl in some places is awful and a real eye-sore.

Seaside Italy

Italy has a very long coastline and we have travelled nearly all of it now and have come to the conclusion that it is one long overdeveloped string of cheap hotels and camping villages. Most of the towns are pretty tacky and long stretches of the coast are very boring with flat strips of grey sand meeting flat blue water. Inbetween all these are some really amazing coastal areas and wonderful beaches though. Our favourites included Gallipoli, Tropea and Maratea. Most Europeans like a summer holiday at the sea and as long as the sun is shining and they can rent a beach chair and an umbrella on a strip of sand, they seem happy. Staying in campsites at the beach, gives you a wonderful insight into Italian holiday life. It seems that the extended family moves lock, stock and barrel from the city to their caravan or cabin by the sea. Everyone loves living right on top of each other. There are no early risers and after breakfast everyone hits the beach. The team of teenage entertainment organisers hold aerobics, volleyball and bocce on the beach. After lunch, siesta is strictly observed until 4pm, when everyone returns to the beach. After dinner, at 9pm, organised caberet shows are held, with guests and all the kids joining in. This is followed by a disco of bad pop music and all the favourite "join in" songs like Macarena and YMCA ,until midnight when everyone goes to bed. And it is always the same,every night, in every campsite. We stay up watching episodes of House or Sopranos until lights out time.

Venice

Venice is one of our favourite European cities and it was great to spend a few days there with Paul and Nikki. We spent all our time wandering from piazza to piazza and riding the canals on the water busses. It is such a photogenic city and despite it being well into the summer season, we did not find it too crowded. There was quite a lot of restoration work going on in Piazza san Marco, and to Nikkis dissappointment the Bridge of Sighs was covered up with scaffolding and advertising. We also spent a day in Padua and travelled along the Brenta Riviera, the area where all the wealthy Venetians built summer palaces.

Konigssee and Austria

We drove down to Konigssee in southern Bavaria. It is a beautiful lake area and the place where Hitlers hideout called Eagles Nest is. Then we went to the lake disrtict in Austria, west of Salzburg for a few days.