Steve Watson

6/05/2018 (Sunday)
The people in this dorm are quite ignorant; making all sorts of noise with complete disregard for their dorm-mates. Got a pretty good sleep all the same. Of course, there was a mixup at the train station: there was no 10:57 train to Florence. My guess is that the friendly fellow I spoke to yesterday looked up the times for the wrong day. The girl at the info numbering desk told me I could get a metro to connect at Tiburtina with a train to F, but I'd have to run. Well, I ran, but I didn't get there until the train arrived, and there was a queue at the ticket machines, so that failed. Went back to the numbering desk and sought out the next train. She said I'd need to get the fast train and gave me a number to wait for a consultant. However, that number wasn't going to come up before the train left, so I went to the desk again and asked when the next train would be when I could use this ticket. The girl at the desk insisted she could serve others at the same time as she was looking this up and writing the details, so this took ages. If there hadn't been one in a reasonable time I would have bought it from a machine at God knows what cost; however, there turned out to be one at 13:00 (involving a connection at Chiusi Chianciano at 14:58). That seemed good to me, so I resolved to wait the two hours (1:30 now) at the station. Had a rather nice cappuccino and cornetto (pain au chocolat) for just 2E. Then noticed that the number of the train she'd given me wasn't showing on the board and went down again to double check. Yep, turns out she'd got the number wrong - because, no matter what they say, no-one can multi-task effectively. I was also warned that the number would appear about 20 mins before departure time, and if it was 1EST or 2EST I'd have to run, because they are far from here. This seems mad to me. And as I write this, yep, 2EST, but I've got 40 mins, so off I go. And it took me just 10 mins. On the other hand, at 7 minutes to they changed the station and we all ran to get it again. Then it was late, and the connection was on the platform beside it ready to go when we arrived. Luckily it was right next to us, but I suppose they would've waited anyway. Arrived in FLORENCE

Florence My hostel is on the left up via Nazionale from SMN stazione and on a bit past the Piazza della Indipenza
Everything else went swimmingly: the hostel's pretty good, but not as 'friendly' as the Napoli one. Amazing facilities. Swimming pool, gym, terrace, common room and kitchenette, restaurant and bar, computers, wifi with no password. They even supply a towel. Went for a walk to the Duomo and then the Piazza Signoria. Can't say I was very impressed. I never much liked the cathedral, but now the square is full of scaffolding and just looks unpleasant. Was not inspired to repeat my cream-filled cornetto of the first trip. Did have a close look at the Ghiberti doors on the Baptistery though; that's something I missed the last time.

Baptistryy A detail from the doorss
Bought some supplies and returned for dinner. Best shower yet! Oddly, there are no power points in the bathroom or toilet, so I had to shave standing beside my bed.
7/05/2018 (Monday)
Someone was snoring something shocking last night, and I was worried about the having the alarm wake people if it didn't wake me immediately, so I didn't get a great sleep. Up at 7 and had to wait for the common room to open at 8. However, all went well, and I got to the station in plenty of time and quite fresh. Longish trip to Faenza, then a change to a bus for the last leg to Ravenna. No problems here. Arrived in RAVENNA

Ravenna today

Ravenna in the period of its glory
Checked the time of the return direct train and then headed off to see the sights. Headed straight out to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. To see this I had to buy a ticket for 11.50E for a group of 5 world heritage sights. That was good, actually, because they were exactly the ones I had listed for today. Orthodox Baptistry also called Baptistry of Neon (c. 430) Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (c. 430) Archiepiscopal Chapel (c. 500) Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (c. 500) Basilica of San Vitale (548) I also made a point of walking out to the Mausoleum of Theoderic (520) but the time was a bit short by the time I got there, so I just took a photo over the fence and went back to the train station for a caffe americano and another pain au chocolat (now labelled a bruschetta farciata.) These sites were all pretty interesting. The mosaics were bright and well-constructed and fairly clear in their iconography. There wasn't as much clutter as one sometimes finds in the more modern Christian Art. In those parts of the churches where there had been expansion or restoration in later Renaissance times the contrast was quite striking, and made the modern work seem very secular and even a bit tawdry. Altogether, I'm very pleased that I finally got here after 22 years of regretting that I put it aside last time I was here.

Plan of the Neonian Baptistery

Baptism of Jesus From the dome of the Neonian Baptistery - also called the Orthodox Baptistery to distinguish it from the Arian one built by that heathenish Ostrogoth Theodoric.

Scene from a baptism From the Neonian Baptistery. John the Baptiser baptises an adult Jesus. A pagan water god looks on - no, it's just Jordan. The dove is a later restoration, as is the right arm and later still the dish of John.

Plan of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia The three sarcophagi are from top clockwise: Constantius III (her husband,) Galla Placidia (herself,) and Valentinian III (her son) or Honorius (her brother.)

St Vincent (?) The southern lunette of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia This has usually been thought to be an image of St Lawrence who was martyred on a 'griddle' (see also the Escorial palace in Spain,) but he has no obvious relevance here. St Vincent, however, was martyred by drowning at sea and Galla Placidia almost died in a shipwreck. The library of the evangelists at left refers to the claim that this saint was once ordered to burn the gospels.

The Good Shepherd The northern lunette of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

Plan of San Vitale Note the octagonal plan, typical of the Eastern Church.

Sacrifices of various kinds From the tympanum on the left of the choir in the church of San Vitale. At left, Abraham and Sarah play host to the trinity of angels - feeding them bread marked with crosses; then he prepares to sacrifice Isaac, his only son begotten on Sarah. God says no.

Abel and Melchisedec, obviously From the tympanum on the right

Justinian From the Church of San Vitale

Theodora From the Church of San Vitale
Home by direct train, again with no problems. On the trip out and back I was struck by the beauty of the countryside. There is a lot of wild country between the rather infrequent villages, and there's also a lot of very small holdings and vineyards along the way. I thought the villages and small towns I saw from the window looked absolutely delightful, spread along the sides of valleys that suddenly appeared as gorges that the train rushed across; and in the valleys (not just through the villages) were perfectly clear streams running white over stone beds and cascading through pools and down leaps. I would seriously consider stopping in one of those places for a week or so, just to walk/run through the woods - but they did look a little cool, so perhaps next time. Got back about 8:30 and headed up Via Guelfa to get a spicy chicken burger, chips, and a coke (6.50E) at a shop I saw yesterday. Feeling much better now.
8/05/2018 (Tuesday)
Booked ahead for Milan, and then went off to the station to get tickets. This will involve two changes, and I was going to get this printed out by the info desk person, but another official guided me back to the ticket machine and simply suggested I take a photo of the screen. How perfectly obvious: I should have thought of that myself. Walked on to the Boboli gardens, but they want 16E for entry (and I do not want to go into any more of their museums) so I gave it a miss. That's a bit of a pity, since I remember the gardens fondly from the last time I was here. Instead, I walked up the Arno a bit and found a grassy spot to sit down and just enjoy the view. After that, I walked back to the hostel, changed my bed for one of the separate singles (which will be much more convenient,) and went to the common room for some water and to read a bit. I intended to go to the gym here, but it turns out it's just two running machines. Moved up to the terrace and continued relaxing. The last couple of days I've been reading 'WW III: Choke Point' by William Slater. It's a sort of Tom Clancy kind of thing; pretty dumb, but well enough written. I think I'll take it with me when I go.
9/05/2018 (Wednesday)
And so to MILAN. A longish day of travelling, but no problems. Firenze S.M.N. to Prato C.le, change to Bologna C.le, and change again for the last long leg to Milan C.le. In fact, the train stopped at Lambrates, which is where the hostel is, and on an impulse I tried to get off. Unfortunately, the door wouldn't open, so I had to carry on to Centrale and backtrack on the metro. Well, it's only time and bother. At Centrale I followed the signs to the metro, found line 2, bought a 1.50E ticket and worked out what direction I was supposed to be going - never easy. There weren't many people about, so it wasn't a huge hassle as commuting in peak hour can be (it was then about 5pm.) I was a little disoriented getting off the metro for the walk to the hostel, but even this, which I thought was going to be my undoing, was pretty easy.

Milan My hostel was about 2 km SW of the main station, but very close to the subway stop and very convenient.

Milan transport My stop is Lambrate FS
The Mio hostel benefits from being well out of town - it's largish and fairly impersonal, but has facilities I've missed: a locker for each bed, free breakfast and dinner, and best of all right now, free teabags, sugar, and boiling hot water. The dinner was actually pretty good; a selection of vegetables, some pastas, bread slices with meat on them, chips, and potato chips. Enough for me to feel relatively full after three plates. While moping about in the late afternoon, I got talking to an Egyptian chap, Zanetti (living in Italy, visiting a friend here,) who explained how the English ruled Australia and NZ, and how Muslims weren't allowed in Oz, and how Mubarak was still the real president of Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood were his allies, and all sorts of other crap. Nothing I said could penetrate this fog of nonsense. Apparently, he was trained as a lawyer, which just goes to show how entrenched the conspiratorial mindset is in the Arab world. The wifi in the evening was just painful. Wouldn't work in the common room or the terrace or the bedroom. I eventually wound up sitting in the reception, and even that wasn't exactly spectacular. They did have free apples though.
10/05/2018 (Thursday)
After a very long and pleasant breakfast of muesli and yoghurt, toast and jam, coffees and an apple, I headed off to see Michelangelo's Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie, taking the metro for convenience. When I got there I checked the ticket price: 10E; that's acceptable, but then at the desk the girl said it was booked up for a month. That's ludicrous: it's not that fundamental an attraction! Walked up to Sempione park. That was ok. Walked on to the Public Garden Indro Montanelli. Neither of these, frankly, looked like the very pleasant garden I spent some time in last time I was here. Maybe they've re-landscaped it? Anyway, lacking much else to do, I took the metro again to the Duomo. Took some photos and wandered up and around the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele but can't say that I was much thrilled by this either, and fairly quickly decided to buzz off back to the hostel.

Duomo facade
Detail
Had rather an odd episode on the metro. Some chap in a type of work-gear was standing in the middle of the passage so I tried to move past him without bumping him. He then leant back quite obviously deliberately to block my way, so I simply pushed past him. As I got on the other side and stood beside him he turned and stared at me, possibly expecting to intimidate me and pretty clearly wondering whether he should make some smart-arse comment. I stared straight back at him until he turned away. I suspect if I hadn't been clearly fitter than he was he would have tried something. At the hostel, it seems the Internet problem of last night has been mostly fixed.
11/05/2018 (Friday)
Had a longish breakfast. Exchanged the rather silly book I had been reading for Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon'. Given that Bradley and her husband were revealed to be utterly vile people, this required a bit of consideration; but if artists had to be good people, there'd be little enough art about I think. There doesn't really seem to be much worth looking at in Milan, so I went out intending to do just a random wander about the city. I started at the Castello Sforzesco at the Lanza stop. There are some museums there, but there's no reason I can think of to pay 10 E to go through them. Instead I walked through to Sempione and sat about for a bit, then walked down to the Basilica of St Ambrose to have a look around. Not much of interest, though they do have the remains of St Ambrose on display, looking rather grisly as a skeleton dressed in his priestly robes and headgear. I would have taken a photo, but I think it was forbidden.

Sforza family arms Bizarre, and blazoned all over the Castello Sforzesco. The red cross is the Ambrose cross, said to have been the symbol of that bishop, adopted then by Genoa, and eventually pinched by Richard the Lionheart while crusading. The serpent eating a person (child) is the Biscione or Vipera, the symbol of the Visconti family who had previously ruled Milan. One story is that the founder of that house killed a saracen and took his coat of arms. (Did saracens have such things?) The Sforzas grabbed it after the Visconti died out.

So that's what that is! Anonima Lombarda Fabbricia Automobila - a Milan-based company (and later bought by N. Romeo.)

Sant Ambrogio
Outside the basilica there's a map of a recommended walking tour of the old city. Turns out I'd been mostly following this, so I decided to continue. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of interest, except for a nice little piazza behind a ruined portico in Piazza delle Vetra and the church of S. Leonardo, so I eventually just went to the Crocetta metro stop and caught a couple of trains back to the hostel.
12/05/2018 (Saturday)
Another long and pleasant breakfast. Easy train trip to GENOA

Genoa map My hostel is just on the east side of the Algergo dei Poveri at the top of this map.
It was a shortish but intense uphill walk to the hostel. Seems to be at the top of a mountain beside a university. Very nice place, and seems much better set up for socialising than most other places. This is really a bit more like the hostel experience that I was expecting. Bought some groceries, but not many. Didn't go out again. Met a decent sort in my dorm room: a young chap called Alessandro (I think I recall.) On the other hand, there were an odd Spanish-speaking couple in there at night, who A said had the strangest accent he'd ever heard - he thinks they sound like Slavs speaking Spanish - who spoke in loud voices at intervals through the night.

Hostel courtyard
1//0//2018 (Sunday)
I found the bed somehow uncomfortable, though it seemed better quality than some I've been sleeping happily in, so got up at about 7 and went down to wait in the terrace until the breakfast was ready at 8. That was ok. Cereal, toast, jam, coffee, juices; and only 3.50E. Called mum and wished her a happy Mother's Day. She couldn't talk long, so I also spoke to Maurice. After going to the main train station and buying a train ticket on to Pisa (15E), I went for a long and leisurely walk about town around the centro storico, generally following the bicycle route marked on the map. The port was rather interesting, but it wasn't exactly pretty - I don't mean unattractive, I mean it didn't cry out to be photographed. The aquarium, which is advertised as the largest in Europe, would cost 25E for a visit, but I don't care about fish that much. There's also a (reconstructed) sailing ship in the harbour which was quite interesting. By far the most interesting thing, however, was watching a group of little dogs playing while their owners were chatting; and other dogs walking past having to be held back with great effort from joining in. All very cute.

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Detail

Detail

Interior

Sunscreen required

Doggy day out
There were a few interesting churches and palaces on the route but most of it was pretty standard stuff. A few things of note: There was a woman singing arias from operas in the foyer or entranceway to a grand theatre, but she was singing entirely to herself: that must be dreadfully discouraging. Many of the streets along and about via Garibaldi were decorated with colourful umbrellas hanging from wire grids. I don't know what all that was about, whether it was for a special occasion or is just a normal thing. I saw the police trying to chase away the African peddlers who seem to dominate the tourist-bothering industry. They would run away and then come swarming back when the police left. They're not too much of a bother, less aggressive than some I've seen, but they are a bother.

Fountain in the Piazza de Ferrari

But it wasn't even raining
Since it started raining quite hard almost as soon as I got back at mid-afternoon, I didn't do anything else; just read and watched 'Better Call Saul' season 3. I also found a copy of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika in the book exchange, which I took, and I'll leave them the Bradley book from Milan. All alone in the room tonight. That's very pleasant.
14/05/2018 (Monday)
The girl at the desk, who is a very nice sort, showed me how to make Italian coffee in one of those silly pots that Deb uses. After 12 I went out to explore the northern parts of Genoa. In fact, from the hostel I pretty much walked directly north following various roads and salitas (walkways) with much stopping and checking of the map - until the GPS, which had been pretty inaccurate actually, gave up the ghost entirely, and then the iPad 'whereas' map froze at maximum expansion. I got as far north as The Trattoria Richetto, having walked along the pretty bush path from the Rosa dal Parco. On the way back I found my way to the Salita di San Barnabo, which took me back down almost to the hostel itself. I was very impressed with the beautiful pathways and the secret corners and passageways and courtyards that one finds everywhere. It's very picturesque, a bit like Wellington or, as I'm told, San Francisco, but it must be hell to be old in such a place.

Apartments How people live
15/05/2018 (Tuesday)
Since there were now only 5 people in the hostel, the two or three girls working there were pretty bored and they came over to chat for quite a while. One's a 20 year old from French Belgium (speaks no Italian) and is just getting a bit of experience before she goes on to do a primary school teaching qualification; the other's a 30 year old from a place just outside Bordeaux, and she's getting language skills before she goes back to study for hospitality qualifications. She doesn't speak Italian either. That must make it hard: they mostly speak French and Italian here, so neither of them are getting much linguistically out of being here. Train to La Spezia Centrale. It left about 15 minutes late because someone required medical attention, but we got in to town at a reasonable time and I caught the connection to Pisa no problem. I noticed on the first train that there were vast hordes of tourists and tour groups doing the cinque terra crawl. It didn't seem to me, looking from the train that it was much to talk about, especially on an overcast and intermittently soggy day like this. Arrived in PISA

Map of Pisa My hostel is on the road going right out of the train station and halfway to the river.
Arrived fine at the hotel and bought a padlock for the locker for just 2E. Should've brought one from home, but c'est la vie. Went for a walk about the southern part of Pisa while it was still light, and before dinner was ready. Quite a nice town, in the mediaeval sense, but obviously completely centred on tourism. The central shopping street, the Corso Italia was full of expensive shops selling clothing and bags and jewellery and such-like stuff. Nothing for me here. Dinner was an all-you-can-eat buffet thing, which was very nice - and I did eat all I could eat. That'll teach 'em.

Flowers in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II Just pretty
16/16/05/2018 (Wednesday)
The hostel restaurant has an English Breakfast for 5.90E. Pretty good actually, but I'll stick with my usual from now on. Walked to the train station to buy a ticket to Perugia. This is another annoying two-changes arrangement, and one of the changes (at Florence) has only a 12 minute wait. I'll just have to chance it. If it fails I'll have to grab one of the later ones, which wouldn't be a disaster unless it put me after the last bus to the hostel. Tried to buy a ticket to San Gimignano, but there didn't seem to be such a station. Perhaps I'll have to find a bus there. Lucca is doable for 3.50E. Toured the entire city on foot in the remainder of the morning.

Manifestazione! Communists. In this day and age. FOAD losers.

Arno fiume
Down to the Leaning Tower - which was really leaning quite a lot. I'm very surprised it can remain stable at that angle. Never mind the centre of gravity and all that; the stones must be in danger of sliding out at the top.

Piazza dei Miracoli Where it all happens. It only got this name in the XX^th C.

The campanile It's hard to get a real feel for the lean on the tower in a photo without resorting to trickery. The diagram makes its alarming inclination plain.

Baptistery

On the Cathedral The tympanum of the west door of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

Bronze Doors Below the tympanum
Got back to the hostel at a bit after 1pm just as it started raining.
17/05/2018 (Thursday)
Did nothing all day. I looked around at the train station for tickets to nearby places, but they were all either uninteresting or inaccessible. I particularly enquired about Volterra, because I suspected it would have some interesting Etruscan things to see, but the train (16E return) only goes nearby, and you'd have to (possibly) get a bus. It seemed more fuss and hours of travelling than could be justified for a speculative day trip, so that was that. I also considered doing some laundry (5E), but the weather looked unhopeful and the cost of drying (another 5E) seemed excessive. I could probably replace all my dirty smalls for that price. Started viewing on YouTube the 'Winds of War' miniseries with Robert Mitchum. Still holds up pretty well, except that Ali McGraw is just an awful actress.
18/05/2018 (Friday)
Up far too early, because the fellow in the bunk above me was snoring something shocking. Had the yoghurt, muesli, and banana breakfast, and then went off to get the train. This was a fairly involved series of moves. First there were three trains to catch: Pisa to Florence, to Terontola-Cortona, to Perugia. Then there was the adventure of finding the bus stop, buying the ticket and making sure the driver knew where to drop me. Then finding the right road and pathway to go down. It all worked out OK in the end, but it was quite a long day. But at the end of it I'm in PERUGIA The farmhouse really is a farmhouse and the lady is run off her feet trying to reorganise sleeping arrangements to meet the ever-changing demands. I've been put into a 4-bed dorm (really a private room) with one of the volunteers, Leo from California, a peregrinatory tattoo artist. Another of the staff is Lani, a pretty and pleasant 19 yo girl from the Cotswolds in England. There's also a nice Dutch couple (Jacinta and Bart-Joern) staying here while their car is being repaired; and they're travelling with two kids, 2 and 4. Very brave. They have been involved in development work and were recently in Ethiopia for two years. Had a good chat with them. It turns out I'll be getting free breakfast which I can't remember was in the deal or not, but good. On the other hand, when I went back out to find the supermarkets to buy dinner, I had the devil of a time. Nowhere was open until 4:30, and even then they were very hard to find. There were road signs pointing to food shops but following them led nowhere. Eventually I found a grocers and bought some stuff.
19/05/2018 (Saturday)
In the morning I did all my washing and finally did the registration and payment that the proprietrix was too busy to do yesterday - she's very conscientious and friendly and helpful, but really does need to calm down a bit: the place isn't that demanding. In the afternoon I took off for ASSISI. This involved catching the bus in, which was easy enough, before catching the train (5E return). The sensible thing to do would be to catch the bay's from the station in St Maria degli Angelis to Assisi itself, but I couldn't be bothered hunting down any information staff and the ticket office was closed for the time being, so I photographed the map in the cafeteria and walked up the long straight street to the hill town.

Map of Assisi I walked here (~1 km?) up the Via Patrono d'Italia and then up via Beato Padre L. de Caserta. The bricks of this last had the names of benefactors(?) on them. There must have been tens of thousands of them.
The town was pretty enough and the views over the plain were extraordinary, but the town suffers from the Venetian problem: it looks like there's no other business there but tourism, so the feeling of authentic village life never gets a look in. On the other hand the church of S. Francesca was very impressive. The lower church is a bit run-of-the-mill, but it does have the actual tomb of St. Francis in it - though this lacks the impact of St Ambrosius' tomb in Milan. The upper church is thoroughly covered in frescoes by Giotto, and they are really quite impressive. The claim in the art literature that the Giotto style of large blocks of colour and simple compositions is a startling divergence from the contemporary style is more emphatically true when you view these works after having suffered through so many of the works of previous (and later) styles. It strikes me that this must have been a very courageous thing to do and his patrons may well have been horrified by the results because, even for the modern sensibility, the impression given is of large cartoonish caricatures rather than religiously respectful iconography. Another thing that struck me was that the use of perspective showed great uncertainty, presumably because this is a newish thing (brave again,) and that it isn't that easy to determine where the artist thinks the light is coming from since the shading seems largely random, or intended merely to emphasise solidity and roundness rather than to represent any possible actual scene.

Countryside Looking from the main basilica over the lower courtyard and across to the south of St Maria degli Angeli

Basilica As seen approaching it from the long road I walked

Plan of the basilica

The upper basilica from the East

Interior of the upper basilica Photography was not allowed, but you have to have some idea of what was there.
Back at the hostel, the Dutch couple and I discussed the point of travelling. What is it really that we get out of the business? Seeing things? Why? We can see those things in books. It's not that we know anything more worth knowing from seeing them in reality. Nor is it simply that we want to have experiences, because we can't help but have experiences wherever we are, so the travel experiences aren't so distinguished. It really is a bit of a problem. I hope I can solve it before I go off on my next trip. Another person in the room: Kristin, from Sydney. She's also a good sort and we hung around together at the hostel - it's always good to find an English speaker you can talk to.
20/05/2018 (Sunday)
Another girl joined us in our room today: Yoalla (sp? It's Aztec) from the US out of Mexico. She had a sad story of having her luggage stolen from the last hostel, leaving her with just her wallet, phone, and documents which she was carrying with her. What a huge inconvenience, and we all feel sympathy for her plight, but there's not much we can do to help. This afternoon I went for a longish walk through the forest I can see out the window. Pleasant enough, but not really that interesting. There was a village at the top of the hill that was quite fast asleep. I tried to get down to the water's edge of a small stream but the sides were too steep and high and very well-guarded by thick entangled thorny bushes. I could only find a way down beside what seemed to be - from what I could understand from an active screen monitor behind it - a water quality monitoring station, which was an odd thing to find there. I suspect now that there was a water-treatment plant (sewage?) a bit upstream: it looked to have some stirring ponds, but it also looked a bit small. When I got back I read for a while and then went to find more food. Again, not easy. Eventually I settled for a 1/4 pizza and a coffee at Bar Olympia (2.50E.) It was the only thing open.

View from the farmyard
As I was returning I saw Leo leading a yoga class, so I quickly got changed and joined in. Boy, I'm out of practice. Nevertheless, good fun.
21/05/2018 (Monday)
Early this morning (5!) I received the third call from an unknown number, and wondering whether this persistence indicated some urgency or importance, I got up and returned the call. It turned out to be Vodafone with a great new special offer. Bloody hell. Nice easy morning and no problems getting away. The bus got me to the train station without drama and I had a chicken panini and coffee for 4E at the restaurant there. Train to Rome was fine and I arrived in ROME I'm pretty impressed by the hostel actually: everything is neat and tidy and very well organized. The kitchen is so amazing, I had to take a photo of it. My only complaint would be that the showers are a bit small, so that there's not room to change in the shower compartment itself. However, since I was alone in the showers room, it wasn't too bad. Went out for a walk, to buy the train ticket to the airport for tomorrow and intending to find a present for Deb or Helene, but there was nothing that I'd be confident of buying for either of them. Anyway, I found myself at the Burger King on Via Nazionale and decided to have dinner there as well as anywhere. At least there'd be some meat in the burger!
22/05/2018 (Tuesday)
Pretty unpleasant night, since one of the guys was snoring something rotten, and then the people who had to get out early in the morning were ridiculously noisy and inconsiderate. All the travelling went ok, though the wuhan and Guangzhou airports were their typical endless series of passport checks and security scannings. It should surely be possible to arrange things so that a single scanning is done for each passenger. I particularly resented having to submit my fingerprints to the Chinese communist party for their records; and to have the fingerprints taken at point A and associated with my passport only to have that association checked at point B immediately afterwards strikes me as completely absurd. Another improvement might be for announcements on airplanes to be put on the screen as well, since they are almost always inaudible.
24/05/2018 (Thursday)
Arrive in BRISBANE Go straight home to GOLD COAST

Part 1