There is a saying in Italian. Il dolce far niente. The sweet act of doing nothing. That’s precisely what I’ve done with the pictures from our trip to Italy. Until now.

Here it is. The FIRST post on our trip to Italy. I’m not going to wait until everything’s typed or all the galleries are made; it will never get done that way. So, these Italy posts aren’t going to come all at once (and maybe not even in order). There’s an “Italy” link and right over there –> and the related posts plug-in seems to do a pretty good job. You can figure it out.

Our trip: We drove from Germany down to the Amalfi Coast, and back, over 15 days. It went like this: our house > Garmish, Germany > Venice > Pisa > Sant’Agnello (Amalfi Coast) > Rome > Pisa > Garmish > home.

Driving in Italy is crazy. We saw cars driving three abreast in two lanes, passing on the right, driving on sidewalks, making left turns from the far right lane into oncoming traffic and many other acts of stupidity (or bravery depending on your perspective). AND no one used their turn signals. It was like we were back in America. (Man, do I love and appreciate German drivers.)

A couple photos from the passenger seat:

With the exception of a few, like the highway from Pisa to Venice, most major roads in Italy are toll roads. I intended to keep a tally of how much we spent, but quickly lost track because there were so many tolls. Plus a toll thru Austria.

Couple things we did learn:
1. At the toll plaza, go to the lane with the hand and the coin on the sign. That means there is an attendant to give change. Otherwise you’ll get stuck behind the guy who’s money keeps getting rejected by the machine. Or worse you’ll be that guy—frantically throwing money at the machine while the drivers behind you lay on the horn. Italians love to honk.

2. Google Maps sucks at estimating times. Really sucks. It seems to do okay up here, but in Italy it always took minimum 1.5 times longer than Google said it would. We didn’t run into any major traffic jams and don’t exactly stick to the speed limit either.

Driving has certain advantages; I’m glad we did it. But I think next time we’ll just hop a Ryanair flight.

M O R E   P H O T O S
From Our Italian road trip. Shot all over Italy June 5-19, 2011

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I’ve scrapped Naples from our itinerary. For some reason I hadn’t booked it yet. Maybe it was because I’m hard-pressed to name anything that’s in Naples.

I finally got to reading the Naples section of Rick Steve’s book. He says: Napes has more than one million people (one third are unemployed), is home of the Camorra crime family, has almost no open spaces or parks and is “Italy’s grittiest, most polluted, most crime-ridden city.” I get the feeling there lot places in Naples you don’t want to be, and you’ll likely get robbed. Not exactly a stellar endorsement, Rick. So we’re going to stay a little south of Pompeii in Sorrento. Maybe take a boat ride along the Amalfi Coast or go diving.

What IS there to do Naples? The Museo Archeological. All the artifacts, statues, mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum are here. Pretty cool, but here’s the real interesting part: the Gabinetto Segreto (Secret Room). This room houses all the erotic and pornographic statues, frescoes, etc. According to Rick Steve’s book, this includes frescoes that functioned as a menu of services from a brothel, a statue of a goat being sodomized by a satyr, a faun playfully pulling the sheet off a woman only to discover she’s a he and a bunch of stone phalluses.

Here’s a little more on Wikipedia. Interesting how it’s been open and closed many times and how it was only viewable by men for some time.

WARNING: DO NOT do a Google image search (unless you like gay porn).

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