It’s been 3 truly extraordinary (in every sense of the word) months since we finished our amazing time in Italy. And before we embark on our next, vastly different, adventure (heads up for Spicy Xmas!) we thought we best get some final pics from our last week in LUV with Italy up.

From a Tale of Two Countries in Umbria, we drove through Modena for lunch and onto Lake Garda, where we spent 4 nights in the most incredible villa (for 9 of us to celebrate a friend’s 40th) overlooking the pool, to the vines, to the town, lake AND mountains. We enjoyed sunsets at the house, went for a quick jog to lunch on Sermione, had a biblical moment when forced to line up 2 x 2 to board a hydrofoil, got treated to a lake cruise for Lea’s (early) birthday where we saw all the sights on the Lake including the nudist beach (reminding us, it’s never what you’re hoping to see), took a day drive out to the enchanting Soave and saw a snake slithering around our pool. And, yes, this was a real snake, it was too big to be a trouser/boardie snake given pool and lake temperatures (we had aforementioned beach for reference).

From Garda we headed to Venice. Having started our drive with under 2000km on the car back in Salerno, we ended up dropping it off on the Venetian lagoon (which was NOT the plan) with over 4000km on the dial and in desperate need of a new clutch and some TLC. Jokes on them for forcing the extra insurance on us. Along the way, we stopped briefly in Padua to see the Scrovegni Chapel and ingested yet another plate of bresola and mozzarella “salad”.

Venice was as magical as ever, and crowds appear at least to pre-COVID levels if not greater since our last time in 2015. We cicchetti’ed our way around the main islands, had a lovely dinner on a canal, enjoyed our view of the Rialto bridge from our room, loaded up on glass Santas, drank take away spritzes in Murano and sweated through a delicious seafood feast on the spectacular islands of Burano.

Our final breakfast was spectacular, trading rounds of cicchetti and wines at a brilliant and super popular little place near our hotel. We then caught a boat to the airport, got free negronis shoved in our faces, offloaded the last of our euros at the bar and headed for Dubai. It’s worth, again, noting how good the Moet bar is at the Dubai airport lounge. The same lovely gentleman did such a good job at keeping all our (6) glasses topped up with vintage Moet that we were even compelled to leave a tip! The final leg to Perth was amazing from what we remember……

In contrast to Campagna (and to be fair we only saw the coast), Abruzzo and Umbria brought the LUV straight up. A long drive from Salerno (in our car from our 5^th attempt) we stopped off in the idyllic town of Pescoconstazo and although too late for lunch due to some car hire issues we won’t talk about (anymore) we sure as hell had some time for a wine and chill. And what a change, there was free parking, the wine shop owner brought us out free cheese and hams because it was too nice outside not to and we got free pasta with our truffle purchases! In Civita di Bagnoregio, while buying stamps, the lovely lady asked if I’d like to try liqueur without even batting an eyelid…of course I said “SI” and was treated to 3 shots of local hooch, not what I was expecting but it was great. Lea tried the local nuts instead. This place was so different our hotel, built into the cliffs had a cellar attached with an honour system!

We stayed in 4 beautiful towns through this region, including in a 1500 year old house where we were ironically upgraded to the “Camera dei bambini” (kids room) in Santo Stefano di Sessanio, were privileged to be able to spend a night sans tourist on the outcrop that is Civita di Bagnoregio and loved the hill towns of Spello and Gubbio. We visited twice as many towns over again than this, including Assisi where Lea started making religious puns, so I had to tell her I was having nun of it and to stop being a cheeky monky.

Our final night of this intense section of the trip (where everything went to plan!!) was a top the hill in San Marino. An amazing place if you’re in the area, we scored a new passport stamp (so this should probably be A Tale of Three Countries) and enjoyed the most spectacular sunset of the trip from our vantage point at dinner.

Some key take aways from this part of our trip:

• We were a bit taken aback by some of the commentary of the North v South of Italy, but now having been to both, understand that stereotypes are based on truth

• Still running at 100% bidets (and 0% use)
• Driving is like an old cartridge game where speed limits are for authenticity and they hadn’t programmed in the indicator lights yet. You’re just driving along worried about other cars trying to kill you and not trying to drive through a hairpin turn off a cliff and then BANG there’s a bike!! Or a dog! Or a chicken! Or a goat! Or an old lady making pasta! And according to the signs we’re supposed to also be worried about deer and bears!!
• The pleasure derived from paying a 3€ parking fee with small denomination copper coins you may have been carrying for up to 11 years cannot be underestimated!

As no mice nor men planned our trip, we couldn’t have expected things to go so awry…

Having felt LUV in Lazio, it soon became clear why we left Campagna out of our trip’s anagram. We’d have been better off using the ‘C’ from Campagna with ‘U’ from Umbria ‘N’ from Napoli and ‘T’ from Tuscany to make something like….CorrUpTioN.

But before we get to all that, we spent an amazing 2 days in Rome to start our journey, 8 years since we last visited on Z2A, and the eternal city had hardly changed a bit. Excited at starting our bidet count on day 1, we set out to explore the city, and although Rome wasn’t built in a day, it was seen in one. With brand new shoes on and in 36 degree heat we wasted no time to wander ~20km around all the sites, taste street water from all the aqueducts and eat all of the pastas. James got to see the Trevi fountain in full use for the first time, competing with the work of art with his own waterworks, Lea got swiftly reintroduced to the Italian tradition of BYO toilet seats (clearly something we don’t have to thank the Romans for) AND we got to tour the basement of the Colosseum by night! At the end of the day, we learned 2 things: what does someone who hasn’t had enough cheese yet order as a wine to go with their cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta)….Pecorino of course; and that James was already regretting bringing white ‘anything’ to wear.

From Lazio we made our way (slowly) to Campagna for a meticulously planned, busy, three days including Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Positano and hopefully Amalfi with some very dear friends. Then came:

• Our train to Naples unexpectantly (at the time…not so much now) stopped for over an hour;
• Our friends’ ferry from Sicily was delayed by 3 hours;
• We waited for them in our per hour paid chauffeured car before the were let off the boat (over an hour after docking);
• We got bumped from our hotel on arrival after carrying our bags up three flights of stairs;
• Our Sorrento restaurant booking didn’t want us;
• The restaurant we ended up at had exorbitant cover charges, added plates onto our table and demanded extra service fees;
• Our ferries from Sorrento to Positano, and Positano to Salerno were both cancelled due to a light breeze;
• We reverse bartered for a car as prices started at 120€, then went to 160€, 200€ then over 300€ as people got desperate and realised why there are no Ubers, the ferries don’t run and the buses only run once an hour from next to the taxi rank where the drivers knowingly wait;
• People in Sorrento ironically said “nice shirt” in response to my lemony attempts to fit in;
• I woke up in Positano realising the water I’d been hydrating with during the night was, in fact, limoncello;
• We were refused our first rental car in Salerno and then our second booking because it was too close to lunch!

Many of these situations make you realise what it spells it you remove the ‘L’ and shift the first ‘A’ to the end of Amalfi. It should have dawned on us earlier that some of these situations could have been easily remedied under the table…with cash! Not what you were thinking…although that would probably work too.

All in all, the lemons of the Sorrento peninsula were leaving a bit of a sour taste in our mouths, but, thankfully we were having such a great time with our friends(!)… And while waiting in the rain for a bus, one of them sprayed a full bottle of beer all over an unimpressed German lady in an act of physical comedy reminiscent of Mr Bean, thus making it all worth it!! NB: Some poor bloke next to us at dinner also had an entire glass of beer poured ALL over him by a waitress while on a postcard-perfect date night. I probably should have added that to the above list, but we laughed so hard it really can’t go onto our shit list…maybe his, although he handled it like a complete champion!

Having said all that, we had an amazing time! A lovely night in Sorrento with beautiful friends, finished on our balcony watching the super-blue moon rise and set, 2 great days with them wondering around Positano and spending time on yet more balconies with sea and mountain views, street drinking and laughing at the absurdity of the place before a very early and (as you may have guessed) very expensive taxi to Salerno to pick up our pre-booked car (see above) before continuing our adventure!

Some key take aways from this part of our trip:

• It is a striking contrast that in Rome, a city built slowly and meticulously over centuries, the road pavers still seem a bit cobbled together;
• The plethora of Maccas that seem to have popped up recently are surely an homage to the ancient Romans and their arches;
• It still feels ironic to be chased by so many wasps so near to the Vatican;
• Salads mean what they say: tomato salad in Rome = bowl of tomatoes; lettuce salad in Naples = plate of lettuce.