My July trip to Italy - a quick summary

Loved my trip to Italy this summer (notched up two new countries - San Marino and The Vatican), so I'm going back there December 21-28.

Didn't get to see everything I'd planned for, but still...

Started out in Milan, drove down to Rimini, where I stayed at a very cheap hotel - cheap because the railroad line passed ten meters from the building, a fact suspiciously omitted on the hotel's webpage. The next day, I drove to San Marino - fascinating little place, great Old Town perched on top of a mountain. A bit touristy of course, but still great. Was happy to see that almost every other souvenir shop sold swords, knives, airguns and the likes. So happy in fact, that I bought two gas-driven airguns to smuggle back home.

After a couple of hours in San Marino, I drove on towards Tuscany. I must have missed the highway, because the trip took me ages. Once in Chianciano Terme I found the city to be just one large hotel... This is a spa town with umpteen lodgings and hordes of old people with various pains and aches. It didn't seem like an exciting place for someone like yours truly, but it was fairly close to other towns of much greater historical interest. However I found later that they had a small but cozy Old Town, with a very good restaurant situated just to the left of the parking lot outside the entrance (can't remember its name).

I spent the next few days driving around southeastern Tuscany, visiting several small towns:

* The very cozy little town of Chiusi - where they sold The Herald Tribune and USA Today AND had an internet cafe - oh bliss! They had an interesting Etruscan museum and some nice old houses. A few kilometers outside of town there was a nice little lake, perfect picnic area! A small warning: Some tourist guides wax lyrical about a restaurant in town that serves up traditional Tuscany dishes. I tried it, and it sucked - both the food, the prices and the service.

* Cortona - perched on top of a hillside, with very steep streets, tons of nice old buildings. Fantastic view over the Chiana valley, but the place is teeming with German tourists. I also drove farther up into the hills behind the town and climbed out on a cliff to have an even more fantastic view of the surroundings. Just incredible!

* Montepulciano - ten minutes' drive from Chianciano, only walked around there for an hour or so. Nice Old Town.

* Montalcino - small town on a hillside, with unbelievable view of the surrounding countryside. Old fortress in the middle of town, narrow streets, old churches, the works. Highly recommended.

* Montichiello - tiny, walled, medieval town a few minutes away from Pienza. Fascinating history, nice buildings and very good food at the restaurant immediately to the left when you enter the city gates... the name has escaped my memory... Not sure why, but I really fell for this place.

After touring Tuscany I drove north to Pisa, to meet up with a Norwegian friend of mine. After seeing the Leaning Tower (frankly, there's fairly little else to see in Pisa) we moved on to Florence. The city has lots of art and buildings and all that, but personally I found it a bit dirty, grimy and generally worn down.

We hadn't prebooked tickets, so we never got to see the David statue, but we managed to get in to the enormous art collection of the Ufizzia Gallery to see Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". Huge building with tons of paintings and sculptures. We also saw the Ponte Vecchio, which was absolutely teeming with tourists and vendors hawking fake rolexes. A huge disappointment.

From Florence, we drove down to Rome, where we only had a day and a half. The first day we walked around almost the entire circumference of the Vatican (we later found we'd been a hundred yards from the entrance, but we'd gone off in the wrong direction), then took a taxi to the Spanish steps, which are nice but nothing special. We moved on to the Trevi fountain, which is quite a sight. Bonus points for the entertainment value of watching the brusque guards whose sole job it is to whisk kids away from the water's edge and admonish their parents to look after them. What a job to have... At the Trevi we hooked up with two other Norwegian friends of mine who happened to be in town (we'd discovered this through some idle texting the week before... the world is smaller than you think).

After the Trevi we went to what was for me the highlight of the trip - the Titus Arch and the Collosseum. I'm interested in Ancient history, and since I'd just read a book about Roman generals, I had developed an interest in Titus and his father Vespatian, who built the Collosseum (which was closed that day...grrr...) We looked at the ruins of Forum Romanum - which was also closed - and finished by stuffing our faces with sweet, wonderful Italian ice cream.

The next day we managed to squeeze in a couple of hours at the Vatican art collection, including the Sistine Chapel which I felt was a disappointment. Gloomy, crowdy and with a bunch of fascist guards making sure nobody speaks or takes pictures or generally does anything but breathe and gawp.

We then drove down to Naples, a journey with some very beautiful scenery overlooking lakes and eventually also the ocean. I thought Naples itself was dirty and noisy, but my companion seemed to like it. The day after we arrived we drove out to Pompeii - we missed the exit the first time, the signposting in Italy leaves much to be desired! After finally finding the ruins we spent a couple of hours wandering around. I'd been looking forward to this a lot, having just read a book with lots of pictures and articles from the excavations. Sadly, most of the old artifacts have been shipped off to various museums, so I felt a bit let down by what was left in the actual town. Still, it's a huge area with interesting things to see, and it's an absolute must if you're ever in Naples.

Another absolute must is the Island of Capri, which we went to in the afternoon. Unbeknownst to us (and apparently to our guide books!) the Italians had started to close the famous Blue Grotto at 3PM, so we never got to see that, but the two hours we spent in the tiny little port town were still magic. We had lunch at a restaurant way up in the hillside, where we sat on a terrace overlooking the sea. The blue water, the sight of Naples and Vesuvius across the bay, the white houses covering the hillside around... very purdy, very relaxing.

After Naples we drove all the way up to Milan, where I'd been in March. I strolled around in the Cathedral square and the city streets. I don't know what it is about Milan... there are many places in Italy with far more history and art, but I still feel very much at home there, and have since I first set foot in it. I can't explain it, I just like the place.

There's tons more I could write about of course, but I just can't be bothered to do another long travel story... I've already booked a trip to Rome for December, maybe I'll give you a more detailed report from that.

Elections 2005: Republicans GAIN

A good example of the brainless incompetence and liberal bias of the national media is the coverage given to Tuesday's elections. Most newspapers and TV news have portrayed the results as a grand victory for the Democrats, and made connections to the president's low approval rating. Some have seemed almost giddy at the expectation of Republican losses in the upcoming 2006 midterm elections to Congress.

Now, there's no question that the president is struggling, and there are several good reasons why the Republicans may very well suffer significant losses next year. But Tuesday is not one of them.

Allow me to summarize: There were two gubernatorial elections this year, one in New Jersey and the other in Virginia. In New Jersey, the Republican candidate managed to reduce the Democratic margin of victory from 14% to 9% compared to the last election. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN. (In addition, polls consistently show Republican State Senator Tom Kean jr leading all Democrats except acting governor Codey for next year's federal Senate election.)

In Virginia, the Democratic margin was up by an insignificant 1%, and the Republicans managed to wrestle the position of Lieutenant Governor away from the Dems. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN. Some have looked at Virginia's history of voting for Republican presidents and concluded that therefore, they should also have won the governor's race. The unpopularity of the president is cited, and some even claim that his quick drop-in on Monday lost the race for the Reps. The problem with this theory is that the Republican candidates for Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor did significantly better than Jerry Kilgore, their candidate for governor. That points very clearly to this being a case of individual differences in the way voters regarded the respective candidates, not some general punishment of the president. As I've pointed out, the Republicans GAINED a statewide office in Virginia this year. We have to remember that Jerry Kilgore ran a hopeless campaign, got in a tangle over the use of Hitler in an ad, lost the TV debate against his Democratic opponent and was opposed by a tremendously popular Governor - Mark Warner.

There were 39 statewide referendums in 7 states Tuesday. Much has been made of the results from California, but again - these were liberal victories in a liberal state. Many with a much smaller margin of victory than Democratic candidates routinely post in elections. So how is this a Republican loss? Two of the proposals defeated (79 & 80) were clearly liberal, and yet they were voted down decisively. In Ohio, a Republican state, four proposals initiated by Democratic groups were rejected. Again, no surprise, and no warning signal to Republicans.

Finally, we have the local elections. Most of them were of little interest in terms of judging the relative strength between the two parties, but there are two results that stand out. Firstly, the Republican candidate in San Diego won a clear victory over the Democratic candidate. Secondly, Republican mayor Mike Bloomberg won re-election with the widest margin ever posted in a New York City election. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN.

To summarize:
* These were local elections, mainly decided by local factors.
* Status quo was maintained in the gubernatorial elections, but the REPUBLICANS GAINED in share of votes cast, and the REPUBLICANS GAINED one statewide office.
* Neither party managed to change policies through referendums in states where they are the minority party, but the REPUBLICANS came closest.
* REPUBLICANS made slight gains in the local elections.