While Treviso was only my home for a short while when I was 18, I have visited many times. It was the home of my father and grandparents before they emigrated like thousands of other Europeans post-war to Australia, and has been the place that inspired my second cousins that still live there to write…
Category: Italy
Wandering in Wonder
If we were to believe headlines doing the rounds this European summer, Venice has been “ruined”, “destroyed” and “overrun” with tourists. The world has been stuck at home for the past few years. Do you blame them for wanting to start exploring again? Yes, it seems like there are even more cheap souvenir stalls, more…
Lakeside
Probably thanks to George Clooney, the first Italian holiday lake that comes to mind for most non-Europeans is Lake Como. Bigger however at 370km2, less pricey, and arguably with more things to do, is Lake Garda, situated across three regions of northern Italy; Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige. The coast of the lake is dotted…
The Ossuary of Solferino
From the outside, the Ossuary of Solferino looks like any other small church in the Italian countryside, reached by a long tree-lined pathway. Inside, lies a grim reminder of the tragedy of war. While the Catacombs of Paris which we visited a few weeks ago, housed the bones of thousands of Parisians sourced from many…
Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata.
On January 31, 2023 Cam and I celebrated our twenty-year wedding anniversary. I refuse to stop celebrating milestones in our lives in a memorable way. Every big birthday, every big anniversary needs to be a joyous, memorable occasion. Otherwise, it’s 18th birthday party, 21st birthday party, wedding, dead. Non mi piace. We knew we’d be…
Under Brescia
The northern Italian city of Brescia has an inferiority complex. Despite being, alongside neighbouring town Bergamo, Italy’s “Capital of Culture 2023”; regardless of the wealth of artistic treasures housed in the city’s Santa Giulia museum; even though one of the largest castle complexes in all of Italy sits on the summit of Brescia’s city, overlooking…
“Le cheval mange une orange”
“The horse is eating an orange”. I have turned to Duo Lingo these past 2 weeks, cramming in as much French as I can before our next trip to Europa. Looks like comms are set to be a breeze, especially when we spark up conversations around equine or citrus content! It’s been 3.5 years since…
The Caramello Koala Apartment Rating System
5 weeks. 6 countries. 8 apartments. We booked and paid for these places months ago without knowing anything about most of the cities we were visiting. You scan the pics on Booking.com, check there is a washing machine and that it’s in a part of town close to transport and a supermarket. But did we…
Marostica, Aquileia, Trieste.
We popped into three Northern Italian towns we’d never visited before. Here are some mini snapshots… Marostica Where is all the second hand stuff? I was convinced I’d find so many little relics and dust-collecting nic-nacs to add to my “old stuff” collection at home. Most “old stuff” in Australia I’ve found at op shops…
Buona Befana!
In Italy’s North (Veneto and Friuli) Christmas and New Year festivities are “all wrapped up” (to quote a much-used advertising slogan at this time of year) on January 6, The Epiphany. This is when the 3 Wise Men (the magi) were said to have travelled to Bethlehem to bring gifts to baby Jesus. So, to…
Auguri da Venezia!
While it’s a bucket list dream for many to see in the New Year on Sydney Harbour for one of the biggest NYE fireworks displays in the world, Venice was our choice of party city to celebrate the start of 2020. “Get down to Piazza San Marco early” warned Frederico our apartment owner “or you…
La Serenissima
I’ve already written about the way I feel about Venice from our last trip to La Serenissima (the most serene Venezia) in 2013. I’ve always trained in from Treviso in the past, but this time with New Year’s Eve and Cam’s 40th birthday set to fall across our Venice days, it seemed like a great…
Horrible Histories
When your kids’ favourite show includes segments on “Groovy Greeks” and “Rotten Romans” (if you have kids in upper Primary, you’d know “Horrible Histories”), it’s a given that visiting ancient ruins is going to be a hit. And yes, even though we’re in Italy, there are ruins of the Roman AND Greek variety. The temples…
“The Shame of Italy”
For Year 12 Italian, we studied Carlo Levi’s 1945 novel “Cristo si e Fermato a Eboli”. Levi was an Italian writer and anti-fascist activist who was exiled to a remote area, now known as Basilicata, in Italy’s South in 1935. There, he encountered people living in poverty unknown and unheard of in Italy’s north. Whole…
The best meal of my life.
As a super-organised planner extraordinaire, having two nights un-accounted for in our trip was supposed to be a “hells yeah, I’m all free and breezy, and can be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl” moment. But as we approached those two nights, where we needed to stay somewhere to break up the ten hour drive between Florence…
Go with the Flo.
There are so many reasons why you’d want to go to Florence, and just one why you wouldn’t. Pros? The art. The food. The history. The celebrations. The desire to create, and be surrounded, by beauty. The con? Tourists. We’d just come from 2 weeks in Umbria, where we’d often be the only people in…
The Token Traveller 