Goodbye to Italy

When I left Elisa's place in Fiesole it was snowing, although the drop down to Firenze promptly turned the snow into cold rain. A friend of Elisa's had got sick so she was, apparently, unable to pay me on the spot for the extra hours of work I had accumulated over the time WWOOFing at her place. I left my account details and she said she would put the money in in the next few days.

The bus ride San Gimignano was a bit crazy. Two cars passed the bus really fast and only half a minute later one of the cars was stopped on the Autostrada and just a little further up the second car was stopped on the side of the Autostrada as well with the driver trying to push the car in the rain. Only a few minutes on, there was localised snow that caused a Porsche to flip off the road and crash into the trees in the creek next to the Autostrada. Two more cars had run into each other a little further ahead from the snow as well.


I was in San Gimignano in 1994 with Su and David and in 2001 WWOOFing. Marco Arduini and family, my WWOOF hostsfrom 2001, live about 7km out of town and I remember the way so I decided to get off my ass and walk rather than asking to be picked up. Felt wonderful marching along by my self in the Italian county-side.

About a third of the way there, one of the three wheeled motor bike/ute type things stopped and, to my surprise, out hops Marco's son, Nicolas. So my pack and I ended up in the back of this little motor bike/ute thing watching the country-side fall away behind us. The poor little thing scarcely made it up some of the hills. I suspect it's engine wasn't more than 100cc so I guess it is forgiven :P

The rustic transport with the wind blowing in my hair and the road falling away behind me...ah freedom!


As the visit to Marco and family was a last minute addition to my plans, I only had the chance to stay one day but it was great catching up with them all after 6 years.

Fiesole - Italy

I find my self, once again, at Elisa Grandis' place WWOOFing as I did in 2001.

Ruth has returned to Australia after our 2 months together.

After leaving Switzerland on the 5th of January, we travelled by train(using our Eurail passes) to Naopli in southern Italy. The trip got a bit complicated after our train though the Swiss alps stopped, on the Italian side of the border but before Milano, in some railway siding for 15 minutes, causing us to arrive in Milano at the scheduled departure time of our connecting train. As soon as our feet hit the concrete of Milano Centrale we were running flat out with our big packs. Not one of Ruth's favorite pass times considering she hates both being late and running :)

The Italian rail system is far less organised when compared to the German or Swiss networks. Neither the Internet sites or our ticket had listed the platform on which our connection would be, or in our case should have been. However in Switzerland and Germany, not only are the trains on time every time, the platform information and more is on both the Internet and your ticket.

Despite not knowing the platform number, we found the right platform without stopping running. Didn't even get the reward of seeing the train moving off down the platform. So there we were in Milano with the last connection to Napoli gone. Fun :s

We managed to get a replacement ticket on a slow night train that we had to change from to get to Napoli. We arrived in Napoli at 5am rather than 11pm the night before.

The frustration of all this was ameliorated by us having six reclining seats to lay down on in a cabin on our own for the night trip. I managed 6 or so hours sleep incredibly. Ruth wasn't so lucky.

My sister, Jody, lent us here apartment in Napoli for two days before we left for Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Our time in Napoli was enjoyable and, once again, we were treated to sunshine and blue skies for the better part of a week.

We spent six days in a beautiful holiday/B&B place about 4km out of Positano. Thanks to my brother and sister, this cost us nothing other than food as it is family owned.


Ruth and I enjoyed greatly the wonderful views from our room(below) and everywhere at the villa.


We also took the 4km walk, along the thin and windy Amalfi coast road that is perched on the side of the cliff, into Positano twice. From Positano we climbed many stairs to the little village of Montepertuso and more stairs to the village's name sake, a huge hole in the rock of the Amalfi mountain range.
If one could call it a mountain range as it is really the edge of the Italian peninsula pushing up at the eastern edge and dropping very steeply into the Mediterranean Sea.



We spent the last two days of our time in southern Italy in Napoli again with my sister. We dinner Jody and Kimon's father, Michaele, and his family who live less than 10 minutes walk from Jody's little apartment.

Our trip from Napoli back up Italy was painless and fast as we caught an ESI(EuroStarItalia) train directly to Firenze.

We were hoping to stay with Elisa Grandis but her B&B was full and she did not have room for us to pitch my tent so we ended up in a little B&B, "Le Cannelle", in the ancient pre- Roman town of Fiesole for two nights. Fiesole is perched about 6km or so out of Firenze it self and dates from before the Romans captured it in 60 B.C.

Le Cannelle was nice but at €80 per night it was not an option for long. Ruth had to be at the Firenze airport at about 5am which left us with no options other than a taxi considering the buses to the airport didn't start until after we needed to be there.

Elisa offered me WWOOFing at her place for the 6 days I was going to be in Firenze which worked nicely as Ruth and I were able to stay there for our last evening together before getting up at 4:00am and catching a taxi to the airport.

The last few days have I have felt rather flat. Ruth leaving has weighed heavily on my mood.
Although I am beginning to feel a little better with a few days of work behind me.

I have been really getting stuck into my Spanish lessons, doing twice as much per day(1 hour).

For me, I feel the trip I planned so many months ago has finally begun. Coming to Europe with Ruth was wonderful and I do not regret a bit of it but the trip I planned from long before I finished high school was a solo WWOOFing trip to see more of the world. Just the change to solo, despite still being in Italy, has made a big move in the direction of that dream.

The next time you hear from me I will have achieved both of those aims.

Oberwil- Basel Land - Switzerland

Ruth and I left Belgium on the 6th of December for Hannover in Germany. We travelled overland using our Eurail passes. We took an "ICE"(Inter City Express) from Brussels to Köln. Changed trains to another ICE that took us the rest of the way to Hannover.

In Hannover we stayed with Lisa Seiler, a girl that Ruth and I know from her time in Australia on exchange last year. Despite being in the middle of exams, Lisa arranged time to show us around the city in the evenings. Lisa's mother brought home many special German foods for us to try. We had a good time in Hannover despite having only two full days. Well I guess I should mention that we made good use of the last night! Lisa and a class mate from her school, Anna, took us out on the town. We saw the new town hall(only 100 or so years old) nicely light up and walked to a big lake, the Maschsee, that was built to help the unemployment ratio improve. The wind blew so hard that there were waves over a foot high on the lake and the beer bottle that I was drinking from was making a whistling sound. With many more fun things in the night we got back to Lisa's place at 3 am.

We spent seven days in a small community called Prinzhöfte about an hour from Bremen with a good friend of mine, Alexander Grote. The night we arrived there was a Christmas party on which everyone in the community (about 20 adults and 8 or so children at the moment)
came to. Wonderful food and lots of it, stories, a chemistry/fireworks show and a stack of games. A wonderful evening in all.

Got a close look at six 3Mw Vestas Wind turbines on 80m towers. Very impressive! Quite too. Living at the base of one would be a bit annoying but acceptable. These are BIG turbines! Just the rotors weigh 35 tons. The Generation house on the top of the tower is bigger than a semi-trailer! They are Huge.


Took part in a North American Indian sweat lodge ceremony along with twelve or so other people from the Prinzhöfte community. Tobias, a close friend of Alexander's, was the ceremony master. Having spent eight years with a North American Indian tribe, he was able to share with us many traditional rituals and ceremonies. Between Tobias' chanting, the herbs and plans burnt on the glowing rocks by his wife and the penetrating heat of the steam, one was able to relax wonderfully. Upon completion of the ceremonies and chanting, jumping in the nearly zero degree stream twenty metres away forced reality to return in a rush! Laying in the fallen leaves of the Beech and oaks trees, clothed in naught but my underwear...heart raced...could feel every muscle in my body! Absolutely and totally ALIVE! Memorable to say the least.
The air can't have been more than 2 degrees C. Got to -2 later that night.
We shared a big meal together, drank and talked until the early hours of the morning.
I took advantage of my down sleeping bag and slept outside.
Body felt wonderful for days after.


Switzerland was 6 hours away by high speed train. The "ICE" trains are great. Really quiet, fast and smooth. Our Eurail passes have already paid for themselves nearly twice over.

We have been staying with Gisiger/Bailey family since the 16th of December. We have been slitting our time between site seeing and Christmas celebrations with the family.

The Pilatus mountain just out of Luzern was incredible. Despite a clear day in Basel, Luzern was cloud covered. Caught the cable gondola to the top. The Pilatus, at 2132m, had it's head well and truly out of the cloud. We could see some of Switzerland's highest alps(3000-4600m+) poking up out of the cloud. Some as close as 40km, others as far as 100km on the Italian border.
Ruth and I hiked part way back down the mountain though the snow and the forest to the little village of Kriens just out of Luzern.

We have spent a little time in Basel itself. Some of the architecture here is quite nice although I am a little tired of looking at Churches and other common buildings in every city we visit. So, for me at least, the trip to the Pilatus and later to the alps was more than welcome. We spent 3 days in the alps at a little place called Realp near Andermatt. The train trip to get there was spectacular to say the least. I think it is best described by a few of the many pictures I took on the trip.

The snow in the alps was terrible. They have not had less in 30 years. Never-the-less we decided to make use of what little snow there was and hired snowboards for 3 days. Had a good time despite rain coming in on the third day and making what was left of the snow unusable.
Within 12 hours of us leaving, half a metre of snow had fallen. Bad timing on our part I guess.

Everywhere I go people are muttering, "hasn't been this dry for years" or "can't remember it being so warm" and so on! Seriously everywere! In Germany I was looking at post cards in a few little towns and most of the cards show the village white at this time of year and yet the first snow we saw was in the swiss alps! Even there in the alps the temperatures were very warm. About 5°C on New Year's Eve. At the same time last year it was -28°C.

We leave for Italy in two days. We plan to spend a few days in Naples with my sister, Jody, after which a week in Positano on the Amalfi coast.

Hope everyone's year is off to a good start and the silly season is starting to calm down. Good luck for 07.

Until next time...
Oli Holmgren