Saturday 16 May

Another 6am start. Hot day – up to 30 degrees C after rain being forecast .

Breakfast quotes from two elderly fluffy bunnies: “I’ve no idea what’s going on” (everyone has an itinerary and this is repeated the day/night before) and “The highlight of today is to visit some cemetery”. This was said dismissiely/sarcastically from a Canadian talking about Monte Cassino where many Canadians are buried.

We have an interesting man on the bus. He takes no pictures, talks non-stop during the commentary about his days in the army and obsessively plays with his bag pack. Today he blames the hotel for losing his pyjamas as he leaves the hotel – we are all on the bus. The hotel does a search of their laundry but no pyjamas. We still sit on the bus. Annelies gets the hotel to search his room (whilst we sit on the bus) and there they are …….. under his pillow!!! Who would have thought to look there?

A long drive today – from Fienza (north) to Sorrento (south) but it flies by thanks to the high quality of the main road which is mostly straight with smooth curves. The driver can maintain a high average speed.

We stop at the Commonwealth cemetery at Monte Cassino. I have been here twice now and still haven’t made it into the monastery. In 2006 the guide stuffed it up and delivered us to the monastery one minute before the doors closed for prayers. Am I fated to never get inside? Just imagine if I came a third time, got inside and an 8.7 earthquake hit burying me in rubble. Today it was hot – 30 degrees C.

We arrive in Naples and on to Sorrento. As Annelies says, this part of the trip is all about “scenery, scenery, scenery”.

We visit an inlaid wood factory and shop. We buy a Lazy Susan which is being shipped home. So it’s a carpet from Istanbul, Venetian glass and now a Lazy Susan. At least we didn’t buy the beautiful inlaid table at $NZ48,000!

We stay in La Pace (Peace), room 216. This is a ridiculous room as it is on street level (literally) with the big doors and balcony opening on to a back street. We won’t be able to leave a window open in the night here (and we are here for the next two nights). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely hotel; it’s just that our room is hopeless in its location.

Tina finds that once again there will be NO laundry. Italy is turning out to be a disaster for laundry. No luck in Monecatini and as this is our last two night stop it looks like the laundry will have to wait to France. There is a laundry menu list and an interesting item to be washed are “brass” (sic).

We are taken by mini-bus (the bus couldn’t make it through the steep and narrow city streets) to Ristorante Zi‘ntonio Mare which sits over the water of the Marina Grande. A delightful venue, great views and a good menu (more suited to Tina than me although I was given two substitutes):
- seafood salad (good variety)
- pizza (this area is the home of pizza and has a pizza university (!) Think of the course names, degree titles!
- clams and spaghetti
- salad, baby tomatoes and fresh fish
- lemon dessert (this area produces HUGE lemons
- more limoncello – I have TWO as the waiter felt sorry for me being the only male at a table with 5 women.!!!

The highlight of the evening was provided by Sasha and Lisa-Marie who outlined Canada’s contribution to great cuisine. It is called “Beer Can Chicken”. Here’s how it goes:
1. Chug (not drink, you must “chug”) a ½ can of beer
2. Stick can up “arse” (Sasha’s term – the more sensitive of you might like to use the word “bottom”)
3. Stand chicken upright on lidded BBQ
4. Have one burner on and stand chicken on an unlit burner
5. Cook for 1½ - 2 hours
6. Check chicken regularly to ensure it has not fallen over and chug a beer when you do so!
According to them the chicken just falls off the bone. Tina is going to try it next summer.

Musings: Isn’t it great to be a male when it comes to a group using toilets on the road? Women form a queue whilst guys just cruise on in. Everywhere we go, every famous place the pattern is repeated. It’s not rocket science, why don’t they have more toilets for women?

Quiz time! I am typing this days later in Paris and the hotel gets the Guardian daily (wonderful). Variety mag has called Lars von Trier’s film “Antichrist” “a big, fat art-film fart”. Here are 8 other harsh reviews (with the year of the film). You are to give the film name. Highest score gets a prize.

1. 1958 “Another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares”
2. 1967 “As pointless as it is lacking in taste”
3. 1970 “An insult to intelligence, an affront to sensibility and an abomination to the eye”
4. 1971 “An elegiac, necrophilic, fascist love poem”
5. 1979 “Emotionally obtuse and intellectually empty. Not so much an epic account if a gruelling war as an incongruous, extravagant monument to artistic self-defeat”
6. 1992 “Maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen”
7. 1996 “Not funny enough, or dramatic enough, or sexy enough, or bad enough, to qualify as entertainment in an category”
8. 2006 There are inflatable toys that are livelier than Stone, but how can you tell the difference? … is not an erotic thriller. It’s taxidermy”