If you can’t see the audio player, you’ll have to view it on my blog. But it’s only a minute long, and not that exciting, so you can probably skip it, unless you want to hear my impression of a throat-cancer victim.

If you hadn’t gathered already, I’m big and imposing, like two conjoined Pavarotti Siamese twins. I’m a fairly prolific person; I don’t do things on a small scale. When I take photos, I take a lot of photos (and I’m getting quite good — proof below!) When I play games, I play them for hours and hours (immersion is key!) When I write, I write thousands of words; carefully thought-out, heart-felt and well-researched words. The great thing is, no matter what I turn my attention to, I love doing it! There’s a reason excellence is one goal we all strive for: it feels damn good when we finally get there. No one ever feels good after finishing half-assed job, right? But when you put down your paint brush or pencil or microphone and you’ve done good, it feels great!

The problem with typing on this kind of scale is that it causes repetitive strain injury (RSI) in my fingers. You just can’t sit at a desk and type for 12-16 hours a day without repercussions. Fortunately it’s not permanent — yet. Normally I catch it, slowly creeping up: I take a break, go for a walk; stretch my fingers and my lungs (don’t get me started on my cardiac fitness…) Historically, I’ve interspersed my computational orgies with travel, but this year all of my trips have been scuppered! Three of them! Wales, Ireland and Scotland; February, March and April. I hope to make it to Ireland later in the year, but until then, I’m stuck here in front of my computer, sucking on my sore fingers (which is surprisingly soothing, even when you do it yourself).

Can you believe the trip to Wales was cancelled because the incredibly cute girl pulled out at the last minute? Usually that’s my job. After I’d booked some hotels! Man, she had the Welsh accent and all… (Obvious when you think about it, considering she’s from Wales, but still, a wistful sigh is required at this point.)

So today, instead of solid, insightful prose, you get a few pretty photos and some audio tomfoolery. My travel stories are almost up to date (with the huge exception of America), so it’s actually time to write about my most recent trip: Italy! I’ve been wanting to write about it for ages — strike while the iron is hot! — but I’ve been a very good, patient boy and kept to the chronology. I should do America — I owe it to all of you lovely Americans — but after all of the ‘how I blew it with yet another girl’ stories from the last few weeks, I want to write about something else.

You get 3 photos. Two beautiful landscapes and one idiot. If you can correctly identify the odd one out, I’ll give you a cookie.

Florence:

Venice:

Venice again:

Also this month:

• More guest blogs! One of which I am promised will involve indecent exposure; another will be far too intelligent for any of us to understand (damn doctorate students)!
  
• Why Americans rock! A long-overdue piece that will probably come towards the end of the month.
• Things I don’t like. So far I’ve been fairly fluffy and easy-going; philosophically benevolent, even. Now I’m going to write some slightly more angry entries (in the absence of sex, hitting a keyboard angrily and with gusto is about as good as it gets. Help.)
• And much, much more! How about another ‘Pirate Special‘, but this time… ‘The Animal Special’! Watch this space as Seb gets down right bestial.

This photo was used in another entry on my blog, but I’m going to write a little bit more about it — and, also, you might want to just look at pretty photos, rather than trawl through a whole blog entry. Though, there’s a podcast, if you want to listen to a Brit rambling on about not much in particular, and another pretty photo of Venice.

Anyway, the photo, taken in October 2008 from the banks of the river Arno in Florence. I think I’m standing on Ponte Vecchio, unique in its age and incredibly good condition. Famously, Hitler spared the bridge, when all other bridges were destroyed. Possibly because it’s so beautiful, and so full of charm, lined almost exclusively today with jewellery shops.

It’s 900 years old, in its current form, and there’s been a bridge there in some form for over a thousand years.

Enjoy the photo; it’s a rather remarkable sky, suitable for Skywatch Friday!

I took yet another wrong turn and looked around. It was 10am, but down here in the maze-like bowels of Venice it could’ve been 10pm. I’d been up since 4am and the caffeine from the cup of coffee on the plane was wearing thin. Breakfast would’ve been lovely and there was certainly the tantalising smell of food in the air, but following my usually-acute sense of smell had already led me into three dead ends.

A couple of geriatric Italians grinned at me toothlessly from a doorway. Even if I attempted to ask them for directions in Italian they would feign illiteracy.

I stared at them and grinned back, making the shape of a gun with my index finger and thumb. My over-sized canines had done most of the work, but I had to admit: the finger-gun was a nice touch. Pointing it at the pensioners I asked: ‘Dov’è Al Doge Beato?‘ They showed me, with a nervous succession of frail arm movements, where I might find my humble abode for the next two days: The Blessed Duke, the Happy Duke — something like that.  It sounded cheesy, but it was charming– everything in Venice is lovely.

Perhaps ‘lovely’ isn’t quite the right word; ‘quaint’ better describes the almost-complete dilapidation of the city. As I walked on, almost everything is in an awful state of repair. There’s something about floating in the middle of a warm and windy salt-water lagoon that really eats away at the paint and brickwork. A few bridges and labyrinthine turns later, I stood outside my hotel: a canal-side, turn-of-the-millennium building — and I’m not talking about a few years ago! My room looked out over a canal on one side, and had a floor-to-ceiling double-door leading out onto an ancient stone balcony on the other. It wasn’t cheap, but considering nothing in Venice is, I thought I’d splash out.

‘You can’t miss Piazza San Marco, just head towards…’ I zoned out as he begun gesturing wildly with his hands. It was obviously an Italian thing, pointing and gesticulating; some kind of sign language that I wasn’t privy to. He noticed the blank look on my face. ‘I’ll get you a map.’ Armed with my map and camera and finger-gun I looked around and then at the map, trying to catch my bearings. Picking one of the three paths that headed south at random I felt like one of my other namesakes, Sebastian Cabot. He’d been a major player in Venice back in the day and he’d probably had less difficulty navigating Venice than me — he ended up exploring Brazil for the King of Spain! — but I gave it my best shot. I’d already decided ahead of time that ‘getting lost in Venice’ would be one of the primary objectives of my trip. Losing myself as I cut between two buildings that were no more than half a meter apart; disappearing amongst the endless serpentine alleys, lost to the world. Venice isn’t big, but you only need walk 50 meters off the beaten path, turn a few corners, and you’ll find yourself alone, standing beneath the imposing facade of a  Gothic church or Renaissance house.

First up was a trip to to the Piazza — the only real open space in central Venice and the home of most major landmarks in Venice. There’s also a huge clock tower in the middle which, as you’d expect, grants a spectacular view of the ancient core of Venice.

There are museums and churches aplenty in Venice, much like every major city in Italy, but they pale in comparison to the ones in Florence and Rome. I could easily spend hours writing about the 50 churches that I visited during my trip, but that’d be boring! (Unless you like churches a lot… like me!) Perhaps you can now understand where my recent interest in dissecting religion has come from — you can only spend so long basking in the shadow of such an ancient, powerful institution — Roman Catholicism — before something goes ‘pop’.

Venice was home to the very first Jewish Ghetto, a Venetian word that probably derives from ‘iron foundry’, or a corruption of ‘Judaca’, the name given to the streets in which the Jews were confined to in Venice. This is where Jewish segregation all began, though this ghetto didn’t enforce labour like later incarnations around the world — it was merely separation from the aggressive and violent Christians. Set up by the incumbent Duke to protect rather than enslave, the Jews probably sought refuge there — they definitely weren’t free to leave however! It was also around this time that Jews became, um, Jewish: Catholic law prevented money-lending, but Jewish law did not. Jews also became the best doctors because most medical texts at the time were in Arabic, a language that Italians and Venetians struggled to understand.

The Venetian Ghetto existed until Napoleon came along in 1797 and removed all of the gates that had penned them in for 250 years, though some early documents could put it over 700 years! All that remain are the hinges that held those gates, but the Jewish love of money lives on! (Remember, it’s not our fault though — blame the Pope!)

It was a little sad, walking around the dirty, tired streets of Venice, a city that had once been the most affluent city state the world has ever seen. The Queen of the Adriatic was one of its many names, a name that makes you wonder just how opulent and vibrant the city had been 600 years ago. For centuries, Venice was ruled by merchants – a republic, led by aristocratic merchants, their sole purpose being to make more money (something they did very well. What most people don’t know is that Venice actually held an empire — a small one, mainly consisting of the Aegean islands Crete and Cyprus, but an empire nonetheless. They had a sizable military force, and their navy of 3,000 ships were almost invulnerable in their stronghold of a lagoon. Most were merchant ships but often converted into warships when piracy flared up in the East, or when they played a large part in the Forth Crusade — the crusade often viewed as the final schism between Catholic and East Orthodox religions — a role in a war that would ultimately spell the end of the Byzantine empire. Not bad for an unnavigable flyspeck of an island!

And the scary bit? It was all made possible with money; a leader with almost unlimited resources and support from a loyal, trusting republic:  that’s capitalism.

In an attempt to spice things up a little, I’m going to be podcasting a few blog entries — they’ll simply be an unabridged reading of the entry, possibly with a variety of retarded localised accents to make things interesting. I have no idea if it’ll work well or at all but I may as well give it a try — perhaps continue surfing the web while I read to you in the background? Forgive the vanity to your right… but I have to get my kicks somehow.

I can’t do a very good Italian accent, so don’t laugh! Fast forward to 3:40 if you want to just hear the ‘exciting’ bit with the shitty Italian accent, and a hint of Dan Brown-esque American storytelling…

Photographers have it easy compared to our painter comrades. We both deal in luminance and colour, tone, texture and saturation, but at the end of the day painters start with a blank canvas and nothing but the camera of their mind’s eye. Some painters will probably tell you that it makes their life easier, being able to create anything their imagination conjures up. Surely though, controlling the minuscule movements of mixing pigment and the brush itself is infinitely more difficult than raising the shutter on a camera. Then there are those that claim photography is harder — you can only work with what you’ve been given. There is some leeway of course: trickery of the eye and your ability to move props and pose models, but at the end of the day, that’s all you have: you can’t magic a dragon out of thin air.

Photography is all about working with what you’ve got. There is a small amount of knowledge that you need to know before you can operate a camera but we’re talking 3 or 4 simple equations — and the ability to push down a button. Point, and shoot. You can affect how much light enters the camera and that’s it. It’s because of this simplicity and the switch-over to digital cameras that we’re now swamped with thousands of photographers; you, your mother and her mother can be a photographer. It’s no surprise then that selling photos has also become a lot harder: there are more photos in circulation and thus it’s harder to be seen. You can still get lucky, but more than likely your only chance to make money today is as a stock or paparazzi photographer. Like almost every art form it’s one big labour of love: you pray that one day you’ll become the next Monet or Ansel Adams but chances are you won’t.  There are so few rich artists, it’s depressing.Whether it’s due to a lack of talent or saturation of the market I don’t know. What I do know is the one thought that courses through the mind of every person that’s made art their life-long dream: will I only be famous after I die?

To separate themselves from the pack, to stand out, artists try to be different. ‘Yet another photo of some daffodils’ isn’t quite as appealing as ‘Exploding daffodils in the bedroom of the woman that broke my heart’. Almost every photographer you’ve heard of or seen today will have been unique — that’s what it takes to not sink into the mire of boring, formulaic photographers, your voice forever unheard, your view of the world unseen.

It’s all about chasing the perfect photo. Like storm-chasers, train-spotters or groupies chasing the perfect tornado, rare train or celebrity photographers must try so, so hard to get the perfect photo.  Place yourself one centimeter to the left and you might ruin the entire photo. You might have to wait for a cloud to cover the sun to get the perfect light conditions, or even wait for the sun to be in the perfect position before you take the photo. A landscape could be completely average and nondescript at midday, but the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen at 5pm as the sun begins to set.

Photographing people is another beast entirely: the merest flick at the corner of a girl’s lips might make or break a photo. A glint of sun refracting off her eye could change the meaning and the impact. Is she breathing in or out; are her muscles tensed or relaxed? Even the greatest photographers of all time might take thousands of photos of the same  setup — as the years go by, the ratio of good-to-bad photos will improve but you’re still searching for perfection, and sometimes that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately I’m a landscape photographer. I’m quite good at portrait work, I just don’t have the experience — and being a good photographer takes a lot of experience. Landscapes don’t go anywhere: the sun continues to rise, the clouds roll on by — you can keep practicing and practicing, with landscapes. With people… it’s a little trickier. One day I’ll put in the hours and chain down one of my photogenic female friends, get the lights out and go to town! One day.

So there I was in Venice, up a clock tower. It was 3pm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Being the geek that I am, I phoned my dad and asked him what time the sun would set — 6pm, 3 hours away. Fine, I can wait 3 hours. I’ve got a book and a bottle of water. There are all sorts of pretty tourist girls swanning around that I can chat to, and take photos of (with their own cameras, of course!) Two hours pass, it starts to get dark, my pulse quickens. I dart around the tower, surveying how different Venice looks in the fading light, looking for the perfect angle for the perfect photo.

‘The tower will be closing in 10 minutes, please take the elevator back down.’

Shit. I smile and nod at the Italian, my mind quickly working through the available solutions: I wasn’t about to head back down the tower after waiting for two hours! It wasn’t a big tower, and there weren’t any obvious dark corners. I looked up and wondered if I could wedge myself inside the bell itself. Maybe in films… but not here in real life. I was out of time and only one option remained: climb out one of the windows and cling to the wall. They do it in films… they inch themselves along a thin ledge…

The Italian usher was slowly walking around the tower, shooing people into the elevator. I only had 30 seconds to decide — wuss out and waste two hours of my life, or… chase the photo. I jumped onto the windowsill and looked down — Shit — I turned around and inched backwards until my toes were on the ledge — Crap — I reach to the left and grab the edge of the next portal — Phew — I’m safe for now, but the pounding of my heart against the ancient brick wall would suggest I’m still in in a wee spot of bother. Finally, the sound of the descending elevator! I slide myself along the ledge, my feet now splayed like a ballet dancer’s and pull myself back inside.

There I am, all alone and king of the hill! I camped out for another hour, constantly assessing the landscape, sizing up the prey, waiting to strike. An hour later, I struck gold — a full moon! A total fluke, but completely deserved. I pulled out the camera, struck a pose not unlike a war-time sniper and… wait! A big ship too! Click. Bang!

That’s how I chased my perfect photo of Venice. It’s not a stereotypical view of Venice but I challenge you to find another like it.

It was getting cold and I had no food; I was out of water and thirsty. I packed up quickly and pushed the call button on the elevator. Nothing. I pushed it again. Still nothing. I looked out through a window and grinned in the darkness, wondering if it was possible.

To be continued…

This follows on from my tale of how I captured the perfect photo of Venice. Though it left me with an awesome view of the ancient city and a fantastic photo, it also left me cold and lonely atop a tall bell tower (the 14th century clock tower was actually across the square from me). The sun had set and the power cut to the elevator. I was stuck. The Hunchback of NotreVenice in the making. I’ve thrown in a few photos that have nothing to do with the story, I just want to force you to look at my photography, sorry.

I looked out of the window again: it was a long way down to the dark piazza below. There were still lots of people milling around, enjoying the ambience of Venice and the music wafting out from the exclusive restaurants and hotels that lined the square. But none of them were looking up at the tower. Noone could see me frantically waving my arms, trying to attract attention. I hadn’t started screaming yet but it was only a matter of time. If I resorted to screaming, would my voice actually carry far enough to be heard?

(That’s not my photo, but you get the idea of just how tall the tower is.)

Before heading to Italy I’d actually just watched through the first three seasons of MacGyver, which goes some way to explaining why I found myself in such a retarded predicament. I wasn’t afraid, damnit, but in chasing the perfect photo I’d found myself alone at the top of a tower with nothing but a camera bag, an empty bottle of water and a mobile phone that I’d forgotten to charge the night before.

With the temperature quickly dropping and the square below me starting to empty, my mind kicked into overdrive. I knew that a night at the top of a bell tower would hardly kill me but I had a lovely high-ceilinged bedroom to get back to. I was sure that I could smell the faintest essence of pizza in the air, but maybe I was hallucinating; either way, my stomach grumbled. This was Italy, apparently home to the best food in the world, and I was stuck up a tower and starving.

What would MacGyver do? I emptied my camera bag and looked at the contents. No paper clips, no bullets, just a map of Venice and my camera. There weren’t even any bird droppings on the ground that I could scrape together to make a rudimentary flare gun.

I thought about phoning my mother but I knew how the conversation would go:

‘Hey mum. I need your help.’

‘Dad told me you hung out at the top of a tower to get some nice photos.’

‘Yeah… I did… but… now I’m stuck and I can’t get down.’

‘Sebby, what did I tell you about doing dangerous and stupid things? Your primary purpose in life is to produce grandchildren for me.’

‘But… I’m cold and tired and hungry and –’

‘A son of mine that gets himself stuck up a tower is no son of mine!’

Click goes the phone.

So outside help was out of the question… Plus, what help would my mother be able to provide anyway? Tips on how best to tenderise my shoe leather into something edible? A suitable prayer to Moses? I shook my head and looked down at the pile again. The map… paper!

What if…

I could use my pen to write a note! Help, I’m up in the tower. Send aid. Don’t ask me to let down my hair, it’s not long enough. But what if an Italian person found it, one that couldn’t read English? I started to draw a crappy illustration of a man up a tower. It would have to do. But how to get the paper down to the square and get it noticed? I thought about a paper plane, but they’re notoriously hard to aim, and someone would be unlikely to spot it.

I looked down at the pile again. An empty water bottle…

What if…

I could put some coins in the bottle! Wouldn’t that make one hell of a noise if it hit the ground at terminal velocity? I worked quickly, the plan now complete, strapping the note to the bottle with one of my shoelaces. I screwed the cap on tightly and shook the completed franken-bottle, admiring my handiwork. Moving over to the window I sighted up a couple that were enjoying a romantic, candle-lit dinner about 100 meters away. I stepped back and took a run up, delivering the best pitch of my life.

It sailed through the air, landing about 20 meters from the couple. It made one hell of a bang-and-rattle, startling not only that couple but most of the people currently eating dinner in the Piazza San Marco. MacGyver would’ve been proud! Sebastian however, after the elation subsided, was just plain embarrassed.

I quickly whipped out my phone and used the dregs of its battery to turn on the bright light used by the built-in camera. I shone it down in their direction; they looked up!  Success! But perhaps I’d been a little too successful — a lot of people were now looking up at the tower, wondering where the vicious coin-filled explosive projectile had come from. There was in fact an arc of people forming about 50 meters from the tower — close enough to look at me, but not too close that I could surprise them with another weaponised water bottle.

Now I started to wave frantically and scream like a girl. Someone finally got the hint and rushed off into one of the restaurants, raising the alarm. My only concern was that they had mistaken me for a lunatic sniper and instead of the tower staff arriving, armed police would arrive and shoot me out of the tower. Eventually, after another half hour or so — nothing happens quickly in Italy –  some official-looking types approached the tower, unlocked the front door and switched the power back on.

I quickly packed up my stuff and limped over to the elevator, only to find it was already on its way up. I was a little nervous now, knowing I’d probably overstepped quite a few ‘oh, he’s just a silly tourist’ boundaries. Would I emerge from the tower a victorious hero, brandishing my camera above my head and revelling in my artistic prowess? Would the crowd boo and hiss, or applaud? The elevator sure was taking its time. Would I be in all the newspapers by tomorrow evening? Surely, Italians have a sense of humour, right?

At last, the elevator doors opened. A couple of very stern, short and balding Italians looked up at me, wondering if I would come easily or if they’d have to kick me in the ankle first. One of them reached behind their back and instinctively I thought this was it: I was going to be shot dead in Venice, on the first day of my holiday. At least I would die a martyr to the Bohemian movement… and my photos would probably go up in value… my mum would be grateful for that, I guess… But it wasn’t a gun, it was some handcuffs.

The other guard grunted something unintelligible in Italian and shoved me, suggesting I turn around to be cuffed.

When I finally emerged into the square there were a lot of people grinning at me –tourists, I guess — and a lot of peeved-looking Italians, probably all thinking that I’d just defiled their beautiful bell tower. Fortunately, none of them spat at me as I was frog-marched across the square but there were definitely a few boos and lots of noisy tutting. Maybe, just maybe, there were a few cheers from fellow photographers standing at the back of the crowd.

But where were they taking me? Surely not to the Venezia police station…

To be continued.

This is a photo that was actually taken about 15 minutes before my last Skywatch Friday entry (spot the roof of the building below in the other photo!) This is one of the few times that a photo has actually captured both the beauty and the gentle illumination of the clouds accurately. Normally what you see in person, while striking, doesn’t actually look like the photos you take — photos of sunsets are usually overexposed or burned out, swamped in yellow light. It might not be unpleasant to look at, but it probably doesn’t look a whole lot like the sunset you actually experienced!

This one though… this sunset is perfect. Every time I look at it I want to be back in Florence, standing on the Ponte Vecchio bridge — at over 1000 years old, by far the oldest structure I’ve ever stood on. I want to walk through the old, dilapidated, rustic streets. I want to kick back in one of the lovely pizza parlours with some olives and a bottle of Chianti — and of course, some crusty bread, oil and balsamic vinegar.

I look forward to sharing a few more photos from my trip to Italy with you all, my fellow sky-watchers!

Much like my little run-in with the American Secret Service, what happened after the ‘Bell Tower Incident‘ in Venice will remain an untold story — for now. For my memoirs, perhaps. This story begins a few days later. I’ve arrived in Florence, though stories about Caesar’s flourishing city are coming later — this one’s about a journey to Pisa.

The Italians don’t speak much English. Heck, they don’t speak a lot of Italian either — it’s mainly gesticulation: grunting, sighing, shrugging, pointing and prodding — but really, they don’t speak much English at all. It wasn’t a long train journey from Florence to Pisa but I’d already finished my book on the train from Venice — damn, my mum was right about taking more than one book. She’s always right about that kind of thing but don’t tell her. There I sat, looking out of the window at not much at all. The train was almost empty, so you can imagine my surprise when a soft, deep, syrupy Italian voice asked me to move my feet.

No one asks me to move my feet on an empty train. Most people do a kind of funny sidelong-glance-skip-past thing when they see an empty chair next to me. Must be something to do with the way I growl quietly and bare my teeth. It’s not because I’m a mean bastard, it’s simply because I don’t fit in single train or bus seats — I need the extra leg room, thus my perfection of the ‘Sebby Sprawl’, a manoeuvre that allows me to fill a space almost three times my regular volume. Anyway, of course I moved my feet when asked. What does a man have if he doesn’t have his manners? (Clue: the answer isn’t ‘a penis’.)

Until that moment I thought I was pretty manly as far as things go (externally of course, we all know my innards are a little bent). The man — beast – that sat down opposite made me feel positively effeminate. Never before has the squeak of a man’s leather shoes against a plasticky floor made me feel like a castrated manservant — a eunuch. He adjusted the cuffs of his perfectly-tailored shirt and checked his cuff links. I felt my throat begin to dry up and licked my lips before they too became parched. He turned his head and inspected his shoulder, flicking off non-existent lint. I shuffled in my chair nervously. Was that a blush I could feel creeping up along my neck under my ears and across my cheeks? I was face to face with someone — something — that I’d only heard of in books or seen on TV and I hadn’t a clue what to do.

At long last he looked up from his suit and we locked gazes. An uncomfortable moment passed — for me at least. He looked like he was enjoying it. He had a steady, beatific repose. An aura about him that stated simply: every single second of his life was as good as or better than what had come before. Finally I broke off and looked out of the window, that blush consuming the remainder of my face and body.

“Buonasera”

An involuntary shudder — the good kind that resulted in me crossing my legs. This guy was good, better than me. He imitated and crossed his legs too. His eyes were blue, his hair dark black. My eyes wandered a little — he watched my eyes and grinned with perfect teeth as I followed the contours of his face. Immaculately-pruned stubble leading to a dark-olive, lightly-muscled neck and then down to a pristine, white shirt. “Sorry” I mumble, embarrassed, suddenly remembering that I’m sitting opposite a stranger. I’d just undressed him with my eyes, much like I would a beautiful girl.

He seemed surprisingly unphased by my lingering stare. That was the first sign that I wasn’t sitting opposite a regular, macho, sharply-dressed Italian man.

“Io sono Sebastiano.” I smiled apologetically, acknowledging my awful, accented Italian.

“Marco.” He nodded, smiling, accepting my attempt at his beautiful, romantically-fluid language. “Duecento ragazze.” He looked a little coy, slightly shy, but more than a just a weak undertone of pride.

Two hundred girls…? I blinked, certain I’d misheard. But he nodded again, confirming the rictus of intermingled wonder and doubt plastered all over my face. He’d used simple Italian to make sure I’d understood.

Unfortunately my rudimentary knowledge of the language failed to dig up a suitable response. Bravissimo? Gran? I flicked rapidly through the dusty leaves of my cranial book of phrases wondering how best to congratulate this human stud. I gave up and simply offered him a manly handshake. I guess it was the right thing to do as he quickly grasped it — even his skin was perfectly soft and supple, sheesh — and squeezed, delivering yet another killer, brain-melting smile. It took a while for coherence to re-establish a foothold; it took even longer to reclaim the hand that he was so graciously looking after for me.

The rest of the journey involved the usual nodding and smiling and wild gesturing — quite graphically in his case — I didn’t understand much, but I got the gist. It felt more like he just wanted to talk to someone, any living soul that might appreciate and acknowledge his insane achievement with a gentle pat on the back. Well done, Marco, buono lavoro.

When we finally arrived in Pisa he grinned and extended his hand again, quickly withdrawing it as I reached forward to grasp it. “No.” He wagged his finger and fired some more rapid Italian at me that I failed to understand. Probably something along the lines of ‘the first handshake was nice and all, but if we start that again, we’ll probably not make it off the train before the doors shut…’

“Amor non conosce travaglio” Love never tires. Off he skipped into the crowd at the station, leaving me to orient myself and set off towards the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Ever since, whenever I’ve found myself between the soft-but-firm grasp of a beautiful girl’s legs, I can’t help but find myself magically transported back to that train carriage, listening yet again to his slick, softly-spoken syllables.

Perhaps I’m fantasising about Casanova; perhaps I’m cursing my Italian illiteracy. Either way, I’m wishing I’d learnt some more of the damn language. I could’ve been the world’s second greatest lover.

Walking through the cobbled, dark, dilapidated streets of Florence — literally ‘the flourishing’ — it’s hard to believe that it was once the capital of the Renaissance, an artistic movement whose graceful wings would harbour the finest contemporary artists, the fluttering of which is still felt today. Undeniably beautiful, in its own rustic way, Firenze today is one of the most attractive and charming cities in the world but… what would it have looked like 500 years ago at the peak of its opulence, at the zenith of the Medici family’s power? What would it have looked like before ‘faithful reconstructions’ and centuries of war-torn damage?

It’s a feeling that haunts me whenever I explore ancient sites and cities, a nagging itch that I just can’t shake: how did it look in its hey-day, before tourism and smogged industry? I’ll never know — we’ll never know. In Ephesus, Turkey, that realisation was hammered home: I could be walking around the greatest and most beautiful city that has ever graced this world, but it would forever just be an image in my mind and nothing more. I can run my hands over fallen columns, their reliefs painstakingly chipped and carved to a level of manual craftsmanship that we’ll never see again, imagining what Ephesus might’ve looked like, felt like, but it won’t bring the city back to life. There its remains will lie, feeding imaginations of adventurous tourists until the end of time.

Back in Florence, at least there haven’t been any earthquakes (the most common cause of destruction in ancient Turkey was earthquakes, and the small fact of building accidentally on marsh land). Much of what you see today, picking your way over the ankle-turning cobbles of doom is authentic, aged, well-preserved. But it’s not really the buildings I’m here to see, it’s what’s inside: the finest collections of Gottis and Donatellos in the world, housed under wonders such as Brunelleschi’s dome, the Duomo, a construction of 4 million bricks that is still the largest masonry dome in the world.

But who am I kidding? The Raphaels are beautiful and the Da Vincis spectacular but the Michelangelos…

Passing through security, I turn to my right. There he stands, in plainly flaunted view, at the end of a long, vaulted avenue. Lined with other priceless sculptures that receive scarcely more than a fleeting glance, the avenue serves just one purpose: to heighten and hone my senses, to zoom in on what I’ve come to see: David. Lit perfectly and elevated, his head and gaze are level and contemplative. I wonder if there isn’t some small measure of irony in the monstrous size of Michelangelo’s finest masterpiece. Surely he anticipated, as he chipped away at a eighteen-foot block of flawless marble that his creation would be imposing. Maybe he was allured by the nickname the local authorities had given the raw block of marble: The Giant; perhaps Michelangelo felt that he was simply carving out the rock’s destiny. But who cares: David is huge. David dwarfs you and absorbs the entire room, sucking in your attention like a miniature black hole. Dare to meet his gaze and he defies you, just as he defies the world with the wordless challenge issued by his engraved face and form.

Aged just 26, Michelangelo would spend two years chipping away at a brave new portrayal of the Biblical figure King David. Most artists had presented David after his battle with Goliath, victorious; Michelangelo created a more ambiguous work, a piece so rich in detail that there are many possible interpretations: does that look of contemplation come from his decision to fight the giant, or is he looking up serenely having just vanquished his foe?

Only one person knows for sure and I hope he took the secret to his grave — where would the fun be if there was only one possible reading? The creation of art is only part of the process; admiration and interpretation are both required to make it complete, to make the work whole. The purpose of art, after all, is to create an effect.

Walking through the streets and museums of Florence, as tired and ancient that they may be, the art still roused within me vibrant and vicious images of life during the Rennaiscence. 600 years have passed and yet the art still stirs visitors such as me to stop and think and admire these great masterpieces. I wonder if any of our contemporary creations will be still be considered art six centuries from now.

I would regale you with more tales of Florence but the fact is: I don’t think I could say anything new or interesting about it. It’s beautiful, it’s rustic and probably has more masterpieces per square kilometre than anywhere else in the world but it’s all been said before. Instead, I thought I’d tell you a fun story from just outside Florence, in the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy.

It all starts, as most things do, with a vision. In this case, literally a vision from the highest point in central Florence.

I was out of breath having just climbed the huge, never-ending hill behind the ginormous Palazzo Pitti (really, it’s disgustingly huge and pretty ugly to boot). While still nursing a full-body lactic acid build-up I decided to climb onto a rather narrow, precarious-looking wall and try to take a photo. That’s probably why the photo isn’t all that great — I was busy focusing on not falling off, and trying to catch my breath.

I don’t know who lives in that rather charming villa, but at that moment I decided to try and find out. I’d been trudging around the very small, densely-packed streets of Florence for three days and the view made me realise: I’m right in the middle of Tuscany, one of the most beautiful regions in Europe! With that epiphany I wasted no time and fled down the hill back to my hotel where I dumped my camera and any other valuables. I kept just my phone and some cash, and a piece of paper with my home address on it — why? I had no idea where I was going nor what I was going to do once I got there, wherever there might turn out to be. I didn’t want to put a total dampener on my trip and get mugged, so leaving the camera behind made sense, along with my credit cards and forms of identification (identity theft is serious business…!)

That means you don’t get any of my photos for this particular story; you’ll just have to imagine the horrors I’m about to describe.

I took the first bus that was heading out of town. I think it went west, but that’s just a guess — to this day, I don’t know where I went.  Looking at a map now it could’ve been Scandiaci or Rinaldi or… who knows? The bus slowly motored its way beyond the city limits and wound its way through the hilly, serpentine roads beyond. I stayed on the bus for about 15 minutes until I was far enough away to be out of my comfort zone, but not so far that I couldn’t get a taxi back if shit hit the fan. I hopped out with a Grazie to the bus driver and looked around — a nondescript road lined by nondescript turquoise-grey trees (olives?) — perfect; Tuscany!

Following the avenue (original, non-American definition) into the dark, unlit town I started to wonder if this was actually a good idea. Why do ideas always start off sounding really great? Something about the thought of eating chocolate cake is better than the actual eating? Did I mention that it was October and the sun was setting quickly behind the seemingly-uninhabited settlement; it was a very pretty sight, but quite unnerving too. What now, Seb? I stood in the middle of the town and looked about hopelessly.

It looked something like this only, um, darker — amazing how hard it is to find images of Italian villages in the dark…

There was only one building with lights on, a little way out of town and up a hill. Well, I either go and check if anyone’s in, or head back to Florence… Yet again, after the climb, I was out of breath. Holidays are, ironically, the only time I actually get cardiac exercise (I need a girlfriend). I raised my hand to knock but at at the exact same moment the door swung inward, the bright light framing and silhouetting a short, almost-spherical figure.

“Buonasera” a voice said said and I repeated it back to the shadowy person in acknowledgement, smiling apologetically for my English accent. There’s an uncomfortable moment where I can’t see their eyes but I know they’re looking at me, sizing me up. The shadow eventually steps back to hold the door open, revealing a quizzical middle-aged Italian woman whose every sense is boring into me. She sighs.“Prego, prego.” Reluctantly I am waved in and she shuts the door. Then she deadlocks it.

I follow her further into the old farmhouse, running my hands along pocked oak beams, nibbled for centuries by woodworm. The walls are rendered and bumpy, whitewashed in the simple, continental fashion. Brickwork appears in places, no doubt replacing damage sustained by continued use for — perhaps –  500 years. We reach the kitchen and I’m greeted by a wall of smiles — wonky, missing-toothed smiles, but happy faces nonetheless! I smile back at all five of them, not really sure of what the standard greeting for such an occasion is:

Hi, I’m a tourist with more money than sense, but I fancied a taste of real Italian food, so here I am, invading your lovely 16th century farmhouse with my fast, hairy, British body that is a good foot taller than your door frames;

I was pushed off the bus by a nasty driver, and I’m hungry and I have no where to sleep and I’m scared of the dark… so… if you could kindly look after me…

Considering I know almost no Italian, I had to settle for Buonasera, mi chiamo Sebastiano!!! which seemed to do the trick. Before I know it, I’m being ushered to the head of the table while the youngest son grabs some more cutlery. Over my left shoulder unnamed hands pass me crusty bread while the eldest son grins and passes me the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Plates are being placed before me faster than I can clear them: salamis and prosciutto, lemon-marinated olives and bruschetta, slices of tomato and buffalo mozzarella — that was just the appetiser!

All told I think we had a total of five courses and about ten different dishes, each one washed down with the finest of Chiantis. There was even some fava beans, but the Hannibal Lecter joke that I delivered fell on unappreciative ears. Dessert consisted of biscotti dunked in thick, syrupy dessert wine that tasted like a pound of sugar diluted in water. And then coffee, of course, with a port chaser. Finally, after nodding and smiling through various stories — no doubt the standard, embarrassing family tales that are always brought out at special occasions — I curled up in front of the dying embers of their living room fire and fell asleep.

Sadly there was no dog to lick my toes, or a farmer’s daughter  to deflower but beggars can not be choosers, right? I’d succeeded in experiencing the familial Italian way of life and in eating lots of proper Italian food.

Next, I’m going to try and tackle the story of the Venetian jail without getting myself into trouble. But I reserve the right to skip right onto Rome…!

This entry picks up from the end of my ‘stuck up a bell tower‘ story, one of the more foolish situations I’ve ever found myself in. I’d been rescued from the tallest point in Venice by some stumpy uniformed types that turned out to be the local police… It may not sound like it yet, but this is yet another too-much-information (TMI) story, so stick with it until the end, it delivers. If you want more, check out Lilu’s blog. And now on with the embarrassment…

The bald policemen, both with faces like a smacked bottom, frog-marched me all the way to the nearest canal where a boat with Polizei stencilled on the hull awaited my arrival. The boat’s captain gave a quick flash of the boat’s blue lights and a toot of the siren in greeting. If the boat had had a low roof, or if either of the officers could actually reach my head, they would have no doubt pushed me under it. Instead, they grunted and waited for me to climb on.

I held my head high in a manner that best befits a noble British naval officer as we puttered along the squalid, soupy canals. I become intensely reflective in times of danger or duress: I begun to wonder if the locals realise that tourists overlook how dirty and smelly their city is just because it’s so damn charming. I pondered where they were taking me and what they might do with me when we got there. I even thought about diving over the edge of the boat, but that would’ve meant leaving my camera behind.

So I’m heading to an Italian police station with nothing more than a rudimentary understanding of the language and primitive stick-men-drawing abilities. In other words, I’m stuck up an effluent-topped canal without a paddle — shit.

We pulled up alongside a nondescript brick building; it had bars across the windows, but no other hints that it might be a police station… or worse… jail…

While being lead inside I took one last look at my surroundings in case I had to describe my location over the phone to the British embassy or Jack Bauer while negotiating an escape plan. They pushed me through a dilapidated swing door that was once navy blue and into some kind of reception. My camera and phone were quickly placed in a locker and a form was placed on the table for me to sign. I reached for the pen slowly but one of the men behind me coughed and shook his head, yanking my handcuffs and pulling backwards towards a small room — surely they’re not going to question me… I don’t speak Italian! — and as if reading my thoughts, the other officer promptly appeared with an Italian-English dictionary.

Flopping the tome open at the centrefold I had a feeling these poor guys had done this before. Brits don’t have a fantastic reputation for being great tourists, mainly because of our yobbish football fans. I was about to receive the same treatment reserved for proper troublemakers — is getting stuck at the top of a major landmark really that anti-social?

“You… make… distress.” I nodded slowly and smiled inanely, hoping I came across as some kind of simple-minded pacifist. It’s at times like these I wish I didn’t have a beard, or really big eyes that have the tendency to make eye-contact for extended periods of time — ‘eyeballing’ they call it, in macho-man and law enforcement circles. The police officer tried again:

“You… inebriated?” I stopped nodding and started shaking my head very quickly. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the other policeman pulling some latex gloves out of his pocket. Oh, not drunk… drugged… The one with the dictionary nodded as his face lit up with a a tight-lipped, grim smile. “We check.” He shut the book and signalled to the other officer to lift me out of the chair, which he did, roughly.

The begloved officer pulls the chair away and pushes it into a corner. He snaps the cuff of the gloves with a thwack while the other man takes my still-cuffed hands and pulls them to the far side of the table, forcing me to lean over. I can feel but cannot see the other officer as he reaches around my waist to undo my trousers. I can feel them falling to my ankles, followed moments later by my underwear.

Looking up at the man that’s pinning my wrists to the edge of the cold metal table I try out my best pitiful whimper, a task made all the more simple by the warm, plasticky hands now groping around my buttocks. I let forth a cry as his stumpy fingers enter me with no ceremony, foreplay or lubrication. Prod, wiggle, grunt. Mamma mia! Che macello! (Don’t look that one up)

And then it’s over and he’s pulling out, I’m being uncuffed and he’s pulling his gloves off into a bin. I lay limply on the table for a few minutes until the one with the dictionary breaks the silence: ‘You… free… go, prego, prego.’ He points to the exit and looks irritably at my half-naked form. Smiling bravely and nodding, I reach down with aching arms to pull up my underwear. Thank God I’d already lost that particular virginity a few years ago, I thought to myself, my senses slowly reclaiming ownership of my body. That would’ve been a fun story to tell the kids: how I lost my anal virginity to a bald fat man — and I didn’t even know his name…

Stumbling out into street I knew I’d got off lightly. It could’ve been a lot worse. I could’ve been thrown into a jail cell with a fat, big-bossomed man called Martha that insists I call him ‘mummy’. I could’ve been deported after just 24 hours in Italy.

Most importantly: the policeman could’ve had cold hands.