Italia

Back in Italy for 4 days of client visits.
Monday: Rome
Tuesday: Rome-Venice-Trieste-Rome-Genoa.

Wednesday: Genoa, Livorno/Leghorn
Thursday: Genoa, Monte Carlo, Nice

Tuesday was a bit nuts, but it worked. After a spring-ish day in Rome on Monday, Tuesday was bitter cold with lots of wind. In Trieste the Buro winds off the Alps were blowing up to 70mph. Taking off from the airport in that was ..... "exciting". Today at least we didn't have to fly. A couple of owner visits in Genoa to start. In the square just outside the offices of a couple clients is one of the old Genovese city gates (see attached). If you look at the building to the right you'll see a very small stone/brick house in front. This is where Christopher Columbus was born.















Spent the afternoon driving 2hrs south to Livorno (also known as Leghorn in English) in Tuscany. The autostrada runs between the coast and one of the Apennine mountain chains. These are some very respectable peaks. In the 2nd attached pic you can see that the peaks are snow capped. The white down low is not snow, but rather some of the famous Italian marble quarries.














Got passed by a police car chasing someone on the highway. The police car was a Lambourgini. Only in Italy.

Livorno is a neat old seaport. Lots of old fortresses around the city and an extensive canal system like venice. It was just clear enough to see Elba island on the horizon, but couldn't quite see Corsica out there.

TWG
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Via Blackberry

Wrap Up

Finally on the plane home. Had one more chance to have a look around Cairo yesterday. We had a client move a meeting in the afternoon to a dinner. So we had a couple hours to kill in the city. We went up to the Citadel, which is a fortress from when the Turkish kings were ruling. We had a look in the Mohammed Ali Mosque there. It is Byzantine in style but built in the mid 1800's (see picture). Quite something. It is high above the city and the air was clear enough to see the pyramids many miles away.














From there we paid a very fast visit to the Egyptian Museum, which is mind-boggling. Every square inch is jammed with antiquities. It would take days to do it justice and they only have a fraction of the collection displayed. All you can do is shake your head as you just can't take it all in that this is the real stuff. The facility itself is pretty run down. I don't know where they get the funding to preserve all this - clearly they don't get enough. Saw the royal mummies, the highlight of which is Ramses II, who is excellently preserved. However the ultimate highlight is King Tut's treasures. These are just incredible for not only quality, but massive volume. Of course the best are his golden coffins and mask. I doubt we could reproduce the craftsmanship today.














So Cairo is well worth the visit for the history. Driving on the roads is unreal. I wouldn't make the moves in a video game that people do for real here. I saw a car wrap itself around a tree and a truck smash into a barrier in one day. That doesn't mention fenderbenders. The other negative is the airport. While Egypt Airlines has a beautiful new terminal, the other airlines are relegated to a dump. So your first impression of Egypt is that you've just arrived in the 3rd world - which is actually the case, so maybe a good reminder! Everyone raves about the trip of a couple days in Cairo, then a quick flight upriver to Luxor and a 4 day cruise up the Nile to Aswon - taking in the Valley of the Kings along the way. Most of the passenger boats were built to ABS Class. So there are trade-offs, but I'm sold.

TWG
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Via Blackberry

Originally sent December 11, 2009