The Italian Job, Final Year Field Trip, Kingston University – 1994

(Ed – The names have been changed to protect the innocent)

This trip was taken as part of Rock Mechanics course, one of the options in the final year of the Civil Engineering degree course and took place at Easter time 1994.  The nine day trip to Italy was designed to take in many geological features such as volcanos, plate tectonics and land slips.  The group of some 20 people did the trip in 2 hired transit mini buses.  Petrol of course so that we could go faster – we had no idea about economy back then.

DAY ONE:-  Travelled all day across France, I rode in the lead mini bus with the lecturers.  Arrived in Strasbourg at about 11.30pm.  Booked into the hotel, “Le Relais de Srasbourg” in a room with Steve and Jed.  We are on the top floor (6th) in room 600.  Will, Jed and I went out for a beer and after a bit found a bar where I practised my French by ordering three Kronenburgs (15Fr each), which wasn’t overly difficult – (“Trois grande beers, Monsieur”!).  Came back to the hotel and the three of us chatted with Steve until about 2am.  Very good so far, weather is warm.

DAY TWO:-  Travelled through four countries today, started off in France, into Germany across the Rhine.  Went along the Autobahn, until we were just south of Stuttgart, then headed south into Austria.  Gorgeous countryside going over the Alps.  Came over the Bremmer Pass and bridge, stopping to take photos.  By early afternoon, we crossed the border into Italy.  There were still plenty of Germans to be seen on the Autostrada (Italian motorways).  The towns all have Germanic names and the valleys are all very industrialised, and the air is very hazy. 

  Eventually got to Belluno after a navigation error by Eddie Bromhead added two hours to our journey with the result that Angul scathingly called him a “f***ing wanker“, great entertainment for us in the back of the mini bus, especially as Memorable Mike threw in an unfunny and ill-timed one liner by quipping “Are we nearly there yet?”.  Arrived in the town about 9pm and after driving aimlessly about the town looking for hotels we stopped in the square of the old town and decided to split as Eddie wanted to go to a hotel just outside of town he knew.  I wanted to stay in the centre of the town so I swapped places with Anna.  Turned out to be a wise move as within ten minutes Paul had found a hotel just off the square, called the “Taverna“.  We paid just £10 per night and £8 for a decent meal.  I shared a room with Will and Abdul.

DAY THREE:-  Up at 8am this morning and left the hotel at 8.45am to meet up with Eddie and Anguls party.  They were late and Mike and Anna turned up with the other van and we followed them back to their hotel which was in the middle of nowhere.  Angul was very ill after a late night drinking session with Eddie and ended up staying in bed all day.  We set off to see the Vaya dam as planned, scene of a disaster in 1963 when half the mountain side slid into the lake causing an enormous wave which cleared the dam and went down the valley killing about 3,000 people.  The dam is very impressive in terms of height, structure and the 250 million m^3 of mountain debris where the lake once was.  We also looked at the village up the valley also affected by the wave of water which went the other way up the mountain side opposite. 

  This took several hours and we went to a local town for lunch at a small Italian restaurant where we had tuna pasta and red wine.  There were loads of stuffed animals and birds on the walls, including a beaver which Steve remarked on.  In the afternoon we went to see a massive rock slide near the village of “Arsie“.  The village was pretty too.

  We travelled off and found the slide further soon and saw the concrete channels about the size of a river, put in through villages to channel the rock slide.

  We eventually got back to Belluno at about 4.30pm and went to our respective hotels.  Will, Abdul and I went out into the town to get postcards, and ended up sitting outside in a cafe eating ice cream watching the natives going home from work.  Quick shower back at the hotel before heading off into the town once more for food and beers at about 8pm.  Eventually six of us ended up back at the hotel for food where we had steak and chips at a reasonable price, all washed down with red wine (can’t remember how much though).  It worked out at £12 per head.  Back again into town, where this time we stayed until about 1am, going into a couple of bars.  At the hotel we went up to Liam, James and Paul’s room where we talked until about 2am.  “Not you Mike” Mike was a little the worse for wear from the drink and sat silently on one of the beds until suddenly he looked up and stared at all of us in an evil sort of way and said the immortal words, “Bastards, your all bastards!”.  With that he stood up and nearly walked into the wardrobe door, much to our amusement, and went off to bed.  We saw nothing more of him that night, and in the morning he had no recollection of what he had said.  Great!

  Paul and Abdul had gone out to a night club and didn’t end up getting back to the hotel until about 6am.

 DAY FOUR:-  We were all up at 8.30am, and out by 9.25am.  After a quick look around the market we set off to meet up with the others.  Once we had met up with the other van, it was decided to go to Venice as it was only 13km away.  The other van, containing a very quiet and subdued Angul, were going to head off for a second look at the Vaya dam as Angul hadn’t seen it.  We stopped off at a supermarket for food, where I ended up playing charades with a shop assistant in trying to work out what all the cheeses tasted like.  We pressed on and waited for them at the last service station on the Autostrada, before Venice.  A bit of a mistake as our wait turned out to be an hour and a half!  When they arrived, we set off in convoy toward Venice, however as sod’s law would have it we got split up on the outskirts of the city.  We voted unanimously to go on anyway as time was getting on. 

  We parked up and caught the water bus.  This took us all the way to St. Mark’s square along the Grand Canal, and took about 3/4 of an hour.  We saw “Memorable” Mike at one end of Venice walking along, and by the time we got to the other end, he had walked around and caught up with us in St. Mark’s square.  However, we soon lost him.  Took loads of pictures of the square and surrounding narrow streets and thoroughfares although one half of the clock tower was covered in scaffolding which was a bit of a disappointment.  A lot of buildings were in a sad state of repair, but gorgeous all the same.  Five of us (Will, Paul, James, Paul and I) went off for a good look around the backstreets where I got Emma’s presents (a jewellery box in the shape of a venetian mask).  In all we had about two hours before we had to catch the water bus back.  The trip was well worth it despite the weather being very cloudy and grey. 

  Back at the bus, Liam “El Lione” (after Nigel Mansell) took the wheel and we set off for a long hike south to Senegalia, near Anconna.  To save on tolls on the Autostrada, we used A roads and it proved to be very entertaining.  We overtook many lorries on our trip across the Po valley, the Italian car drivers drove like mad men overtaking in very dangerous situations.  At one point we were overtaken at the same time as we were overtaking a lorry, ending up three abreast across the road!  We joined the Autostrada about half way along the route. 

  We reached Senegalia in the dark, which seemed typical in our trip so far.  The town was a typical Italian medieval town with narrow cobbled streets and courtyards with tall, grey stone built buildings all around.  Paul, Will and Abdul set off to find hotels for us all, and the rest of us waited with the vans.  Eddie got a bit annoyed at the wait and made some sarcastic comment to James about the lack of organisation.  James, knowing that Eddie was just being bloody minded, came marching back to our minibus pretty annoyed which caused him to remark that “Eddie was a right royal f***!”.  The advance party soon came back with news of a decent but cheap hotel in the town centre, and we all set off for it.  After having to wait to get into our hotel for about an hour, we set off to explore the bars of the town. 

  We ended up in a bar called “Pub City”, where the waitress spoke Italian and German, and we only spoke English and a bit of French.  However a bit of charades later and we all had our drinks.  Later back in the hotel room, where four others shared my room, we watched TV.  When “Not you Mike” Mike woke up the next day, he saw that we had all gone to sleep facing the TV, even though it was off!

  DAY FIVE :-  Up and out of the hotel by 9am and headed off towards Naples via Anconna.  The land slips at Anconna cover a vast area along the coastline and the railway that runs parallel to the beach is seriously buckled in many places.  Laughed at the authority’s attempts to rectify the problem by building a series of drains into the hill side, without ever bothering to find out if a high water table is the cause of the problem.  Apparently this is common with government money that is supposed to be spent on regional problems, such as this, ending up in the pockets of the mafia and other secret societies, through bribes and corruption.  The work is never properly carried out and checked, with the native population seeming not to be bothered until a disaster occurs and it’s too late.

  We were on the road to Naples by lunchtime, the Italian drivers providing lots of entertainment with their undertaking and general near misses.  We ended up in a town just south of Naples, arriving in daylight, which made a change.  We pulled into a square outside the university which was full of Italian students.  They all were dressed like they had just stepped out of an Armani advert, and as none of us had gotten laid in at least a week, even the men started to seem attractive!  We jumped out and Paul did his usual fact finding mission to seek out the cheap hotels and good bars.  I stood around nearby, and soon discovered I was being stared at by a group of three or four Italian guys.  They were looking at me as if I were an exhibit in a zoo and knowing what an excitable bunch they were, I wondered if I was about to be stabbed!  Just then a very large Italian with slick back hair came over to me, I managed to keep a cool exterior whilst getting ready to do a runner at the first sign of trouble.  This guy leaned over, and after jabbering to his mates, started to explain that I was in his “text-book Inglees”.  Thinking quickly of a suitable reply, I said “You what?”.  Apparently there is a picture of a typical Englishman in their English text book, so I told them that I was famous.  It took a while for them to work out what I had said and it appealed to their sense of humour, and I was left feeling superior to these slick-haired foreigners.

  That night we stayed in an up market hotel and I shared a room with Will, who thankfully didn’t snore too loudly.  I enjoyed a decent shower for a change.  The town was a let-down with not much in the way of nightlife.  We all pretty much enjoyed an early night.

  DAY SIX:-  An early morning alarm call woke me and Will up at 7.30am and by 8.15am we went for breakfast.  Checked out and were into the beautiful sunshine and off by 9.15am.  We met up with the other van and set off for Vesuvius about 20-30km away, stopping at a small supermarket for bits and pieces.  James and I went looking for camera film and found it at the other end of the town.

  To get to Vesuvious, we had to go through the suburbs of Naples.  This basically meant more entertainment from the Italian drivers, not one car on the road didn’t have a dent in it and all either had no drivers side wing mirror or had folded it flat to avoid losing it!  We drove up the side of the volcano, noting the carbuncle shaped bulge in the side of the mountain.  We left the vans parked at the car park near the summit (cost 5,000 lire) and walked up the 1/2km to the top along the volcanic ash and cinder path.  At the top, the crater was filled with weathered material that had fallen in but steam was venting liberally from the sides.  Angul joked that it was in fact Steve and Jed having a joint behind some rocks.  There were superb views of the surrounding countryside and I took many photos of Naples and its bay.  I was down to help Will with his speech but as it turned out it wasn’t as easy as I had thought and as a consequence I struggled badly, Angul mercifully cut me off.  However, I suffered loads of p*ss take coming down the mountain about “dangerous, violent eruptions as far as violent eruptions go, in a dangerous sort of way”.

  We headed for Herculanium (the ancient Roman town buried at the same time as Pompei in AD79 when Vesuvius erupted violently) for some sightseeing, and arrived about mid-afternoon.  We had an hour and a half to look around it before the place shut, but that was time enough.  A coach party of Italian girls from Florence took a liking to me and I ended up posing with them for pictures at the entrance to the town.  They sort of followed at a distance, and at the last street corner we came to they caught up with us again where more pictures were taken.  For a bit of a laugh I asked one of them if she had heard of “Take That” and she said yes.  So I then told her that I was Robbie’s (one of the band) brother.  After that I was treated even more like a film star, as befits my looks, and as their coach left, they were all on one side of the bus waving goodbye.  Angul was much impressed, as were all the boys, and he remarked to someone that he hadn’t had me down as one for the ladies but he was definitely coming on holiday with me next year.  Our group went back to our vans, where it was Paul, Paul and Steve’s turn to give a speech.  I was grinning too much to notice.

  As the sun set behind Vesuvius, we set off along the coast road to Sorrento, south of Naples, where we found a cheap hotel.  Steve, Will, “Memorable” Mike and I shared a room.  That evening we set off to explore the town but I found it very commercial, full of English and German people. “Memorable” Mike, Steve and I managed to find a pub called the “Red Lion” which was the epitome, so we walked across the town to find the old part.  Down some backstreets we found a traditional pizzeria and had a quiet meal.  It made a refreshing change not to be out in a crowd getting fairly drunk.  We attempted to speak the lingo but made such a hash of it the waiter pleaded with us just to stick to English!  Bloody cheek!  Everyone had an early night, being back in the hotel about 11.30pm.

  DAY SEVEN:-  Woke up to find our van gone.  It turned out the police had towed it away in the early hours of the morning as it was parked illegally.  It cost us 100,000 lire to get it back, which fortunately was pretty quick.  However we were now about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour late for our rendezvous with the lecturers van.  We met them on the road out of Sorrento in a lay-by, which was quite lucky really.  Weather was gorgeous again, typical Mediterranean, and the coast road afforded excellent views of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples.

  Today we were headed for Pozzouli to see the sunken temple just before lunch.  This was a short trip down the Autostrada, however as we came up on the exit Angul in the other van turned off into a service area, and as we were in the outside lane overtaking at the time there was no way we could follow him.  We carried on and came off at the exit and waited at a roundabout.  James, in keeping with his nickname (Wazzer Thompson), had a waz up the side of the van after walking up and down the road, fiddling with his flies, looking for a discreet place to pee.  However after about 1/2 an hour of waiting around catching rays, we still hadn’t seen them so we decided to go on and meet them there.  It was well sign posted and we found it quick enough, parking right next to the temple, which is right next to the port.  All the Italians looked a bit rough so we kept an eye on the van.  Apparently the Pozzouli Iti’s have an even greater reputation for mafia connections than exist in Naples, with widespread corruption.  We waited around 3/4 of an hour for the other van to arrive.  We congregated on the square overlooking the temple remains, and Abdul gave his speech on how the temple has risen and sunken several metres over the last 2000 years.  This is due to two main reasons, one is the filling and emptying of a large magma chamber Beneath the temple and the second reason is the movement of the plates, a plate boundary being only a few kilometres away.

  After this it was lunch time, so we went off to a nearby cafe for food.  James and I took a walk around looking at the people and the town in general.  We both took pictures of typical street scenes.

  After lunch we piled into our respective vans, and set off for the volcano at Pozzouli, known as the Flagrayan fields (or fields of fire).  This volcano has a very large, flat crater (about 1/2km in diameter).  Sulphur gas gushes from tiny pores in the ground at random points around the crater, staining the ground yellow.  The Victorians used to come here and breathe in the fumes as they are deemed to be therapeutic, but to me the stench was disgusting.  The sulphur also left lots of crystalline structures on the ground which were very pretty and sparkled in the light, but they were also delicate and hot!

  After sitting in the nearby cafe we drove off back to the Autostrada to see how far north we could get before it got too late.  Abdul did his usual trick of falling asleep, but as he was sitting up front, everyone noticed.  What was especially funny was the fact that he first keeled over sideways ending up with his head snuggling up to Liam’s arm (who was driving at the time).  Then he lifted up slightly with the result that his head started nodding like one of those plastic nodding dogs.  It was all captured on video for posterity and we enjoyed much mirth.  We drove for several hours, seeing a gorgeous sunset along the way, and as the sun slid beneath the horizon, we pulled off the Autostrada and headed for the medieval hill-top town of Orvietto.  When we arrived we discovered beautiful cobbled, narrow streets and in the centre a huge cathedral.  The guide book had two cheap hotels listed and one of them was full.  However we didn’t tell the owner of the other this and bartered a good rate, maybe too good, because the proprietor got in a right strop.  He looked the epitome of a modern day Roman with his hooked nose and bald head.  As we arrived late it was a rush to find somewhere to eat, in the end six of us found a small restaurant and enjoyed a bowl of pasta.  Before we left we ended up speaking to the owners about London and football, I resisted the urge to say “Bobby Charlton” in an Italian accent.  It was too obvious really, so I left it for Steve, and he duly obliged.

  Back at the hotel, everyone piled into our room (Steve, Will and mine).  Somehow most people were slightly drunk, and much banter was had.  Someone found a bag for sanitary towels in the bathroom, and as everyone was leaving I realised that neither Steve, Will or myself had any need for it.  So without thinking I offered it to Anna!  Will managed to hold off until she was safely out of the room before p*ssing himself and followed after a microseconds delay by me, realising what I had said. 

  DAY EIGHT:-  The following morning everyone was up at a reasonable hour and out photographing the town and cathedral.  “Fast” Eddie however was getting impatient as time got on, and we didn’t hit the road until about 10.30am.  We then drove along the Autostrada all day heading for the Mont Blanc tunnel which we duly reached about 8-9pm, as daylight was fading from the valley.  After a quick look at the glacier and associated features, the final talks were given.  We piled back into the vans and drove through the tunnel and into France.  We carried on along the French motorways, travelling in convoy. “Memorable” Mike drove the lecturers van, and were in front.  At about 11pm both vans pulled off into a truck stop where Angul Berry explained in his best hushed voice, that we could either carry on driving through the night or pull off at the next town and find somewhere to sleep.  He added that Mike was starting to fall asleep at the wheel, I turned to “Not you Mike “Mike and said, “Not you Mike”.  Everyone burst out laughing briefly before being hushed, however one truck started up and left the truck stop.

  We found a town and after enquiring at several hotels, found a rough one on the edge of town which was dirt cheap.  Six of us shared a dodgy room with no windows and suspect sheets, but the bar was open late.  Eddie and Angul only had a double bed in their room, and as Eddie was first up the stairs, Angul was stuffed.  As there were no other rooms available he got in a mood and stormed off to sleep in the van, which he did.  Most people had an okay night and the place served its purpose.

  DAY NINE:-  We had an early start, about 8.30am and set off for England.  A long drive across France, which was pretty boring especially as it rained, but brightened up as we got close to Paris.  We dropped Paul off at Reims as he was off to meet his girlfriend in Paris, and we posed for a photograph.  The sun briefly showed its face, but the drive across northern France was very boring.  We arrived at Calais early evening time and boarded our ferry.  The trip across the channel was very rough which made it more exciting, Paul and I bought another crate of lager between us.

  I boarded the lecturers van for the trip to Kingston as we were going direct and the other van was dropping people off who lived nearby.  Angul sat silently in the front still brooding from his night in the van, but Eddie was in good spirits in the back, joining in our banter.  We arrived back at Penryn road at about 11pm, “Memorable” Mike then dropped Steve, Anna and I off at the flat.  I had a quick bath before hitting the sack.

  All in all, one excellent trip!