The Monomagician

Introduction

2008 was a special year for my wife Karin and I as we celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary.

We knew we wanted to do something special to celebrate and came up with the idea of a ‘mini grand tour’ of Italy, taking in Rome, Florence and then a couple of days in the Piedmonte region.

Having taken to heart the notion of trying to reduce our impact on the Environment, we decided to avoid using aircraft and make our way by train where possible.

Our trip had the hallmarks of being quite an adventure and planning started in earnest in the previous October, when we signed up for a GCSE Italian evening class!

In addition to learning a little of the Italian language, we also started to work out just how feasible it would be to travel from our home in Swindon to Rome by train. The answer, it transpired was ‘eminently feasible!’ There is a daily sleeper train from Paris Gare de Bercy to Roma Termini called the Palatino. We booked our Eurostar tickets on-line. Whilst we could have done the same for the Palatino tickets, we opted to let a travel agent sort this out as we wanted to make absolutely sure we got what we wanted.

As we were celebrating a very special occasion, we decided to travel first-class on the Eurostar. It wasn’t cheap, but we would be wined and dined as we made our way through Kent, the Chunnel and Northern France. Now that the high-speed rail link from St Pancras to Folkestone has been completed, the journey time from London to Paris has been cut to about two and a half hours. I think it would be difficult, if not impossible to do the journey in the same time by air once you factor in check-in times, baggage collection and subsequent travel from the airport to the centre of Paris.

Equipment Decisions.

With travel arrangements and hotels booked, it was time to think about luggage and above all, camera equipment. We wanted to travel light, not wanting to have to lug huge suitcases and heavy camera bags through station concourses or on the underground. So we decided to restrict our luggage to a single airline wheeled carry-on sized case each.

Karin had already made a decision to take her Canon G9 digital compact camera rather than her EOS350D . The G9 was until recently, Canon’s top of the range compact digital camera. It’s quite small and light, very well made and has a 12MP sensor, so can produce excellent results. I originally wanted to take a Leica M8 digital rangefinder with 2 or 3 lenses. But in the end, I too opted to take a G9.  It’s much lighter and from a purely practical perspective, it meant we could save space and weight by having just one battery charger for the two cameras. In addition to the two cameras and a single battery charger, we each took a spare battery and eight 2 gigabyte SD cards. We could have saved a tiny amount of space and weight by using higher capacity SDHC cards, but we both felt that 2 gigabyte cards were large enough. Entrusting around 115 raw images to a single card is plenty in my book! For backup, we shared a 40 gigabyte Jobo Gigavue hard drive. Each outfit fitted into a Lowepro ‘bumbag’.

Any initial misgivings about not bringing my Leica outfit were removed when we arrived at Roma Termini. It was 30 degrees and there was a transport strike. Any hope of getting a taxi to our hotel before we melted was dashed as soon as we saw the queues. So we decided to walk to the hotel. It was only about a mile, but it made me very glad that I didn’t have my Billingham bag to carry as well as drag my suitcase through Rome.

Out and about in Rome

Rome is a fascinating city. There is so much to see and do and it was impossible to do the city justice in the three days we spent there. Thankfully, there is a very good underground system and most of the main sites of interest are close to a Metro station or are easy to get to by foot.

The entrance to the Palazzo Barberini - home of the National Art Collection

Apart from the heat, which was often oppressive, the down side of travelling to Rome in July is the harshness of the light. Many photographs were spoiled by hard directional lighting and it was often impossible to capture the full dynamic range of a scene. Many of the best shots were taken in shade.

A couple of things to watch out for were the hawkers around the Spanish Steps and students wanting signatures on petitions. The hawkers would usually approach couples, offering a rose, saying it’s a gift. Then when you’ve taken it from them, ask for money. Another trick was to offer to take a couple’s photo with their camera -  for a fee of course.

The students were everywhere!  They all wanted us to sign a petition and it got very wearing.  We soon learned that saying ‘non grazie, ho gia fatto’ (No thanks, I’ve already done it) was enough to get them to move on to some other unsuspecting person.

Rome to Florence

Karin admiring the Duomo in Florence

Plan A had been to get a fast train from Rome to Florence, but we bought tickets for a slow train by mistake. It didn’t really matter in the end, as taking a train through the Tuscan countryside is something to be savoured, not rushed.

Personally, I think that if there is one place that everyone should visit before they die, it’s Florence. Florence is a much more compact city than Rome and all of the main sites of interest are easily accessible on foot and our hotel was only a few hundred metres from the Duomo in one direction and the Galleria dell Academia in the other. A walk to the Ponte Vecchio took a leisurely ten to fifteen minutes. Again, harsh light spoiled many shots, but with care, it was possible to get a few keepers. Moreover, since we were there in July, the days were quite long, so we could take advantage of the evening light before finding somewhere to have Dinner.

Florence to Alba

We left Florence knowing for certain that we would return when it was not quite so warm! The next stage of our adventure took us to the Piedmonte region in Northern Italy, where we were due to spend a couple of nights with my sister and brother-in-law who have recently bought a property in the region. It was necessary to change trains twice: once in Pisa and again in Asti. Sadly, the timetable did not permit a trip into the centre of Pisa.

All of the trains were comfortable and above all, quite cheap. Again we travelled first-class where possible, though this was significantly cheaper than an equivalent ticket on the UK rail network!

The train from Pisa was an ‘Intercity Plus’ train and we had booked seats in a first-class compartment, which was quiet and above all, comfortable. The three-hour journey took us up the spectacular Mediterranean coast before heading inland to Asti.

Sign showing that hunting for wild boar is permitted on this land.

We had quite a long wait for our last train, a small, brand new sprinter type train which weaved its way through countless vineyards to Alba, where we were picked up by my sister Wendy.

It was very nice to have a couple of days R&R, explore the locality and sample the excellent regional wine, called Barolo. Dave had arranged a tasting at one of the better wineries in the area and we bought three bottles of wine which with some judicious rearranging kit was secreted in our luggage.

From a photographic perspective, the Piedmonte region is characterised by lots of hills. These are like miniature versions of the Alps which can be seen on the horizon. The region is full of interesting hilltop villages, all with colourful buildings, narrow streets and fascinating architecture. Virtually every slope or hillside is covered in either vines or fruit trees. This is also truffle country. Fresh truffle on scrambled eggs is a breakfast fit for a king! I could have done with either my SLR or rangefinder outfit here, along with a set of graduated filters to tame the skies. Maybe next time…

Turin to Paris

Sadly, we only had a day in Turin, another fascinating city with loads to offer the photographer. We took the TGV from Turin to Paris, a five hour journey. Again, we travelled first-class and this cost the equivalent of £39 each! Travelling by train through the Alps was a real treat. The TGV is quick, clean and very comfortable.

Paris to London and then home.

It seemed to take much longer to check in at the Gare du Nord than it did at St. Pancras. The British immigration officials, who man the check-in in Paris are much more thorough than their French counterparts at St. Pancras.

Once we arrived back in London, we took a taxi to Paddington where we took out a small mortgage to pay for our standard-class tickets back to Swindon. The seventy-five mile journey from Paddington to Swindon cost more than our five-hour odyssey on the TGV. How does that work?

Would we do it again?

Would we do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. In fact we were thinking about next year’s holiday before we had arrived home.

Neither of us have ever been great fans of travelling by air and it seems to be much kinder to the Environment to use alternatives when it’s possible. It’s more expensive and the differential in cost is heightened by the plethora of cheap tickets that are available from the budget airlines. For us though, the train journeys were part of the adventure and it was a challenge seeing what we could do without when making such a relatively long journey.

I didn’t miss my Leica M8 and its superb lenses as much as I thought I would. In fact it was quite liberating only having a relatively compact camera with me. Having said that, if it’s at all possible I will take it and two or three lenses with me next time, probably a 15mm, 28mm and either a 75 or 90mm, plus Lee RF-75 outfit. Either that, or at least get a filter adaptor for the G9 and take a polariser plus some graduated filters.

We have proven to ourselves that it is eminently possible to travel long distances by train and to have a good time doing so. It doesn’t have to be the preserve of the Michael Palins of this world. Our advice is to give it a go. It’s great fun!

Tips.

• Make use of the Internet to plan your journey. It’s possible to book virtually everything you need on line. Make use of sites such as Trip Advisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com) to book hotels. It pays to take some of the comments with a pinch of salt though.

• Try to learn some of the local language. We found that having a GCSE in Italian helped immensely, even in places like Rome and Florence, where many people speak English. The locals are much more accommodating if you make an effort.

• In Rome, guided tours of the main sights such as the Colosseum are very worthwhile, not least because it’s possible to bypass the queues at peak times! Most tour guides will leave you to your own devices once they have finished their session.

• Take plenty of relatively small capacity memory cards rather than relying on a few large cards. Whilst cards are pretty reliable, it’s not worth risking hundreds of images for the sake of a small increase in space and weight.

• Take a means of backing up your cards. We shared a 40gigabyte Jobo Gigavue hard drive. We decided not to format and reuse the cards once they had been backed up. I found that eight 2 Gigabyte cards was just about sufficient.

• Take at least one spare battery and make sure the batteries are charged at the end of the day. I only had one D’OH! moment in Rome. Thankfully, I didn’t miss too many opportunities.

• Have a lens cleaning cloth with you at all times. This is especially true with the G9, as the front lens element seems to be vulnerable to fingerprints and smears.