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Battaglia dei Fiori
In Ventimiglia, once every two years a pretty amazing festival is held: La Battaglia dei Fiori or in english, the Battle of Flowers. This festival is an celebration of the Spring where the communities that make up Ventimiglia compete to create the best most extravgant float to be judged during a parade. These floats are made almost entirely out of flowers. One person told me there can be as many as 80,000 flowers on a float, but from the looks of them I would guess more.
The floats parade around the town on two days. The first is a night parade, with dancing, music and food. Everything culminates in a fireworks spectacular while the floats are repaired and touched up ready for the following day. The daytime parade is where the meat of the competition happens. Float girls climb aboard their communities entries, bands fire up, dancers and entertainers pour out onto the street. I have never felt such a happy, excited crowd. The parade loops around the town two or three times, at which point everyone in the parade starts showering the crowd in flowers. Hundreds and hundreds of flowers. With this the parade degenerates into a massive flurry of thrown flowers with the audience getting in on the game and having a good time.
The day was a caccophony of music, fragrance and colour and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I particularly liked the Pink Floyd float. A fairly fitting way to end my last day in this wonderful town.
Enjoy the (rather large) gallery, and there’s even a bit of fan service in there, just for Kym. The day photos were taken from a rather precarious position on a fence, from which my relative who was one of the float girls almost knocked me off with a well pitched flower. The flower battle starts on page three and the day time parade on two.
Ventimiglia
My visit to Ventimiglia started with the first ever photo of me in all my gear, and ended with a new understanding of my family and our history.
Arriving on the train from Nice (I haven’t written anything about my time in Nice mainly coz I don’t have time) I stepped onto the platform to be welcomed by my Granddad, Toto and my Mum. From that moment each day was a lesson in eating, meeting members of the family and struggling with Italian.
Much of my mum’s side of the family lives in this area of Liguria, which is only 7km’s from the French/Italian border. The City contains around 30,000 people, split down the middle by a river and is very popular with tourists wandering along the French riveria.
The city very beautiful. Portions are very old, and worked into the hills and cliffsides while modern buildings appear occasionally. Being reasonably small and dense the city retains a bit of a small town feel with everyone knowing each other and walking through the streets you can hear shouts of Ciao between the inhabitants constantly.
Moving out of the city center you can find beautiful old suburbs such as where some of my relatives lived, perched high in the mountains that surround the town.
The appearance of three intruders from Australia was quite an event. Every meal we were offered were huge and every minute of my 2 and half weeks in Ventimiglia was planned and crafted to meet someone or see something new. I ventured into mountain towns, scootered to hidden beaches, ate dinner and swam perched in a mountain cottage. I wandered markets and watched the sunset across the pebbly shore. I made new friends and loved every minute of my time in this small town. It was the true Italy, and I can’t wait to go back.
Mega Man Rap
This very cool Mega Man 2 video just rocked my socks. I can see them in the corner of my room. They’ve been rocked the fuck right off my feet. Cold appendages are the bitter side effect of such an awesome video. You have been warned. Fo’ realz.
Take a trip down memory lane, and learn a few 1337 stratz along the way. Keep an eye out for Mega Man putting his baby momma in her place! Oh, and hold onto your socks.
For those who aren’t quite sure how this internets shiznit works yet, the video is embedded after the jump. Just hit that little link down there talking about photos and videos and whatnot to see it. If you don’t see the link, you’ll be seeing the vid, so this point is moot. Moot Point. Moot.
Nimbin
My hire car is proving to be a boon to my travel situation. On Friday, gathering a group from the house, I loaded up the little Hyundai Getz with Crystal, Julianna, Antwon, and Jamie and headed south to New South Wales. “To Nimbin” was the call from the car as we pulled onto the motorway.
As we moved south, thick, lush rain forest bushland gave way to rolling, cleared farm lands. Rain, as it has for most of my adventure, bucketed down in torrents, at one point almost forcing us to stop the car. One-way bridges were covered over by the rivers they were traversing. The wipers couldn’t move the water off the windscreen fast enough and misting windows obscured my vision. We pushed on. The rain cleared as we pulled into the infamous town of Nimbin, leaving behind a thin mist and slick streets.
Nimbin, once considered almost a Utopian town by the hippies that resided there, is a small rural community with a population of around 350 “official” residents. While Nimbin originally began life as a dairy farming town, its main drawcard now is the fairly relaxed marijuana laws that exist there. Drugs such as various varieties of pot and hash, acid and mushrooms are sold relatively openly in the street. The heady aroma of grass and incense mingles with the sweaty, “haven’t showered since Malcolm Fraser” stink of the bums and druggies that wander the main strip. Large groups of stoned tourists shamble along, bleary eyed, talking shit and browsing hemp themed souvenir stores. Aging hippies sit behind street stalls selling shiny nicknacks and new age books. If it could be tie-died, it was tie-died.
While the utopian nature of the place may have gone, the druggies have not. The “free love” ideal brought to the town by the hippies that transformed it so long ago has been lost to drunk bums and modern meth head junkies.
I wandered the main strip, stopping into the local pub where loud music played from an old CD jukebox drowned out the caller on the TAB racing screens. I found the rest of the group chatting to some aboriginals busking in the street for booze money. I picked up one of their guitars and with Antwon grabbing the bongo we busted out a few tunes on the street. One of the buskers repeatedly yelled Superman while I played, in reference to my tshirt.
My time in Nimbin was a pretty surreal. While it made me a little sad to see what could have been a nice place turned bad, it was still an experience I have now crossed off my “things to do” list.
On the way back Jamie directed us to Mount Warning the highest, most eastern part of Australia. If you wish to catch the first rays of light hitting Australia on New Years, the top of Mount Warning is the place to be. The forest was lush, helped in part by the heavy rains and the running creeks and dripping foliage were very peaceful.
We crept back into Brisbane with its twinkling lights around 7pm. Just in time for some dinner. I sat listening to the creaking and popping of the car as the engine cooled in the moist night air. I decided that I would hit Surfers Paradise the next morning.