A couple of weeks in July

Well after Duncan's last blog entry, I am not sure I will be able to live up to the standard of writing and story telling... but bear with me, I will give it my best ;)


So Monday morning after Italy, Duncan trudged off to work, whilst I stayed home and 'slept in'. And of course by 'sleep in' I don't mean getting up, unpacking the bags, doing about 3 loads of washing and sorting out the stuff that piles up after two weeks away :) No not at all....


Monday night Vic and Grant and Grant's folks returned from Bruges. Grant's parents had come to visit via China and the Trans-Siberian and the four of them had spent a lovely weekend in Belgium. We had a bbq on Monday night while we caught up on what every had been doing.


The next weekend in June I was off too work.... Yay for me... oh well I guess it all helps.

Tuesday the 10th of June (as well as being my brothers birthday) is Grant's birthday and lucky for him his mum was here to make him special birthday lasagne, and his wife was here to bake him a yummy chocolate cake. I am pretty sure that it was a win win situation for everyone not just the birthday boy.

To celebrate Grant's birthday we went to a medieval banquet in Catherine Docks close to the Tower of London. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to throw my bones on the floor, but we did get to drink awful wine out of cermaic mugs, bang rowdily on the table in response to our evening entertainment or in appreciation of our meal, and make noisy toasts at the Kings leisure.... "Drink Hail.. Washail!!!!" Our evening entertainment consisted of songs from the King's musicians and the queen), juggling and tricks from the court jester, and of course no medieval banquet would be complete without some duelling knights. It was very cheesy but good fun. One of those evenings where what you get out of it is in direct proportion to what you put in. And with Grant and Vic as the Lord and Lady of our table, we were all in fine form. We did leave before the medieval disco got pumping though, taking the bus back across Tower Bridge and home.

On Saturday the 13th of June, Victoria, Belinda and myself piled into Madge (the car) and headed down to Folkstone, boarded the eurotunnel train and went under the channel to France. We were starting our girly horseriding weekend, which was based in a petite village Sangatte in the Two Caps region. We stayed in a small guest house with views over the ocean. Luckily our meals were included as well, so the only decision we actually had to make was whether we wanted to go to the spa after the first afternoon riding.

So after lunch our guide Xavier picked collected us off the main road and we went to collect the horses, saddled up and headed up the hill. We rode between the the fields of wheat and barley and looked out over the sea to the white cliffs of dover, we trotted through woods and cantered up hills and about three hours later we arrived back at the stables.

A little saddle sore we went to a small champagne bar/spa/restarant that evening. We started with champagne in the spa, and it was well needed (the spa that is the champas was a luxury:), after a little time in the steam room and an unwind, we got changed and moved into the restaraunt part for dinner. Dinner was absolutely delicious (I had steak with gorgonzola sauce), but boy were we tired. We went back to the apartment and Vic and I just managed to muster enough energy to walk down to the coast and see the sun setting through the clouds.

After a very good sleep and breakfast we met Xavier back at the horses, saddled up and headed back up the hills. Lunch was a picnic in a field with fresh bread, ham and french cheese. We rode for a couple more hours along the beach before we literally peeled ourselves out of the saddles and collapsed on the floor. Don't get me wrong the riding was awesome the horses were not riding school horses so we actually needed to ride them, not just sit on them... I guess we were just a little ambitious thinking we were going to ride 8 hours in one weekend, after not riding for ages. Needless to say the first couple of days back at work were painful.

Monday was the 16th and we had rescheduled Restaraunt club to this night, because a whole lot of people were not able to make the Sunday (including us), turned out that not many more were able to make Monday and it was a small intimate group that arrived at Wagamama's (a franchised Japanese place... which was ok abut i don't think that I would rave about it)

Saturday the 19th was my only day off in June *sigh*.... I know I know it is all self inflicted so I cannot complain but we were both fairly worn out so spent the day relaxing. On Sunday Dunc and I and Vic and Grant drove up to Birmingham, partly to go to the Bullring and go shopping and partly to go and see Dunc's Nanny. It was a great day, all except one thing.. Madge as decided that she doesn't like driving between 65 and 75 miles per hour, which is prime motorway speed. She does the speed alright but vibrates through everyones feet and bottoms and sounds like she is a plane ready to take off. It was alright for short distances but would not be fun if we were going to be stuck in traffic for several hours.... really must do something about that.

On Monday night we met Mrs Pethick and Janine and her partner Craig for dinner and drinks in Waterloo. It was a really lovely night and the cafe which was under the railway had lovely italian food and mice that scuttled under the tables (there are always mice around the railway and they don't eat much)

Tuesday night was spent at home packing as we were off on our next adventure after work on wednesday. So stay tuned...... :)

Pisa & Florence

After Cinque Terre we got back on a train and headed of to Florence with a stop in Pisa. We stowed our bags at the Pisa Centrale station and started to walk into town to see the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. We walked through the streets looking at the shops and buildings, but didn't really stop at anything as we only wanted to be here for a couple of hours before getting the train on to Florence. Pisa itself is not as pretty as Venice or Rome but is still quite a cool city to walk through. We finally got to Piazza del Duomo and saw the famous tower and the three other structures in the Piazza, the Duomo, the Baptistery, and the Camposanto.

The Duomo is a medieval cathedral with some very impressive and massive bronze doors. The Baptistery is the largest in Italy, and if you take into account the statue of John the Baptist on the roof is actually taller than the tower. The Camposanto is a walled cemetery which is said to be the most beautiful cemetery in the world, and was build around a shipload of sacred soil bought back from Golgotha during the 4th crusade.... supposedly. They are all built of the most beautiful marble and are surrounded by lush green grass. Very impressive.

The Tower itself is the free-standing Bell Tower of the cathedral and, like the others, is built in white marble. It is just less than 4m off the vertical now, which doesn't sound like much but it actually leans much more than I thought it would. You can climb it but we just took some pictures from the outside... and of course took the obligatory pictures either holding it up or pushing it over. Even Sara, after a bit of persuasion got in on the act :) It was also quite expensive to get into the other buildings, so we just had a wander around and then headed back to the train station to head off to Florence.

When we got to Florence we found the right bus and got on to take us to our campsite... though we did take it the wrong direction of its loop so we got a nice preview of the town :) Our campsite, Camping Michelangelo, was very flash for a campsite, situated up in the hills with views out over Florence. Now we didn't bring our own tents here this time, we'd booked a pre-built jobbie that has a bunk bed and a single, and would have been about 3m by 4m, just right for three people and some bags and to keep the rain off.

After stowing our bags we took a walk to Piazzale Michelangelo which is right next to the campsite. This square has a great view out over all of Florence. It also has a replica statue of David. There is a little bit of a market up here too, and we actually bought a beautiful water colour painting from an artist, and got a smaller one for Sara as it was her birthday in 2 days. Obviously she was going to see that I had two paintings, but me and Gem hammed it up and pretended I got it as a gift for Gem and she wasn't allowed to open it. We then took a stroll down the hill into the city on our side of the river. Florence is a beautiful town and it was great to just walk around.

For dinner we found a small family run restaurant that was recommended in one of the guide books. The menu was all in Italian, as is to be expected, but luckily we heard the guy sitting next to us speak fluent Italian but with an Irish accent so we asked him to decode some of it. It was good actually as he was able to point out which ones were stomach and liver and things like that. In the end the food we had was brilliant... all three of us are big fans of Tuscan food :) On the walk back to the campsite we walked along the river Arno and took some night shots of all the lights and the major bridge in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio. We did think about getting the bus back up the hill, but in the end we walked up the massive flight of stairs. Back up in the hills we took a few more night shots out over Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo before heading to bed.

Day two in Florence took us out over the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte Vecchio is a 4 story bridge that spans the narrowest part of the river Arno. It contains heaps of shops, mainly jewellers, artists and souvenir shops. The bridge is an impressive affair that was built in 996, then damaged and rebuilt in 1345 and has remained the same since. After the bridge we headed to the Duomo of Florence, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The Duomo is a massive cathedral church that is decked out in white and green marble with a massive red dome. The inside is very impressive, and absolutely massive. Not quite as impressive or large as St Peter's Basilica, but quite a church. We queued for a while outside to climb up to the dome, but after about half an hour we found out that someone had had a heart attack up the winding stairs and they were waiting on the paramedics.

We left the queue and headed to The Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti. The main drawcard here is the original statue of Michelangelo's David. Now I didn't think I'd actually be all that impressed with it, I mean the Mona Lisa is well hyped up but is actually a very small painting, but David is an amazing piece of artwork. The definition and attention to detail is breathtaking, you can see every vein in his legs and the detail in his knuckles. David was actually built by Michelangelo as a "look how good I am" piece. A few other artists had started to work on the piece but all said the marble was too hard to work with. It got left for 25 years in the cathedral yard before Michelangelo at only 26 convinced people he could work it. It took him 3 years but the outcome was well worth it. There are other works in here by Michelangelo that are almost as impressive. There is also a statue called The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna (rape here meaning kidnapping, not sexual assault) which has three figures intertwined so that where ever you stand around it you see something different... there is no real "front" to it. Gem actually liked this statue better.

After our brush with history, we headed back to the Duomo to climb the bell tower. It didn't take us too long to queue (now that the person was helped down) and the climb up wasn't too bad, even if it was very stuffy and hot. The view out from the top was great as you could see out over all of Florence. We made our way back down then headed back up to the camp site (yep, up the stairs again), got ourselves a drink and sat out around the bar for a bit of break.

After a little while we headed back down to the town to a place where we thought we might be able to get a wine tasting as the Tuscan region is famous for its fine red wines. The first place we went to said they didn't but gave us a wine menu to look through, we sat outside for about 10 minutes and no one came and took our order so we shuffled off to another place that looked good. This shop had just opened and the guys inside were setting out the chairs but we again asked if they do wine tasting. They said they didn't but they could make something up for us anyway. We sat at the bar and the wine buff said he give us 3 whites, 3 reds and a desert wine. It sounded good to us so he started the tasting. He was a real wine aficionado and would even use a fresh glass for each wine. The pours were huge too, nearly up to the 100ml mark for each "taste". The other guy in the shop was the food buff, and he kept bringing us out different food that are supposed to compliment the wines... pecorino cheese with jam, garlic bread, prosciutto hams and biscotti biscuits. At one point one of the red wines he gave us had been opened yesterday... so he then cracked a fresh bottle and gave us another glass so we could see the difference. He even gave us a glass/taste of the regions famous wine, the Brunello di Montalcino. This bad boy costs 9.50 euro per glass but tasted fantastic. Lastly we had a desert/fortified wine called a Sciacchetra. Not my cup of tea but Gem liked it. When we were done we were all a little merry but were dreading the cost as we never actually agreed on a price seeing as they were making this up on the spot. In the end he asked for 20 euro’s each. An absolute bargain!

We headed off to a small pizzeria and had another great meal, then headed back up to the campsite (stairs!) and relaxed for a few hours before bed. Me and Gem were heading off to Bologna in a couple of days so we looked up some accommodation. We looked on lastminute.com which usually has some great last minute deal (who'd have thought!) and managed to pick ourselves up a four star hotel with breakfast for about 60 euro! Awesome!

The start of day three in Florence saw us surprise Sara with her painting for her birthday. She genuinely thought it was a present for Gem so the surprise worked well. After that we walked into town and got in the queue for the Uffizi Gallery, one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world. The Uffizi used to be the offices for the Florentine magistrates (Uffizi = Offices) and now houses the largest collection of Italian art. The wait can be up to 5 hours in high season, but we got there earlyish and only queued for about an hour. There are over 40 rooms and supposedly it should take you a couple of days to do it all. We however managed it in about 3 hours :) The first 10 or so rooms contain mainly Italian religious iconography from the 13th century to the 16th century... which to be honest is not my bag. Waaaay to much gold and sad faces. As you progress through the gallery however it is quite interesting to see the progression of the trends in painting and skill levels increase. We also got an audio guide which was good in the way that it described each room and a few of the major works in there, rather than having to select an audio track for each painting. Though occasionally you wanted to know more about a particular piece of art and without a book you couldn't.

We were fairly art'ed out by now so we headed up to Forte di Belvedere, a Fort built in the 1500's up in the hills looking down on Florence. We couldn't get inside but it was nice to walk around an see the old fortifications. There were also hummingbirds in some of the flowers which were cool... I'd never seen them before... they are so small!

After the fort we walked to Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. Built in the 13th century it is the oldest Basilica in Florence. We wandered round the cemetery for a while, which is beautiful in itself, then headed inside. We were lucky enough to have the monks start their evening vespers so we sat down on the stairs and listened (along with about 20 others) to them sing in Gregorian chant. There would have been only about 10 or so monks, but the sound they produced in the crypt was amazing.

We walked back to the campsite, had a cheeky drink, got changed and then headed back into town for Sara's birthday meal. We picked a place not too far from our campsite that Sara liked the look off, and it was a good choice. The food was amazing. We even managed to slip some candles into Sara's desert, but she made it pretty difficult by ordering biscotti. After dinner we went back to the small wine bar that we had our wine tasting at and had a another drink there and a chat. It was a really good night and I think Sara enjoyed it.

On the last day we all went to the train station, Sara to head off to Rome to meet Sam, and me and Gem off to Bologna. Me and Gem couldn't get regular seats on the train we wanted, so we had to settle for 1st class. It wasn't too much more and it was nice to have big comfy seats. When we got to Bologna we took the bus out to our hotel, and it was pretty flash... 4 stars is good :) We knew we were going to basically head home and only get a few hours sleep before having to get up for work, so we were quite keen to just relax in some comfort. We spent the afternoon just chilling in the hotel, then went for a walk around the parklands nearby. Dinner we had in the hotel restaurant, and it was very good and also quite cheap. We slept for hours that night as the bed was massive and comfy :) Breakfast was also very good. I do love a good continental breakfast buffet... breads and cheeses and meats and fruit... mmm.

Our flight wasn't till about 10:30pm so we hung around the hotel till about 12 then took the bus back into the town. As it was a Sunday the town was quite quiet, but there were two crazy Italian guitarists in the main square. One guy was in a leather vest and would have been about 40ish... he was well greasy, but the older ladies loved him :) He had a kitted out scooter that had the amps and stuff built in... all class. The second guy was very talented, he played both the rhythm and lead of classic songs, and stored his cigarette in the strings... again, all class. We spent a couple of hours wandering around but it was very quiet and pretty damn hot too. We went back to the hotel again and relaxed before getting the coach out to the airport. The minicab picked us up and took us home, which got us into bed by about 1:30am. All in all a great holiday. Still love Italy, and love Italian food :)