Our Mate Frank the Environmental Warrior

Since I last checked in we’ve been to Firenze and Assisi.  In Firenze I was lucky enough to catch up with an old school friend, Dr A, who showed us around and pointed out fantastic frescoes, carvings and building decorations we would have never noticed otherwise.  As she has studied art for years we learned lots of interesting stuff.  In one church she told us that the bodies in the grave yard (which was in a court-yard surrounded by frescoes) had all be exhumed as apparently decomposing bodies, while great for the soil, are terrible for frescoes.  She gave us an excellent piece of advice which I will pass onto you, for the next time you’re in Italy.  Visit the churches – the art is beautiful and FREE! As long as you’re respectful, quiet and don’t walk in with a boom box on your shoulder playing ‘My Lovely Lady Lumps’ or ‘Boom Boom Boom (let’s go back to my room)’ you should be fine.

The prize Chianina

We saw the replica of David (he has very big hands – something to do with perspective, he was meant to be a lot higher up) and without planning managed to be in Firenze on their patron saint’s day (St John the Baptist) where they paraded through the streets in medieval gear, leading a Chianina (pronounced keya-nina in Firenze) followed by a two football teams.  The parade ended with a football game. Not sure if the winning team gets the Chianina.  Afterwards, as all that beef made us hungry, we shared a bistecca for dinner while we watched the fireworks across the river.  In the restaurant we met some American families (one family with two sons who were pro-guns) one said “I shoot guns for relaxation” I replied “Oh really? I do yoga”…  Funnily enough their mother was anti…

The remains of the bistecca a la florentina

 Then it was time to leave Firenze for Assisi – the birthplace and general hangout of St Francis – patron saint of animals and the environment.  We found out lots of interesting stuff about him.  For instance, he was the first person to do a nativity scene.  Assisi is very old and very beautiful (if you like hills, we’re kinda sick of hills now).   Their thing is pottery, so lots of beautiful hand-painted stuff.  One guy reckoned his family had been doing it for 1000 years (he could have just been spinning us a tourist line though). 

Lots of churches (seriously) nuns and priests rockin’ the streets in their Jesus sandals.  I haven’t seen so many God botherers in one place ever.  There I was thinking taking the vows was dying out.  Not in Italy.  There were nun-tourists with cameras, priest-tourists buying new Jesus sandals, ministers doing tours... We had to watch our blaspheming, in case we were smote.

In the main piazza there’s an old Roman Temple dating back to 1 AD – It used to be Minerva’s joint but it’s been consecrated and generally taken over by the Catholics.  It took us a while to figure out why there were so many owl figurines in Assisi – apparently Minerva could turn herself into an owl.  Which is funny because in all the literature they keep referring to the ‘The so called temple of Minerva’ – I’m surprised the owls have slipped under the radar – sneaky Minerva…

We found a tiny osteria (tavern) down in a valley; it was fantastic - eating pasta for lunch looking over the olive groves with a chickie coop in the foreground.  We’d decided to do the walk down as there was an old church to check out.  As we were walking through the fields we found wild fennel, juniper and oregano.  It all smells so much stronger here. Amazeballs.

happy chickies in a beaut coop

We ate twice in the restaurant which was attached to our hotel.  The owner was crazy (in a nice way) so as well as the food being delicious; watching the staff and the crazy owner interact was worth the price of food in itself.   There was yelling, bumbling, food grabbed back on its way out of the kitchen three times in a row because she wanted to add “one more thing”.  We think anyway.  The Wee Girl couldn’t understand a word she said.

Off to Todi now - catch ya!

You say Mirano, I say Marano, you say Murano, I say Burano…

Marano, Mirano, Murano, Burano – let’s call the whole thing off. I know, lame.  But that’s the town names around here.  Mirano is where we’re staying; Marano is near the train station. Murano is the famous glass place and Burano is gorgeous and the home of colourful houses and lace.  Our days are punctuated by church bells; which is divine*.

*See what I did there?

On our first night we rode into Mirano and had a delicious dinner where I had a zucchini carbonara epiphany (the Wee Girl had dinner envy even though her gnocchi was delicious).  The hosts were great and everyone is complimenting the Wee Girl on her pronunciation – she’s very handy to have around.

We’ve enjoyed Venice although I’m getting very footsore; walking 5 hours a day is a tough gig! And no cars or bikes in Venice, only walking and boating.  Alas Mr T we didn’t have a gondola ride – and not because of expense, we didn’t actually find out how much.  Just because it was too hot during the day and there were gondola-jams at night.  We did however take a ferry ride the entire length of the Grand Canal which was grouse.

We’re doing lots of bike riding which is excellent for my arse (although I’m also getting bum-weary).  The food has been good on the whole, although we had a fairy ordinary pizza experience in Mirano – and it was recommended by where we are staying!  Clearly they thought we were your average tourists, not the impeccably well-eaten tourists that we actually are.

The first day we decided to stroll down the streets of Venice sans map. This may have been a mistake, after feeling like rats in a maze we ended up somewhere near the fish markets (nowhere near the piazza San Marco). All the buildings are at least 3 storeys so you have no idea where you’re heading.  We finally caved and bought a map which took us to the piazza, which was amazing. By then we could hardly walk so we hobbled to the ferry which took us back to the train station.

The next day we decided we needed more of a plan so we studied our map and agreed on a visit to Murano and Burano.  Both islands a ferry ride away from Venice.  So onto the ferry past the jostling pusher-inerer tourists (bastards!) and finally to Murano.  Who knew that much glass in once place would just end up looking tacky and OTT, but there were some fantastic glass sculptures around the island. We did the tourist thing and took lots of photos and the Wee Girl bought microscopic glass figurines for her friends back home.  There was lots of things we would have loved to purchase but 2 more weeks with suitcases full of glass didn’t seem like the best idea in the world.

The night before the Wee Girl had looked up Burano on the interweb and it is apparently the place of many beautifully coloured houses.  So onto the next ferry (fighting off more pusher-inerers) and cruising over.  Talk about beautiful.  We found out that if you want to paint your house you have to apply to the town council and they will give you a list of colours you may use.  The place looks like a painting of how an Italian town should look.

They had a Leaning Belltower of Burano (see below) which had a significant list – we admired it whilst enjoying in lunch at the Gatto Nero restaurant (fantastic fish risotto).  So afterwards we followed our noses past the rainbow of houses to the church, laughed at the tower and visited a lace museum.  So far it’s the only museum we’ve gone to as they wanted 40 euro per person for the Leonardo Di Vinci museum ! – and the others were similarly priced (ouch!)

On our final day we cruised on our bikes back to Mirano (after a quick side trip to Venice as the Wee Girl had decided that two of the small glass gifts she’d bought for friends could not be parted with).  We found an excellent restaurant (after a brief scare when it appeared the only restaurant open for lunch was the dodgy pizza one). The owner had lived in Australia for years as a youth (surfing at Bells Beach) so when he talked English it was in an Australian surfer accent, hilarious. We had a scallop and olive gnocchi – yum!  We’re going to try his other restaurant for dinner.  It’s 20 minutes in the other direction (using the deadly treadlys) in Mira.  He reckons his pizzas are second to none.  We’ll be the judge of that…**

**We just got back – it was no brag. Best pizza we’ve had so far.

Sweating it out in Verona

For the first leg of our stay the Wee Girl chose Vicenza.  Her Host Family were teasing her saying it was awful and we should have stayed in Verona. So glad we didn’t. Vecenza is lovely, it’s quiet and pretty, the food has been fantastic and the old city is old and stuff. It’s been really hot, apparently unseasonable so (happy days) so we’ve been sweating it out, happily the hotel room is air conditioned.  The Wee Girl was just having a panic about Umbria “What??? The hotel rooms aren’t air conditioned????” and frantically looking up the weather, Umbria is fine, a seasonable 25.  That’s when we found out how hot it’s really been here for the last few days (37 degrees), glad I bought a hat.

We spent the first afternoon wandering the streets and eating gelato.  I’ve been going Italian with the Wee Girl; breakfast is a tea and biscuits (2 or 3) then nothing until about 2 which is a big lunch.  Dinner is at about 8.  For lunch we stopped in a café and had pasta with tomato, olives and capers.  It’s very enjoyable having the Wee Girl being able to speak Italian, she was telling me the man next to us (who had the same thing) was telling the owner that there was not enough sauce, not enough salt and the pasta was over cooked.  He was not impressed (and got given more wine).   I tended to agree with him about the sauce and salt, but as I’m Australian I’m used to ‘over cooked’ pasta cause that’s how we have it. 

It was a Monday night so lots of the restaurants were closed for dinner, but we found one near the piazza which was a little touristy but open.  The Wee Girl had truffled gnocci which was delicious and I chose the spaghetti vongoli (which was way too salty!)

The plan was to do Verona the next day after lunch so we got up late (we’re on holidays! Hooray!) and had a leisurely lunch at a lovely Taverna we’d wanted to go to the night before (but it had been closed). For starters I had buffalo mozzarella with tomatoes and Wee Girl had burrata instead of mozzarella (it’s like mozzarella but runny on the inside, she’s acquired a taste for it).  They were both fresh and amazing.  Our mains were hand-made ravioli which was yum too.  Then we trotted down to the station.

After an hour on the train we arrived at this fabled, romantic town… romantic? No. Packed to the rafters with tourists? Si.  I hated it, the Wee Girl kept telling me to ignore the tourists (as I tripped over another loud American) and enjoy the buildings.  They were nice, we finally after some searching found Juliette’s balcony and the wall where you’re meant to leave your love lorn letters.  Ha! It is so far from ‘Letters to Juliette’ it’s not funny.  You could hardly move, there were people scribbling on the walls leading into it and one wall was covered in old gum (some weird romantic thing I guess – here! Have my gum! I love you!) Two souvenir shops and a portcullis covered in romantically inclined padlocks (5 euro each).  I may have bought one, I felt like I had to fit in.

We had a bit more of a sweaty wander then left in disgust, Verona was not for us.  We headed back to the lovely Vicenza for a quiet dinner in.  We had earlier found a secret ‘locals’ deli and purchased delicious meats and cheeses.  Also some strawberries from the greengrocer round the corner.

Here’s a picture of our deliciousness – tomorrow off to Venice!

N. Ireland in 14 Days

I’ve done N. Ireland and headed to Italy and my grand reunion with the Wee Girl.  I’m up with the lingo now, so I am, and understand about 70% of what’s being said (except for the Bro in Law, that’s at about 50%).  We’ve done Dublin (too touristy, not enough diddle dee dee) and Belfast (loved it – best shoe shop ever) and some cruises around the countryside.  Cushindall and Cushindun were perty; Dunegal had a great castle. The Giants Causeway was also very cool. Who knew there were giant pre-historic honey bees!?

I have to say though that if you’re going to find faeries then Ireland is the place to look, real live fairy mounds abound!  I think I almost gave myself whiplash the first time I spotted one.  Farmers won’t touch a faerie mound if it’s in their field, or cut down any trees on them due to bad juju.  Even the ditches are beautiful here, with creaking trees and moss – I’m sure I spotted a dryad.  We went to Dooley’s Cairn today too which was fantastic, standing stones over 3000 years old, enough to make my brain hurt.   We actually drove around for half an hour looking for 2 other Long Stones but the directions we got were in Irish so we couldn’t find it.  “Go down the road half a mile and turn right.  At the top of the hill you’ll see a lane, drive down that til you get to the dip in the road and you’ll see a grey house next to a bungalow – from about here to the houses down there away there’s a field that belongs to my uncle, there’s one in the field there.”  Needless to say we could not find the dip and grey houses appeared on every crest. The lanes were lovely though.

But of all the places we’ve visited my favourite is The Dark Hedges.  It is really magical, we came past it on our flying visit of Cushindall and Cushindun; it’s a row of beech trees that have grown together over the road to make a real Hansel & Gretel path.  Apparently used in the Game of Thrones (S2 E1) so check it out and weep with envy that I was there and you weren’t.  I made Himself take me back there at 10pm one evening* so he could take many photos hoping to get that one money shot we could possibly hang on our wall.

Here's an interweb pic from Game of Thrones

I sampled the haute cuisine of Ballymoney - curry chip and battered onion rings – I drew the line at the battered chicken fillet burger, though I did have a bite of Himself’s.  We did go to some fantastic restaurants though (thank you TripAdvisor), but apart from them the diet is fairly hairy.

The wildflowers are also amazing – bluebells, daisies, buttercups, wild fuchsia, poppies, wild roses, snowdrops, violets, and that’s just on the side of the road.  Rhododendrons also kick off in Ireland, they put Blackheath in the Mountains to shame – City of Rhododendrons my arse.

I won’t talk about the trips to endless relatives, there were a lot of them, they talked about ‘stuff’ mostly I couldn’t understand them (probably for the best).  Himself did warn me that a trip to Ireland was fraught with relatives, I should have listened.  The other interesting thing to note here is that as you all know, I’m a talkative girl… not so! In N. Ireland I am shy, retiring and generally mute – when compared to an Irishman in full voice; damn they can talk.

A highlight to understanding the Irish Psychie was our trip to Bundoran (which was a hole).  It went like this:  We left at about 11:45.  It was a 3 hour road trip there, 6 adults in the car.  We stopped at the first off-licence (bottle-o) to stock up.  It was then drinking and talking (not me, I’m mute) all the way there.  The Bro-in-Law may have got lost one time, taking us to Donegal at first (sad we didn’t stay there instead).  We checked into the Hollyrood Hotel (Hollyrood = geriatric retreat), they were racing their Zimmer frames down the halls.  Drank some more, had dinner, Himself and I had to send our steaks back.  Apparently medium rare = medium well, ironically the chef agreed and commented to the waitress that clearly “we weren’t from round these parts”.  They came back perfectly done.  More drinking eschewed.  Staggered back to the lumpy bed then up in the morning for rubber passing as an Irish Fry.  Himself tried to dip his toast in the egg, the toast broke (true story).  We then drove home, hung-over.  The redeeming feature of this trip was the side trip to Donegal (Dhon na nGall) Castle, it was nice.

*it gets dark at 11:30 here in summer – outrageous!