Firstly apologies for the delay in this post but we have been busy playing tourists and I've been hooked by "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy and "The Hunger Games" trilogy both worth a read if you have the time. I'm actually making up for some lost time as I love reading but at home I never seem to get more than a couple of pages into a book before I'm in the land of nod. Anyway.....here is Italy and Greece will follow shortly.
We headed off from housesitting at the Kritslammers in Châteauneuf-Grasse near Valbonne in the morning and headed to Alessio, our first Italian destination, where we’d heard
great things about the town and beach. On
the way we got great news that the girls had both been accepted into our
preferred school in London; something
everyone, including the school, said was a miracle (more about that below). We arrived in Allesio around lunch time so
grabbed the obligatory Greek salad and grilled calamari. It was really crowded but Big A and his girls
went in for a dip while I caught up on some reading on the beach. As it was so hot and crowded we didn’t stay
long. Like France, there are so many
beaches dominated by loungers and umbrellas that you have to pay for. The rental cost ranges from $12 to $30 a
day depending on the exclusivity of the area. Sometimes you can get the loungers included
in your very expensive lunch but we chose to each cheaply and “lounge” on the sand
at the public beaches wherever we went (Greece would prove the exception to
this but more about that in my next post).
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| Alessio Beach, Italy |
To the left of the beach is a beautiful array of brightly
coloured umbrellas and little beach huts that are rented by the punters to use
as changing rooms. They are the size of
portaloos so really there’s not much else you could use them for.
We headed off from Alessio around 3pm to Lu where we’d
booked into the Palazzo Paleologi Resort for one night to break up our trip to
Lake Garda. The name and description had
us expecting great things but unfortunately we were a little disappointed as
the village closes down on a Monday night and the people staying in the hotel
didn’t really make us feel that welcomed.
It was like a ghost town. The
restaurant however, was beautiful and resembled the image one would have of an
ancient stone monastery set in a medieval hill top village. The sunset was breathtaking and from our
balcony table we got to sit centre stage to watch the landscape of wheat and
sunflower fields transform as the sky closed her eyes for the day. I have provided a detailed review of this
(and many other hotels and restuarants etc) under the name “icklefritz” on Tripadvisor.
We left Lu the following day and drove for about 2 hours
to Lake Garda. I’d chosen to stay a
couple of days in a hotel that had a great pool for the girls. I say I because if it was up to Big A we
would have stayed at Sirmione with no pool for 3 times as much and, given that
I knew Venice and Rome were going to be hideously expensive, I was determined
to have some cheaper nights in rural Italy.
We drove past the Hotel Centro Turistico Gardesano twice as it was so
poorly sign posted and frankly so awful!
It could pass for a council estate in the UK and was definitely only
really suitable for the “young” backpacking set who basically just want a cheap
bed to crash in! Thank goodness the pool
area was huge as they opened it up to the public (for a small fee), which meant
that we had a large amount of day trippers!
Big A will surely have a field day with this hotel’s review and it’s
location….
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| Storm brewing over Lake Garda |
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| Sirmione Restaurant |
Whilst staying around Lake Garda (albeit our hotel was a
30 minute drive away) we went to Sirmione twice. Sirmione is on a thin strip of land about
100 meters wide and about 2 kms long, extending into the lake. Having water on either side makes for some
spectacular views from the many hotels that line the one road that goes in and
out of Sirmione. Apart from the massive
lake (Lake Garda is 370km2) Sirmione is absolutely spectaclular. At the entrance to the village, which sits at
the end of the peninsular, there the 13th century Scaliger Castle
complete with moat and swans. The
village is adorned with vines creeping over many of the beautiful buildings
creating a lovely visual oasis from the August heat. We ate twice in Sirmione as the location was
just so beautiful. We were even treated to a free “entertainment spectacular”
on one night as a touring British school performed on the promenade, in front
of the lake. Whilst, eventually, they
managed to fill the hundred or so seats, the greatest reaction from the
audience came when a bolt of lightening seemed to hit the lake behind them,
quickly followed by torrential downpour!
Unfortunately their routine came to an abrupt end but while it lasted,
the girls loved it; especially the slow-mo Olypmics themed mime dance!
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| Construction Venice Style |
We stayed for 3 nights in Venice at the Hotel San
Moise. It was right on a canal (so many
hotels are) and only a 2 minute walk from Piazza St Marco. Venice was, as ever stunning and we had great
fun getting lost wandering amongst it’s little alleyways (calles). We did the main sightseeing things like
Piazza St Marco, Grand Canal, Ponte Vecchio, Rialto Bridge and Murano Island’s
glass factory and “museum” (which when booked through the hotel, we were picked
up by a free private water taxi which was really lovely way to take the 20
minute journey).
Venice is unique and spectacular and gave Middle A her
number 1 thing to do on our gap year; take a gondola ride. The ride was really
informative as our guide was quite talkative (didn’t sing however which was
disappointing). We paid €80 for the hour
but we should have negotiated more as others did (especially at the Hard Rock
Café) and they got the ride for about €65.
Speaking of the Hard Rock Café, I’d never been before but we ended up
here twice in 3 nights because frankly having been presented with pizza and
pasta on every menu since we left London in February, we were desperate for a
change. The other night was a splurge at
a restaurant called Bistrot de Venise (http://www.bistrotdevenise.com/eng/index.html). We ate here because we walked by the night
before and it looked special. We sat
outside with the gondolas passing by at the end of the calle. They were full but as we were the last table
before the canal, it felt like we were the only ones there (but in a good way).
Eating there just confirmed our thoughts
and gave us that rare occasion where a restaurant surpasses your expectations
across all elements, value, food, service and location.
Venice also gave us an opportunity to play around with
dressing up as the girls tried on a variety of masks from Veniceland, located
just off St Mark’s Square. The manager got out the caps and allowed me to take
a photo. I even managed to get a souvenir
mask for the house to remind us of a place we had so much fun in.
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| Little A (or is it???) |
From Venice we got the ferry back to the car and drove
about 2 hours to the outskirts of San Gimignano in the area of Siena. We had a week here, staying at the Hotel Le
Volpaie, with the intention of seeing some of Tuscany from a central location. The hotel had a pool we could retreat with
the kids to after a day of sightseeing.
As Australian’s, we are used to the heat but being a tourist is not like
being at home where air conditioned cocoons keep the onslaught of the heat at
bay. The hotel in itself was nothing
special but the Tripadvisor reviews made me think I’d be mad not to book here…
and yes the breakfast was nice but please why do so many travellers get so hung
up on this meal! I swear it can make or
break a hotel on Tripadvisor which is such a shame as it disproportionately
skews the rating and that was the case for Hotel Le Volpaie.
San Gimignano was founded in the 3rd Century
and has a history influenced by Attila the Hun and the Black Death. It became an art destination and tourist town
around the 19th century. From
San Gimignano were able to explore many of the towns associated with the Tuscan
region like Florence, Pisa, Volterra, Montalcino and Montepulciano. The latter three are like San Gimignano,
hilltop medieval towns, and I have to say that they began to blend into one
after a while. They are all incredibly
beautiful and have magnificent views of the Tuscan landscape but they are all
so similar. I think it was Volterra,
they had about 57 restaurants and they were all serving the same food, pizza,
pasta and salads. Big A even said to one
of them, “why don’t you have one kitchen producing for each restaurant?”. The one restaurant in the area Tres Archi was
good but closed on weird days – like Wednesday so we found a little bistro called
Ristornate Il Monte, on the side of the road about 3kms from our hotel. We ended up eating dinner there most nights
as it was cheap, had great food and variety.
It also had chickens out the back which the girls and I let out one
night. The sight of us trying to round
them up and usher them back into their pen caused Big A to nearly wet his pants
laughing! I’m sure there’ll be something
about it in his perspective….
Probably the three big things I will take away from our
time in San Gimignano are:
1) the images I had of Tuscany are rolling green fields
full of sunflowers and vineyards and they weren’t. Instead they were main full of sunflowers and
wheat and therefore the colour was a hue of orange and yellow.
2) Pisa is a horrible, ugly, dirty town that has one
redeeming feature, it’s leaning tower.
3) the afternoon my little girls walked all the way up to
the top of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo) in Florence. It was 400+ steps up, through tight narrow
passage ways before we came out and stood on the top of Florence’s iconic
landmark overlooking the city. It took
so long to reach the top that once there, we had to rush down for our scheduled
entrance to the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s sta tue of David – what
troopers they are.
As a treat for the girls we took them for a day horse riding around the Tuscan hills at La Fiaba. I joined the girls and we had a great time getting to know Attilo, Blondina and Wilma. Even Big A got to spend some time bonding with a cat and her adopted litter of kittens (the kitten's mother was tragically hit by a car soon after giving birth so her sister stepped in). I swear they could have just charged us to allow Middle and Little A play with the kittens and I'm surprised we managed to leave without finding one in the car. http://la-fiaba.com
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| La Fiaba horse riding |
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| Pienza Hotel Relais II Chiostro di Pienza |
From San Gimignano we made our way to Rome but stopped
off for one night in picturesque Pienza. The hotel, Hotel
Relais II Chiostro di Pienza http://www.anghelhotels.it/eng/relais_chiostro_di_pienza/home.htm was
formerly a Franciscan monastery, located in the heart of the medieval hilltop
village (yes another one!) right next to St Francis cathedral. We had
to actually pass people crowding the entrance of the hotel to view the ornate
internal courtyard lined with soft white drapes and grand towering columns. We only really had time for a wander around the
village and the girls to have a swim before it was time for dinner. We ate at Trattoria La Buca delle Fate and had the Bistecca alla Fiorentina that was
a massive 1.4 kg piece of beef cooked on the bone and then sliced at the table.
The meal, the village and the hotel were all really memorable but I don’t know
if you’d stay longer than one or two days.
So off we went early the next morning, keen to get to Rome.
I’d been to Rome before, as had Big A, but I was still excited
to be going there with the girls and seeing the sights all over again. We said goodbye to Rennie Renault who had
been our mobility since we flew into Nice in February. Without her we would not have been able to do
the school runs and see what we saw in France and Italy so it was a little sad
that we said goodbye to her and delivered her back to Renault where she will be
sold as a demo model.
We caught the train from the airport into the main rail
station and walked with all our luggage to the Hotel Morgana just two streets
away. It is not a joke when people
write about the size of the rooms in Rome.
By the time the hotel had put two single and a double bed into the room,
you could not see the floor. The decore
was lovely and ornate as you’d expect and the staff were very helpful and
attentive, specially the breakfast manager to the young, and not so young but
single, female guests! We got ourselves tickets on the Hop on Hop Off bus Roma
Christiana. I couldn’t understand, given
the severely hot days, why people booked the buses with no roof as it must have
been so uncomfortable sat there in the Rome traffic. Anyway, this was a good way to get around
Rome without walking for miles as the underground transport consists of two
lines only and taxis are expensive. The
only problem was finding where to “hop
on” if you got off and walked away from where you “hopped off”. This caused some frustration on everyone’s
part but we managed to get through the few days without the threat of anyone leaving
the family unit for better pastures which was a win all round.
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| David and Fans |
Unfortunately Big A and the girls were not keen on more pizza
and pasta so out of the three nights in Rome, we ate twice at the Hard Rock Café! We tried to fit in a number of the more
iconic landmarks as the girls had been studying Italian at school and were
familiar with the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and the Vatican. We tried to segregate the days so we didn’t
get overwhelmed and left time to enjoy a gelato, coffee or wine whilst watching
the world go by (one of my favourite things to do on holiday). One of the best things we did was to buy a
guided tour through the Coliseum so that the girls could ask questions from
someone who actually knew the answers rather than Big A’s version. Following the Coliseum we changed guides to
carry on with a tour through the Forum.
Our new guide David was fabulous david-tours@live.com. His passion for his city, cynicism of its
current government and contempt for some of it’s not so glorious past was clearly
evident. The girls were fascinated and never more than 1 meter away from him,
asking all sorts of questions.
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| Rome Coliseum |
Because
David was so good, we followed up with a tour the following day through the
Vatican Museum and St Peter’s Basilica. David was replaced by another tour
guide, Jonathan…ahh beautiful Jonathan….. As with David, the girls were never more than
1 meter away and, funnily enough, my sudden acute hearing problem meant I also needed
to be up close!!! Given all the eye
candy, the 4 hour tour flew by and Jonathan’s knowledge of the works within the
museum, especially Michelangelo’s, was so impressive. I’d never really invested in a tour before
because I thought they were too expensive and all rip offs. The Coliseum tour was probably the worst as
the lady’s accent was very strong and therefore very hard to hear her amongst
our crowd of about 50 people in the immediate vicinity and hundreds of others
very close by. Of course me being on the
phone for half the tour didn’t help…..
Yes, I spent a lot of time on the phone in Italy as I was
interviewing for a number of roles in London. Having flown back to London the
previous month to get the girls accepted into a good primary school, the next
step was for me to get a job. I was
speaking to a number of people, mainly about consulting and contracting
opportunities and it was looking very promising. One of the roles as to take up a permanent
position with a top 5 management consultancy but given it wasn’t a partner
position I had concerns about the level of seniority, starting salary and age
of colleagues I’d be competing against for any promotion. This and other roles
needed some serious consideration and I was determined not to jump into
something with full analysis of what it meant for my girls, my marriage and me.
Big A also had his challenges regarding his role back in
Australia as he had put his application in for VR and in parallel was talking
to another team within the same company about a potential role.
In trying to line our ducks up we also had to find a house
to rent in London, without actually being in London at the time. We knew the
area well so that wasn’t the issue, but we were reluctant to rent somewhere
without at least having the floor plan to view and this proved to be almost
impossible to obtain from the estate agencies.
In moving from Australia to the UK we also had a concern
over Little A’s schooling. In 2011 she
was just finishing prep and would have gone into Grade 1 in 2012. However, in moving the girls to school in
London, given her August birthday and the Sept to Aug intake period, come
September 2012, in London she would go into Grade 3. Now when we set out on this trip we knew the
girls would miss a year of schooling.
They attended school in France and we’ve also been doing bits with them
on a regular basis but the reality is that little A would be out of school for
Grade 1, skip Grade 2 completely and always be the youngest in her year in
Grade 3. Anyone who’s read Freakenomics
and Super Freakenomics by S. Levitt and S. Dubner would be aware of the
statistical handicap of being the youngest in a school year and our move to
London would force this upon one of our daughters. So staying in London had to have a
significant upside to balance our concerns.
Before
leaving Rome we had to lighten our load so sent two boxes back to London. I don’t know where on earth we picked up all
this extra stuff but I guess when you spend a year living between different
countries and extreme temperatures you have to equip yourself with
“stuff”. We gave a lot of things away
to charity but some stuff we couldn’t (like the Sherpa lined hooded A&F
coats I bought in the US at the beginning of our trip, the girls fleeces from
Ebica and of course the American Girl dolls!). We flew out of Rome to Mykonos
(Greece) with a 6 hour stop over (from midnight to 6am) in Athens. Whilst on the plane, and in the airport
lounge, we had to contend with a number of very young Italian boys chanting
Mykonos, Mykonos and whooping continuously.
I even had to do the grumpy old woman tut at one of them to save me from
grabbing him by the throat. It must have been their first time and I can’t really
blame them for being excited, as Mykonos is a truly fabulous place to visit and
relax and even better place to party.
Big A's perspective to follow....
