I have just spent two tiring days in Florence and am not really ready to leave to go to Pisa tomorrow.  Yesterday I began with a wander around the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.  I had been here before but this time decided to take my time with the audio tour so I actually knew what I was looking at!  Not the nicest of the churches I have visited, but interesting none the less.  I decided to climb to the top of the bell tower beside the Cathedral and continued my unintentional but pleasant habit of being near or at the top of a bell tower at midday and getting to hear the bell toll from close up!  This particular bell tower does not have that lovely invention, a lift, so I got my workout from climbing the 414 steps.  The view, and even more so, the breeze, made the effort worth while.

I walked down towards the Arno, passing the Uffizi gallery and taking a wander along the Ponte Vecchio to admire all the jewellry stores.  Frankly all a bit bling for my taste… although perhaps if I could afford something…  I had yet another icecream (so far I have tried melon, strawberry, pannacotta and chocolate chip… lots to go yet!!) and then made my way to what is probably my favourite church of all the ones I have seen in Europe, Santa Croce.  I love it because of its design, its history and its features.  Again I did the audio tour and learned ever so much.  I can’t always be bothered with the audio tour, but occasionally it is worth it.  This church was built by the Franciscans and has a lovely simplicity about it: terracotta tiles on the floors and a simple gothic structure.  The frescos were planned to teach the illiterate people of the community the Bible stories, and Florentines chose to be buried under the floor so their tombs could be trampled on, a symbol of humility.  Several notable Italians are buried here, including Machiavelli, Galileo and Michelangelo, and there is a memorial to Dante, who is not buried here. There is a lovely relief by Donatello called the Annunciation.  Its all a bit overwhelming really!

Today I decided to tackle the Uffizi Gallery, and the rumours of three hour waits are no exaggeration, I can assure you.  I was thankful for my novel and a few text messages from my dad (thanks for the brief respite Dad!).  However the wait is well worth it. I was able to see ‘The Birth of Venus’ by Botticelli, ‘Annunciation’ by Da Vinci and paintings by Raphael and Caravaggio.  I think that means I have done the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with a few hangers on!  Its all a bit overwhelming really, seeing these paintings ‘in the flesh’ that you are sure are only in books. I had forgotten to mention in my earlier posting that in Venice I went to see the Peggy Guggenheim collection, so got to see works by Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon and Picasso, although I think I needed someone to explain their significance to me to better appreciate what I was looking at.

So I have run out of time. I would liked to have explored a little beyond the city centre, but nevermind. Perhaps another time. So tomorrow, its off to see that dreadful architectual bungle, the leaning tower of Pisa!    

Venice had a festival last night. This is one of the cool things about travelling in the summer: you are far more likely to stumble across such things, especially on the weekends.  This festival was held on the harbour near St Mark’s Square.  The idea (I think) was that a temporary bridge was built between two of the islands, and anyone who had a boat (or other floating device – I saw everything from ridiculously large expensive yachts to transport barges fancied up with strings of paper lanterns and flowers to kayaks) loaded it up with friends and party supplies and headed for the harbour.  It was one big water-based party!  The rest of us had to admire from the shore, where there was not a great vantage point really!  At 11.30pm the fireoworks began, and lasted for no less than 45 minutes.  A very impressive display that included the tolling of the bell in the bell tower at midnight.  While I think not much can top my experience of New Year’s Eve on the Sydney Harbour in 2000, this came a solid second!

This morning all of Venice had something of a hangover, and I pity the fool who had to clean up the mess; I personally saw at least three glass bottles smash on the pavement… 

So today I am in Florence and feeling a little sleepy.  Time for a rest day anyway!  Off to see the sights  tomorrow! 

I am in Venice, and I have to say, I am in love! Shabby and worn this city may be, but it is fabulous. Now if all those other tourists would just disappear and leave me to it! I am staying here for three nights; not long enough, but Florence awaits. I am staying in a lovely B&B called San Giacomo and my hostess, Itala, is lovely. The place has three bedrooms and the guests share breakfast at the same table.

I haven’t been able to “do” everything, but have loved what I have done (have to save something for next time… yes, there will be a next time). I have wandered the laneways, not quite getting lost (I am amazed how easy it is to remember land marks and routes). I have travelled almost the whole length of the grand canal by vaporetto. I have taken the lift to the top of the bell tower and stood amazed at St Mark’s Basilica. I have visited the islands of Murano and Burano (Burano was my favourite; I loved the candy-coloured houses and the bell tower on a decided lean). I have eaten in tiny trattorias and stood enjoying the sensory overload at the fish market. I have had a random conversation with an old man on a vaporetta about the architectural history of the houses along the grand canal, and talked at length with an American nurse stationed at a US Army hospital in Germany whose job it is to treat the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tonight there is a festival on the harbour and fireworks. The water is already filling with yachts of all sizes and it promises to be quite a party. Not sure if I can handle the crowds. We will see how the mood takes me! In the meantime I am off to Florence tomorrow. Wonder if George Emmerson will make an appearance this time? He didn’t get the memo that I was in town in 2005…

Ah, sweet Verona.  What a lovely little town!  So yes, Verona is a real place.  Shakespeare didn’t make it up.  Didn’t really have an original bone in his body, the Bard.  Liked to take tiny threads of truth and weave marvellous tales about them, never letting that truth get in the way of a great story!

You can visit the house that the real Juliet lived in, stand on “that” balcony, wander through the house (beautiful it is too, well worth a visit for its architectural and historical interest alone), and grope the right breast of a statue of Juliet, which is supposed to bring your lover running.  I resisted the temptation, mainly because it involved standing in line with about 100 other tourists.  My future lover will have to find me another way!!  I also visited the tomb of the real Juliet, which frankly was a little cold and damp and miserable.  Don’t suppose tombs are supposed to be cheerful, cosy places though!

There are a number of sites of Roman interest also, including an arena smaller than the Colosseum but still impressive.  They were holding operas there in the evenings which would have been fun had I thought to get myself organised!  Ah well, off to Venice tomorrow.

So on Monday I transfered back to the train station at Avignon TGV to await my train to Nice and then Milan.  I had 15 minutes between these trains, so you can imagine my concern when I discovered the train was 15 minutes late!  I asked about it at the ticket counter, and the woman made a call and told me that I should show my ticket to a conductor who would try to hold the Milan train for the minute or so it should take me to board.  What I didn’t count on was the fact that there were forest fires near Marseilles that caused the train to be further delayed by two and a half hours! Needless to say the Milan train left without me and probably a dozen other tired and disgruntled passengers.  It was the last train of the night so I had no choice but to find somewhere to say, not an easy task at 9pm in the summer on the French Riviera!  I found the last bed in a youth hostel in a shared room with David from Seattle – a pleasant squeaky clean American lad with an obsession with killing mosquitos.  Didn’t sleep much because I was anxious about getting the train at 7am the next morning, but I was safe and comfortable.  So I got the train to Ventimiglia at 7am, then a train to Milan at 9am.  Thankfully I had accidently booked at extra day’s travel on my rail pass, so it only cost me an extra 5 euro reservation fee.

Betcha Brad and Angelina never have this trouble…  They and the twins send their love, by the way!

I finally got some washing done today and spent the afternoon wandering around the duomo in Milan – spectacular.  Am off to Verona tomorrow to hob nob with the Capulets and Montagues!

The aim of my week in Provence was to walk from village to village with the occasional transfer by taxi.  On the first day I walked 19km from St Remy to Les Baux and back again. It was a hot day, but the walking was quite managable.  The views from the range were lovely and Les Baux is an amazing village with a castle perched high on the rocky hill.  I know there are all sorts of strategic reasons for building castles on top of a hill, but it is annoying to keep having to walk up steep narrow paths!!!  I had lunch in the village, then visited a site whose name escapes me at the moment, but is a quarry that has been dug out of the mountain side to form large spaces onto which images are projected along with a soundtrack.  The exhibition changes each year, and is currently displaying the work on van Gogh.  It was stunning!

The next day the plan was to walk from St Remy to Eygalieres, which sounded simple enough.  Only 18 km and the route seemed straight forward enough. However it was even hotter than the day before, and the path, which started out as a perfectly respectable mountain trail, soon turned into a rediculously rocky and narrow path that some moron thought would be most fun it it passed over a series of rocky ridges.  It was far too hot, my feet got shredded, and I decided that once I eventually made it back to the hotel, that was me done with the walking!  Wandering the streets of cute villages is much more sensible in this weather!After all I was mostly paying for the hotels and taxi transfers, not to have my feet shredded on those horrid rocks.  (for the record the walking was tougher than Ireland AND Nepal…).  All the villages were divine.  Not sure which is my favourite, but Gordes and Les Baux were certainly spectacular, while Fontaine des Valcause was quiet and refreshing.

So that was me done in France!  On Monday I was off to Italy… or so I thought!

I woke early again, dang that jet lag, had, breakfast, then went for another walk up all those stairs to Sacre Coeur and around Place du Terte.  I was due at Gare Du Lyon to catch my train to Avignon, and decided to spend the money on a taxi so I could see a little more of Paris.

I had treated myself to a first class rail pass (not as expensive as you might think) and very comfortably ejoyed the 2 3/4 hour journey through the beautiful French countryside. I was met off the train by a taxi driver (and by the way, it was nearly 10 degrees warmer here than in Paris – sorry to all of you who are shivering in SA – its about 28 in Provence!).  The driver took me to my hotel in St Remy-de-Provence, the Hotel Gounod, which is very nice indeed!  Wonderful decor, a gorgeous bed with white linen, bath products from L’Occitane en Provence (yum) and the scent of Verbena in the air!  Far nicer than what I would normally stay in.

I went for a walk around the old town, which was full of all those lovely crafts and products I could not afford nor had room for in my suitcase.  At 5pm I was met by Jean-Marc who was to give me an orientation on my waking tour.  He quickly whisked me through the topographic maps (too quickly?) then left me to it.

Dinner was a part of the package and was at the Hotel Le Mas des Carassins.  I ate the most gorgeous meal I have had in ages (5 courses) seated in a beautiful garden.  Just lovely!  Then it was a lovely walk home to my hotel and bed. 

So I am in Paris, typing on a keyboard where if I touch type and don’t look at the keys it pretty much makes sense!  This current trip is strictly a holiday; no students, no school, just holiday.  The main reason for this trip is to go to my friend Carlas wedding, but I decided to take 3 weeks of the long service leave that has been accumulating for several years, tack it on to the end of the school holidays and travel for 5 weeks altogether.

I left Adelaide on Saturday 6 July after a really busy week – apologies to the staff at Clare HS for my stress-induced meltdowns.  I arrived in London at dawn sunday morning and made my way to St Pancras station where I waited to catch my Eurostar train to Paris.  All my travel arrangements so far have gone smoothly.  Good to know I haven’t stuffed up yet!  The journey from London to Paris was great, especially when we surfaced at Calais and I got to see some of the French countryside.  I arrived in Paris at about 2.30 after having travelled for a total of 33 hours, feeling tired and decidely unwashed.  I checked into the Avenir Hotel- great location near Sacre Coere sp?, quite good breakfast and a tiny room just like a shoebox. Same colour too, incidently. I intended to shower then go out for a walk. What I actually did was shower, lie down for 5 minutes I swear, then promptly fall asleep for the next 12 hours… *sigh* I think I have a combination of sleep deprivation and jet lag to thank for that.  I woke at about 5am and decided to read until it got light, then go for a walk up to Sacre Coere.  It was a fantastic decision; normally obscenely crowded, at 7am I had it nearly to myself.

I returned for breakfast; a roll, croissant and tea, then hopped onto the L’Open Tour bus to do the sights. Having done most of the main attractions before, my main goal was to go to the Louvre to see Verneer’s The Lacemaker, which was on loan last time.  She was there, thankfully, and very beautiful too.  Then I hopped back on the bus to do a whistle stop tour of the rest of the sites.  Lunch was in a small cafe near Notre Dame.  A lovely day.

I am about to run out of internet time, so will edit this later and add more detail.  Am off to Avignon today to begin my walking tour in Provence. 

Well, I never did find the time to finish this off, so a quick summary will have to suffice.  The rest of the year went smoothly.  I developed an appreciation for Christmas lights in the middle of an English winter, enjoyed the Charles Dickens Christmas festival at Rochester, saw fireworks over Leeds Castle, managed a couple more plays and spent a weekend in Paris (where it snowed on the Champs Elysee – sp?) with my friends Carla, Tina and Chris. 

In December I finished up at Woodlands, said farewell to so very many wonderful friends at school and church and made my way to Nepal to visit my friends Lawrie and Alexa who were working in a hospital in Tansen.  I spent a wonderful week with them, including Christmas, then flew back to Kathmandu to meet Dad and begin our trek in the Everest Region.  The trek, which we did with Peregrine, was amazing.  So, so beautiful!

And so I returned home. The exchange had some unpleasant sides to it, but it was by far the best professional experience of my teaching career and was a pretty good personal one too.

My next overseas trip was a school exchange to Ireland.  I will post more about this when I get home from my current trip.

My friend Sue and her teenage son (and former student of mine) Daniel came to visit me in October.  They used my house as a base for a few days and when the half-term came we met in Edinburgh for a week’s holiday in Scotland.  I decided not to drive up but rather to take the train and we planned to hire a car in Edinburgh so both Sue and I could drive.  I really enjoyed the train trip – it was a great chance to appreciate the English countryside and to catch up on my reading – if I remember correctly, I was reading The Constant Gardener by John LeCarre, which I really enjoyed.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon and spent the first two nights in a youth hostel.  It turned out to be a party place, reinforcing my horror of youth hostels; I don’t see the point of a cheap night’s sleep if you don’t actually sleep…

On the Sunday we visited friends of Sue and Daniel who owned a farm a short distance from Edinburgh.  They cooked us a lovely roast dinner and gave us a tour of their property. It was a lovely way to spend the day.  On Monday we did the tourist thing in the city, and I remember being quite impressed with Edinburgh castle.  The crown jewels were lovelier than the English ones in my humble opinion!  That afternoon we took a bus to the airport where we hired our car.  Our stop that night was Dumfernline, where Sue had an appointment to meet with local organisers of the Scout movement.  Sue is something of an expert on Lone Scouts, which is a scouting group for isolated children, and the local Scout groups were investigating its possibilities for isolated Scottish teenagers.  We stayed in a great little pub, with an owner who was as gay as a picnic basket and an absolute delight to talk to.

From Dumfernline we took a beautiful drive to Glencoe.  We stayed in a gorgeous B&B with a woman who cooked absolutely wonderful evening meals.  I distinctly remember breakfast at this place including a bowl or porridge served with a wee dram of whisky!  Glencoe is beautiful, and I would love to return and spend much more time here.

We spent the next night staying on the Isle of Skye, and really enjoyed driving around the isle.  The weather was really warm but alarmingly windy!  Places we visited included Dunvegan Castle where I was particularly taken by the ‘Fairy Flag’ and The Museum or Island Life.   We stayed in Portree overnight, and the next morning we made our way along the Loch Ness where of course we stopped to visit one of the ‘official’ visitor centers dedicated to ‘Nessie’.  We continued via Inverness to Aviemore where we stayed.  The television series ‘Monarch of the Glen’ was filmed near here, and I loved wondering along the trails at Rothiemurchus Estate.

On Friday we drove back down to Edinburgh, but not before we stopped at Dalwhinnie Distillery  where I confess I discovered a taste for fine Scottish whisky.  The time in Scotland was not nearly enough.  I would love to return to do some walking in the highlands, and see much more of this gorgeous part of the country.