Thursday Doors – Trujillo in Extremadura

“…the breed of men who conquered a continent with a handful of adventurers, wore hair shirts day and night until they stuck to their flesh, and braved the mosquitoes of the Pilcomayo and the Amazon” –  Gerald Brenan

Read the full story Here…

British Birds – The Wren

A day or so ago I posted about the February garden and included a picture of a Wren.  It reminded me of a post about the wren from ten years ago.

Read the full story Here.,..

2023 in Retrospect – Skipsea and East Yorkshire

Travel wise there was a slow start to 2023 and we didn’t venture away from North Lincolnshire until mid March and then only fifty miles away to East Yorkshire.

Yorkshire is a truly magnificent county and not far over the Humber Bridge and with the city of Hull in the rear view mirror  we were motoring through wonderful countryside, rolling hills and green fields, wild flowers and hedgerows and punctuated every so often with picturesque and delightful towns and villages.

I could stir up a hornet’s nest of debate here but I ask the question, is Yorkshire England’s finest county in respect of scenery and countryside?

Blogging pals may disagree and offer their own nominations, Sue from Nan’s Farm would probably agree with me but Derrick would surely argue for Hampshire and the New Forest, Brian for Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds, Lois for Somerset and the West Country, Simon may make a strong case for Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest, my friend Richard would say Rutland and its reservoir, but no, for me, Yorkshire is my favourite.

My pal Dai Woosnam would have none of it and say Wales is the best (and he has a point) and Anabel would surely make a case for Scotland but I am talking here about only England

The first time that I went there in 2019, I fell in love with Skipsea almost immediately.  I liked the caravan, I liked the holiday park, I liked the countryside and I liked the beach and the sea.  The exceptionally fine weather helped of course.

I returned again post covid in August 2021 and then again just nine months ago in July 2022.  As the time approached to book a cheap Spring deal again earlier this year (2023) nothing would have stopped me going there again.

My Mum likes going to the caravan…

Let me explain about caravan holiday deals.

In the UK there is a very cheap and nasty daily newspaper (I use that description newspaper very loosely) called T’he Sun’ and several years ago they launched a voucher scheme that once collected allowed readers to book cheap caravan holidays in the UK.

The Sun newspaper is a curious conundrum, it supports the right wing Tory government and its extreme political views which cares nothing for the middle and working class and the middle and working class read the Sun and vote Tory.  It is something that I completely fail to understand.

I would never buy the Sun toilet tissue so I never got to benefit from the offer but a few years ago the voucher codes began to be published on-line so it was possible to get the offer without buying the rag.

So, I booked a caravan in my favourite resort of Skipsea for four nights for just £60, everything included.  An absolute bargain.

Such a bargain that I booked a second visit the following month and too my Mum for a few days at the seaside.

Skipsea is located on a rapidly eroding coastline and it changes dramatically with every visit.  I would gladly return but may have to be swift about it.

Italy Top to Toe – Lucca and Siena

 

According to Italian weather statistics northern Tuscany is the wettest region in the country, especially in the Autumn so when we visited in late September we really  shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that we needed  an umbrella.

We were staying in Pisa and to escape the rain one afternoon we took the train to the neighbouring city of Lucca.  The journey took about thirty minutes and we were pleased when we arrived to be able to step out into the street and despite  being wet, for the first time today without using the umbrellas.

Lucca is everything that I expected from a Tuscan medieval city.  It is the largest Italian city with its medieval wall still completely intact and inside it has a number of attractive piazzas and a labyrinth of narrow streets and we explored some back streets and alleyways before settling down at a pavement café for a drink and a snack in the Piazza St Michele.

The  weather was much improved now and we were thankfully sitting outside in the sunshine even though some ominous dark clouds were beginning to return.

Lucca is also famous for being the birthplace of the composer Pucini whose best known works include La Bohème, Tosca, Madam Butterfly and Nessun Dorma.  It is an interesting fact that Pucini contracted throat cancer (through chain smoking) and he was one of the first people to be treated by radiation therapy.  This wasn’t a great success and he died shortly afterwards from complications   and finally a heart attack.

The following day we took another train journey, this time to the city of Siena.

It was absolutely pouring with rain so with umbrella aloft we stepped out briskly across the river and then past some interesting but not very memorable buildings on the way.

We purchased tickets and remembered to validate them this time and when the train arrived on time found a window seat so that we could enjoy the views of the countryside on the first leg of the journey to Empoli, where there was a scheduled change of trains.  Actually it was raining so hard that the views were not that spectacular but this didn’t matter to Kim because she was in such a state of sleep deprivation that as soon as the train started to move the gentle motion sent her straight into a deep slumber and I was left to enjoy the journey without company.

When we arrived at Empoli it was still raining very hard and when the train doors opened it looked as though we would have to step out onto the platform through a deluge of water resembling Niagara Falls after a major up stream thaw.  After a moments hesitation there was nothing for it but to literally take the plunge and we got thoroughly drenched in the process.  Once through the torrent of water we noticed that this had only happened to us and this was because directly over our door was a broken gutter that was discharging all of the rain off of the station roof directly into this one spot.  And we got the lot!

There was nearly an hour to wait for the connection so once more taking refuge under an overworked umbrella we left the station and walked through the puddles into the town to find a café where we had a very early beer and enjoyed polenta rice cakes and watched the rain cascading down the windows.

On the next stage of the journey Kim slept a bit more (well, a lot more actually) and I watched the dreary countryside being thoroughly drenched by the persistent falling rain.  When the train arrived at the station we took a taxi into the town and arrived quickly at the town square.  We were glad that we did because the town was at the top of a steep hill that looked like a very hard-work-walk.

Siena, like many other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled by the Etruscans who were an advanced people from Central Asia who had a very sensible custom of building their settlements in heavily armoured hill-forts to protect themselves from attackers.  This was important in medieval times but is a bit inconvenient for twenty-first century visitors.

To my  total amazement it had finally stopped raining so we were able to go into the Piazza del Campo to see the venue for the famous annual Palio horserace.

This is probably the most famous festival in Tuscany and was first recorded in the year 1273 and is a colourful medieval pageant that takes place twice a year on 2^nd July and 16^th August.   It is so called because riders race each other for a Palio or winners banner and it is a competition where seventeen seriously crazy jockeys hurtle bareback around a confined square with dangerously adjacent buildings and perilously close spectators; I have concluded that they are probably taxi drivers for the rest of the year.

Although it was dreary the rain continued to hold off so we wandered through the streets and visited the Cathedral and its museum where a steep climb to the top of a high tower provided a panoramic view over the town and the countryside.

It was a real pity about the weather and after some further exploration of the town and its streets and being unable to sit outside because of the returning rain we retreated into a welcoming restaurant for lunch.  It was a good restaurant, I had lasagna, Kim had pasta and, although we wouldn’t normally, after that a sweet to use up some time because the weather continued to deteriorate and it was getting both colder and more miserable as we watched out over the Campo.

This is a water tower in Grimsby (where I live) built in 1852 to provide hydraulic lifting power to operate the giant lock gates of the dock. It was designed by a man called James William Wild who had visited Siena in Italy and had so admired the place that he based his design for the Grimsby Dock Tower on the Torre del Mangia tower on the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena city centre.

 

Read the full story Here…

Italy Top to Toe – Florence (What’s in a Name?)

 

I recall a story, maybe someone told it to me or perhaps I read it, I can’t remember.  Maybe it is true, maybe it is not.

Anyway, this person was on a motoring holiday in Italy and planned to visit the city of  Florence, eighth  largest in the country so difficult to miss wouldn’t you think but he didn’t get there because he couldn’t find it.

On the motorway he drove straight past the junction exits because he didn’t realise that in Italy Florence is Firenze.  This is an annoying aspect of Italy because they will insist on using Italian rather than English for their city names – Venezia, Milano, Napoli, Torino, Padova, Roma – it is so bloody annoying.

This, by the way, is how if got its name – originally it was called Florentia in Latin, then Fiorenza in Old Italian and then eventually Firenze in modern Italian.   The French stick to the Latin and call it Florence and the Germans call it Florenz.

In the USA twenty-nine of the fifty states have a town or city called Florence, none of them as far as I can make out have a town or city called Firenze.

Read the full story Here…

So, what’s in a name?

Award yourself ten points for each character you can correctly identify.

 

Italy Top to Toe – Venice, St Marks Square

 

Napoleon Bonaparte may or may not have called the Piazza San Marco “the finest drawing room in Europe” but whether he did or he didn’t it is indeed one of the finest squares in all of Europe.

San Marco is the principal public square of Venice where it is generally known just as ‘the Piazza’.  All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta) are called ‘campi’ (fields).  The Piazzetta (the ‘little Piazza‘) is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner and the two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of the city.

Read the full story Here…

 

Italy Top to Toe – Padua

The holiday club all wanted to visit Venice so the plans began with an expectation that we would be spending four days in the famous waterlogged city but during the search for suitable accommodation it soon became clear that the price of hotels was some way beyond our normal hotel room skinflint budget so I started to look for alternatives and very soon found something suitable in nearby Padova.

It was a late flight so we landed in the dark at nine o’clock and the first job was to arrange the transport so I asked at the public transport desk to be told that there were no buses directly to Padova and we would need a bus to the Venetian mainland suburb of Mestre where we could catch a train.  This turned out to be a pack of lies because there was a bus service to Padova at a third of the price but handing out this duff advice was a Ryanair partner bus company so not knowing any better we fell for the trick.

Apart from the additional cost this didn’t inconvenience us too greatly and soon we were at the train station and buying our tickets but after we found the platform with minutes to spare before the scheduled departure there was then a twenty-five minute delay to the service which meant that we were going to be arriving in Padova too late to be able to find somewhere to eat.

The train journey took about thirty minutes and after we arrived in the city we immediately located our hotel, which was excellent but had no restaurant or bar and the streets outside in contrast to the hotel appeared run down and inhospitable with danger and suspicion lurking in the shadows of every doorway and street corner so we decided against a midnight walk and went straight to our rooms.

Read the full story Here…

Italy Top to Toe – Verona

“There is no world without Verona walls                                                                           But purgatory, torture, hell itself                                                                                     Hence banished is banish’d from the world                                                                      And world’s exile is death”                                                                                      Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet

Read the full story Here…

Ten Years Ago – Bonaparte and Boulogne

I like Northern France and the Côte d’Opale but  the weather can sometimes be an issue.

After a very slow start to the day we sat in the garden and watched the weather gradually improving as the grey cloud gave way to white and then eventually to blue sky but it was still windy and Richard was still complaining when we packed the car to make a return visit to Boulogne.

Read the full story Here…

Taormina, Sicily – A Bus Queue (Line) and a Wasted Morning

Kim looks out over Mount Etna but nothing to see but  cloud…

It rained through the night.  Most of the night I think, it was certainly raining every time that I stirred.  The weather forecast was awful so it was with trepidation that I opened the blinds and looked out into the street.  To my surprise no rain and everywhere was dry.  Had I been dreaming?

After the failed attempt to walk to the sea the previous day we agreed to try again but using alternative arrangements.

On account of the very difficult terrain the town of Taormina helpfully has a cable car that runs continuously from the bus station to the beach,  Except that today and all this week it didn’t  because it was closed for maintenance in preparation for the Summer season which just happened to be a few days after we were due to leave.  More bad luck.

Thoughtfully the operators had laid on alternative bus transfer arrangements and we made our way to the queue which was thankfully short.  But not for long.

As we waited more people began to  gather in something resembling the waiting period before the start of a European Cup Final or the US Super Bowl.  As the tension mounted they began snorting and stamping like impatient bulls waiting to be released into the ring, agitating like ancient warriors preparing for a deadly battle and arranging themselves like rival combatants in a French bus queue.

In UK we call it a queue but in the USA it is a line.  I have looked this up.  The word queue stems from the twelfth century and refers to the Old French word cue, coe, or queue, which means tail.  The French term originally comes from the Latin word coda.  Interesting that because the French have no idea about either queuing or lining up in an orderly fashion.

In the UK people who push in are said to be ‘jumping the queue’  and in the USA they are ‘cutting in line’.  In France it is ‘sauter la file d’attente’  but this is not a phrase that is familiar to many French people.

Five minutes to go and the tattooed ones start to perform a HAKA.  The whole thing was rather like the first set scrum of a British Lions/New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Test Match, muscles bulging, eyes popping, sweat dripping, elbows flying and fingers gouging and this, let me tell you was only the women!

 Eventually an obviously inadequately sized  bus turned up and the crowd surged forward until it resembled one of those Catalan fiesta human pyramids.

My subtle, sneaking around the side approach had no chance of working here and there was no way that we wanted to try walking again so we reverted to Kim’s more direct approach of just punching our way to the front of the queue which I have to say worked perfectly as usual.

The majority of people were Italians of course  but there were also quite a lot of people from most other countries in Europe and the nationalities all behave differently when lining up (or not, as the case may be).  

If pushing in was an Olympic sport then Eastern Europeans would be picking up a lot of medals especially if there was a category for barging in because this would require no finesse at all and would be based on simple brute strength as they muscle their way to the front of the line.  Italians would do well in the stealth category because they can slip in with the speed of a stiletto knife and I’d back the Greeks in the opportunistic category because they can slide into a space as thin as a cigarette paper almost as though they had been beamed down from outer space.

Sadly for all of them however they would be destined to be like a British tennis players and they would only ever be left fighting for second place because they would never be able to beat the undisputed champions of pushing-in – the French.  The French don’t believe in distraction or sneaky moves they just move right on in ahead of anyone as though you are holding a door open for them and then look you straight in the eye with a Gallic sneer that says, “I am French and it is my God given right to push in”.  

To continue. 

The bus ride was truly awful.  Far too many people on board, way over capacity and a roller coaster ride along a road with more curves than Marilyn Monroe and at the bottom another massive queue waiting to go back the other way which panicked us so we immediately bought return tickets and joined the line, stood for twenty minutes in this time a thankfully  supervised and orderly queue and went straight back.  We never got to see the beach or paddle in the sea all week.

The only line that I like is a washing line…

I was happy with our accommodation, cheap and preferable to be in the local part of the town than in the pretentious up-market hotel area with its inflated prices. Tonight we prepared a simple meal of tuna salad with ingredients from the local market.  We enjoyed it.  Relaxed.