Posts

Showing posts from June, 2016

Endless Art...

Image
Pisa has been a very enjoyable, compact and an easy going place but now it's time to step up into the boiling pot of culture and art they refer to as  Florence or Firenze, depending on what you fancy calling it...God knows why? The 10.32 from Pisa central pulled away on time and set off through the green Tuscan countryside on its way to Firenze Santa Maria Novella, the towns main station and the starting point for the intrepid, capricious day trippers to venture forth for a dose of indiscriminate cultural snobbery. First stop, a glass of wine then we happened upon some shiny warthog in the Mercato del Porchellino. A quick rub on its hooter and years of good luck will be bestowed upon us. Fun was next had watching two fat Americans trying to park and get off a couple of segways before a glass of wine ensued at another Enoteca...Mmmm even better....Now, in the thick of it, with tremendous amounts of tourists following the flags of freedom, the culture started to unf...

"Punctured bicycle. On a hillside desolate...."

Image
The first cheer of the evening rang out from the Piazza die Cavalieri, the old political centre of medieval Pisa, as Italy went 2 nil up. A little later, as the wood fired Quattro Stagioni was being washed down with a fine vino Rosso another jubilation filled the air ... This time it signified that the mighty footballing nation of Iceland had ejected England from Europe, for the second time in only a week!  Obviously, by putting Bjork up front and having Magnus Magnussen play just behind Sigur Ros had worked a treat and had secured a great Icelandic victory. Either that or the thick wind-bag kickers had listened to BoJo last week and had misunderstood when he had asked them to leave Europe! After breakfast the following morning inside the Royal Victoria, one of Italy's oldest hotels overlooking the banks of the central River Arno it was time to explore. Pisa isn't a big town so the best way to do it was to ride around it so we badgered the bike mechanic at the bik...

A lady of a certain age...

Image
A journey starts with a single step...a journey also starts due to getting a bit fed up with the inclement British weather being mostly rubbish and an underlying need to quantify 'summertime' by spending a little of your short miserable life in some quality sunshine; a concept which seems to be lacking within the constraints of the British Isles.  It's time to Brexit... ...stuff the pockets full of depreciating euros and head into the much maligned euro zone not knowing if we will ever be able to return past the UK Border-force Agency Gestapo. It's not because i've become an overnight racist, euro-sceptic xenophobic bigot having had my limited brain lobotomised by all the scaremongering political clowns' rhetoric, it's because it's about time for another adventure and this time, under EU Directive 2016/000001 we're heading for Italiano...Tuscan hospitality, full bodied vineyards and the sun scorched land of the old Roman Empire, a have...