Cinque Terra

A while ago we once again packed up our backpacks and headed off to Cinque Terra with a huge group of people (some mates, and a lot of people we'd never met.)

Cinque Terra is a group of five small fishing villages on the coast of Italy. We headed off from our flat at about 5am and headed to Mel's place to meet with half of the group and jump into the cabs to head to the airport (this also was an interesting experience as they had booked an 8 seater cab, but a 6 seater turned up and we had to fit in 8 people into a 6 seater cab....).

We got to Stanstead at about 6am and checked in, got some Euro from the currency exchange and then headed off through the usual security rigmarole.

After a while we boarded our flight for Pisa. It was strange as about 3 of the people that we were travelling with had a serious fear of flying, so that was interesting to see. We're very lucky we're not like that - it would be terrible to have that fear.

We arrived in Pisa and caught a local bus to the Leaning Tower. It was excellent to see it.

After we'd checked it out, we decided to go for a horse and carriage ride around Pisa. It turned out that Pisa is quite a lovely city, contrary to what we'd heard before - we had heard from quite a number of people that Pisa was crap, but we all thought it was excellent.

After we'd finished our horse and carriage ride, we decided it was time to try and find somewhere for lunch. We wandered around for a while and we found an excellent little pasta place where we stopped and grabbed a bite to eat.

We had to head off for the train station after this, so Mel, Ian and both of us started walking in the direction that we thought it was. On the way, Damo spotted this cool bit of graffiti on a wall.

Of course we found the shopping street on the way, so Nik and Mel were kept occupied, while Ian and Damo were sitting in the street having a couple of very large Italian beers.

Finished shopping, and we all headed in the direction that we thought the train station was - unfortunately we didn't really have a clue. After walking around lost in Pisa for a while, we ended up working out where it was - we were only a block away from it!

We boarded the train to Riomaggiore (the first village of the Cinque Terra, and also where we were staying) and settled in with a couple of beers, some great company and some incredible scenery.

After we arrived at the first village, we went to our hotel room (which was actually owned by some of Bec's family - one of the girls whose birthday we were there for...) and settled into our room and went and bought some provisions for that night's party.

Our room

Initially we were led to believe that the Italian family of Bec were going to cook Pasta and Pesto (Pesto was actually invented in this area of Italy), but unfortunately they didn't turn up to the party until late. So as it turned out, Ian and Damo ended up on cooking duty cooking up a storm for about 25 people. All went swimmingly until Bec decided to help us out by adding salt to the water, and poured half the packet in and then just said to us 'Don't worry about it - it'll be fine....'.... mmhmm! That batch of pasta turned out interesting to say the least... The rest of it wasn't too bad though.

[Damo cooking pasta...]

Damo cooking pasta with Ian

The party was a lot of fun, but it had been a looooong day so it might have been a little more fun if we hadn't been so tired, but regardless we had a great time.

The next day we woke up relatively bright and early considering, and headed down for some breakfast at a little cafe that looked out over the water. The view was amazing.

The Cafe

The View...

More of the view....

The food wasn't anything special, but the view definitely made up for it. Next we headed to the train station to purchase our tickets for the national park for the trek between the five villages. Mel's foot was still in deep trouble, so she caught the train, but most of the other people were up for it. We started in Riomaggiore and headed our way along the coastline.

Just outside Riomaggiore on the way to Manarola

The walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola was very, very busy and packed with people, so many that we were thinking if the whole hike was like this it would be very painful. Thankfully, once we'd got past Manarola, the crowds thinned out quite a bit.

Looking back at Riomaggiore from Manarola

Main street of Manarola

After Manarola, the walk remained very scenic and a lot less crowded. The weather was amazing, and we basically just had a brilliant day. Corniglia was the next village that we came to.

As we came into Corniglia, there was an absolutely massive set of stairs called Lardarina that we were going to have to walk up. 33 flights and 377 stairs. No problem....

Lardarina

Corniglia is the only one of the five villages that isn't located right on the water - it's on a promontory about 100 metres high. It had a very different vibe about it to the other villages.

After Corniglia, we headed off for Vernazza where we were going to meet up with everyone for lunch. During the trek, we both ended up walking with Cam and Laurie, a couple of Kiwi's that are flatmates of Mel's. They're both really lovely people, and the walk was excellent.

The path between Corniglia and Vernazza was a fair bit more 'off the beaten track' than the rest of the trek.

Looking back at Corniglia on our way to Vernazza...

We walked along the path to Vernazza which by this point in time was fairly exhausting, and we were all looking forward to sitting down and having a big feed at the restaurant in Vernazza (not to mention a couple of frosty beverages....). During this part of the trek, we were getting very frustrated at the amount of old people on the pathway that had ski-poles in each hand as walking sticks, would walk slowly, and not get out of the way causing a virtual traffic jam on the pathway. However, the trek from Corniglia to Vernazza was stunning, so it mattered not. It was a lot greener than the other pathways as it meandered through Olive groves. It was so cool!

Coming into Vernazza

Once we reached Vernazza, just on our side of it, was the restaurant where we were going to put our feet up and have a cold drink - boy had we earned it!

The restaurant in Vernazza

We were pretty tired due to the big night the night before, so we decided that we'd have a look around Vernazza and call it a day, catch the ferry back to Riomaggiore and then catch the train to Monterosso on the Sunday.

Vernazza was probably the prettiest village of them all, however we had a small soft spot for Riomaggiore as it was where we were staying.

The harbour at Vernazza

The clock tower with some of the village in the background...


On the boat on the way back to Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore from the water

Once we got back to Riomaggiore, we had a quick look around the harbour, and then headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. On the way back up the main street, we saw most of our group sitting outside a pub having a few drinks, so we decided that we would join them.

The view around the harbour...

Looking the other way....

On the way back to our flat to get ready for dinner.... Everyone was still pretty thirsty from the walk... ;-)

Everyone ended up getting ready very late for dinner, and by this time we had missed our booking at the restaurant that was owned by one of Bec's relatives (and they weren't real happy about it...), so we had to go to another restaurant. There wasn't anyone that actually enjoyed their meal much, but Damo's wasn't too bad. We did have the best wine we've ever drank while we were here though...

After we finished here, we went back to Bec's family's place for dessert. They were very friendly, and the dessert was magnificent - we really should have gone here for dinner....

Immediately after dessert, most people started heading back to their rooms as we were all thoroughly annihilated.

We woke up the next morning and headed for the train station once more so that we could catch the train to Monterosso - the 5th village. We were in a pretty chilled mood on the Monday, so we didn't really go knocking ourselves out in Monterosso. We only had about two hours to spend here before we boarded the train to Torino (Turin) to catch our flight home that night. We wandered around, and it was quite a lovely village with an old town and a newer part. We didn't realise until there was about half an hour to go that there was an old town, so we spent most of our time here in the newer part, and only just before we left did we realise, so we ran to the other part of the town, had a quick look around, and then ran back to the train station, just in time for our train.

We got on the train, and settled in for a long trip - it was something like 4 hrs on the train or something to get to Torino, but it was an excellent atmosphere - we'd had a great time, and we had plenty of excellent wine and beer to drink on the train ride. :-)

Fortunately the train ride passed quickly and once we got to Torino we had a fair amount of time to look around. Now Torino was a beautiful city, and if we ever get the chance to go back there again, we wouldn't hesitate. There's not a huge amount to see there, but it is quite nice nevertheless. And big-ish. Only problem was that it was about 4pm and we were all starving, and we absolutely couldn't find anywhere to eat. After walking around for about an hour or so we ended up finding somewhere to eat and rest our travel-weary bones.

One of the many cool squares in Torino

Typical architecture of Torino

After we had finished eating here, we headed back to the train station to meet up with the rest of the group. Once there we had found that we'd missed our bus to the airport, so rather than stuff around, we all just decided to get taxis. Got to the airport, checked in, waited patiently for our 10:30pm flight and ended up arriving back into Stansted at about 1am. By the time we had got our taxis home, it was about 2:30am and we had to get up to go to work in about 5 hours. We were absolutely shattered, but had a sensational time.

Sorry it's been so long since an update - we promise to try and be better...... Miss everyone heaps.

Ahhhhhhhhhh-Amalfi

The view from our balcony....

We've just got back from spending the Easter long weekend over in Italy on the Amalfi Coast (Costa d' Amalfi). WOW! Is all we can say... It was by far and away the most stunning place that either of us has ever been. Literally breathtaking - there were many times that we were stopped in our tracks at a stunning view.

This post will be VERY VERY long and picture heavy, but even these pictures and words can do absolutely no justice to exactly how good it was.

First though, a small story about the logistics of the place. To get to the Amalfi Coast, you have to fly into Naples Airport. The Amalfi Coast is approximately 1.5 hrs drive from Naples. We looked into public transport, but as our flight was landing at about 8.30pm, all the buses would have stopped running by then, and even if they were running, it would have meant going to Sorrento and then changing to get to Amalfi, and this was a fairly significant distance out of the way. So we decided to hire a car! Damo rang up and booked the day before we were due to fly out and booked a Ford Fiesta with Sat. Nav. We arrived at the airport and went to the Europcar desk and they told us that they were all out of Sat Nav systems. Holy crap! How the hell were we going to get around Italy without a Sat Nav system? (yeah, we know all you old-timers saying "there was no such thing as Sat Nav in my day.....") ;-)

So we tell the lady at the desk to forget it and we go to all other 5 car rental places in the airport - none of them had any cars with Sat Nav, and they were all a lot more expensive too. So we go back to Europcar and tell the lady that we're going to go ahead with it after all. We go through it, but in the brief time we've been off she's given our Fiesta away to someone else, so she had to give us a Fiat Panda! Oh well, might as well drive a Fiat while we're in Italy!

She gives us a general map of the region and points us in the right direction and tells us that there'll be signs and to just go for it. Yikes! To top all of this off, it was Damo's first go in a left-hand drive car (excluding his race car), and definitely his first time of driving on the wrong side of the road. *Damo speaking* I just had to remember to keep myself closest to the middle of the road, and generally I would end up being on the correct side of the road....*end Damo speaking*

If you've ever driven in Italy, you'll know that this is an experience. There's no such thing as lanes, there is much horn honking and headlight flashing, and pretty much anything goes. It is absolutely crazy - luckily we purchased the Collision Damage Waver from the car rental company we're thinking. On top of this, it was late at night, we had no idea where we were going or how long it would take us to get there. This should be fun we think.

Here is the Fiat Panda!


So we head off down the Autostrada and hope for the best. Shite! A toll booth - we're not ready for this. Damo doesn't even know where the window winder is for his window. He pulls up about a mile away from the guy at the toll booth, has to open the door to hand the money to him, and then we're off. So far so good (apart from looking like idiots....) and Nikki is keeping a good eye on the exits on the map while Damo is trying to negotiate the motorway without getting us both killed. We drive down the Autostrada for about 45 mins or so and we're up to our exit. We get off - no problems - there's signs for the Amalfi Coast - Sweet, we're thinking! We drive off down the coastal road, and WOW - is it hairy or what? There were many very slow 2nd gear corners, and even some 1st gear corners - all this while there are kamikazes on Vespa's flying at us from the opposite direction at an absolutely ridiculous speed. We're not sure of the road death toll in Italy, but it HAS to be fairly high, surely!

Anyway, we have 20 kilometres of driving like this, so it took us close to another hour to get to Amalfi - brilliant. We're here - now we just have to find the hotel and we're home and hosed. Mmmhmm? OooooKkkkkaaaaayyyy! Where is it? Surely we can just ask someone. "Head 3 kilometres down the road" some lady tells us in very broken english (we can't complain though - her English was better than our Italian....) so we head straight down the road for about 5 k's - don't see it. Wait! There was an intersection back there - perhaps we had to go off and up that road - yep that must be it. We turn around, go back another 5 k and then turn off and go up the side road. Bearing in mind that it is now about 11:30 at night on very dark road in the middle of nowheresville, Italy. On the side road we see a place that has all of these pretty lights - that might be our hotel we think - but there's no sign so we keep going for about another 2 k. Another intersection. We're about to get very lost. We decide to head back to where all the pretty lights were and see if we can find someone to ask there. We go back the 2 k - we don't find anyone, but we do find that the lights were actually a graveyard. Interesting, but more than likely, not our accommodation. We head back up the hill as we're certain that we're on the right track. We end up finding a hotel and ask in there if they know where it is - we get a relatively detailed answer, and we were on the right track - we just didn't go far enough. We head off, and then about 5 k further up the road we see a big ass sign that says "Excelsior". We were so excited!!!!! We'd made it, and we hadn't gotten killed - 2 extremely large achievements considering.

Hotel Grand Excelsior in Amalfi

So that was our journey there. We did a fair bit more driving over the course of the 4 days, and Damo reckons that you get used to it. By the end of it he was doing all sorts of crazy moves, just like the locals. You really do have to be not quite right in the head to drive in Italy. Damo fit right in. ;-)

We checked in, and Damo decided that he could use a drink after a drive like that - so we head down to the bar at about midnight-ish, and meet the barman there - Maurizio. What we haven't mentioned thus far was the hotel itself - it was AWESOME - it was straight out of a 1960's Sean Connery James Bond film. Maurizio was wearing a suit and a black bowtie and looking generally very suave. We had a drink and mentioned to the barman that we hadn't had anything to eat (but we hadn't thought any more about it), and he goes off to get us our drinks and comes back with a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches for us that he just made for us. It was so nice of him. We'd heard that the Italian people can be quite rude to tourists, but thus far this didn't seem to be the case.

We finished off, tipped Maurizio and went up to our room and this is what we were greeted by:

What a brilliant place - it was soooooo Italian. And the view........ WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

The balcony itself...

Anyway, unpacked and went to bed for the night ready to get up early the next day to check out Amalfi. The Amalfi Coast is an entire region on a peninsula just south of Napoli. It's reknowned for it's lemons, well apart from it's amazing scenery. Amalfi itself is a cool little town, certainly not the largest town on the peninsula (that would probably be Sorrento, followed by Positano), and it seems to be a lot less touristy than some of the other towns, and because of this the locals seemed to be a lot nicer.

Next day we woke up and asked about the best way to check out Amalfi, and we were told there was a hike that we could take down to the town from our hotel down the "steps" which would be about a 1 or 1.5 hr walk which sounded just dandy to us - we'll go and check it out - on our way we passed about 1,000 Fiat 500's and Damo has decided that he wants one.

Just like this...

On our way down the steps

Nikki picking a wild flower

In Amalfi village during the day

As we were walking up the hill, we were stopping and taking photos and one of the locals, an old fella, asked us if we wanted our picture taken - well we think that's what he was asking - it could've been anything - anyway, we gave him Nikki's camera and he kept holding it up to try and look through the viewfinder, and he didn't understand that because it had the big screen on the back that it didn't have a viewfinder - the whole situation was hilarious because we couldn't explain to him, but anyway he ended up just aiming it in our general direction and this is the result:



It turned out great. He wouldn't hold still after he'd taken the photo, but this is a picture of him from behind as he was walking into his house.

We continued on up the hill and were just captivated by the view. We would urge anyone that if you ever have the possibility to go here in your lifetime, you should do everything you can to make it happen. Eventually we got to Pogeroa which was at the top of the hill, and had a small little village with a bar, a couple of restaurants, a church and that's about it. (Well there's always houses....) Pogeroa was at the top of the mountain near us, and it was tiny, but the view from there was very cool. We stopped off at a bar and bought a bottle of water, and the lady behind the counter gave us a free postcard of their bar. Everytime anyone asked us where we were from, they would always say "Are you English?" and we would reply with "No, Australian" and their attitude would change instantly. It was actually quite funny.

We got a little lost at the top of the mountain here, and after asking a couple of peopel where to go, one guy actually walked us to the area where the stairs were (they were quite hidden). We had pretty much fallen in love with Italy by this time so we were in no rush to get anywhere. We were just enjoying our time wandering through the hills of Amalfi. We stopped and took a lot of photographs, and we chatted to a farmer on the way down the hill. Using our limited understanding of Italian and his limited understanding of English, we identified that he was a pig farmer, and that he was very proud of his pigs and he seemed to be quite a character. Seeing people living relatively simple lives like this really brings you back to reality at times.

The pig farmer's farm

We made our way down the hill to Amalfi and once there we wandered through the backstreets exploring the little shops etc and Nikki bought a handbag from a little shop where he made them on site. Not long after we decided we would grab a bite to eat for lunch, so we decided to go to what was listed as the best pizza joint in Amalfi. Damo was in heaven. He reckons it was strange because although it wasn't the tastiest pizza he'd ever eaten, it was still probably the best pizza he'd ever eaten. You could identify and taste every single flavour separately. Everything was so fresh. A LLLOOOOTTT of Oil on it though. We had a carafe of wine with lunch, and all in all it was nothing short of superb.

We kept wandering around for the afternoon, and checked out the coastline at Amalfi and the beach etc. Just had a generally chilled out day. The weather was beautiful - it must have been about 22 or 23 degrees, and was enough to give us a little bit of colour (for the first time since about August last year....)

We found out that later that evening there was going to be a procession through the town for Good Friday, so we decided that we'd walk home, get ready and try and catch the bus back down if we had time. We decided that we'd walk up the road, but little did we realise exactly how far that was... (even though we'd driven it). It took us probably about close to 2 hours to get back up the hill and by that time we were running quite late for the procession.

As we were walking up the hill avoiding all of the crazy drivers, we were quite stuffed by the time we got to near the top. We were walking past some locals and said 'buon giorno' and we made a flagging motion at our face and they asked us if we wanted a lift up the hill - they weren't even in their car!!!!! It was amazing. It was another example of how friendly the people were in this region, and we were both quite overwhelmed by it.

We got back to the hotel (later than we were expecting), and we decided that we'd just drive down to the town and park about a kilometre out of Amalfi itself so we didn't have to worry about trying to get a park on one of the biggest nights of the year.

This worked out fine and we got back to town just in time to see the start of the procession. It was crazy and it was sort of like a pagan ritual - all of the people involved were dressed up like Ku Klux Klan members. All of the lights in the city were turned off, and only big burning candles that were hung up were the only light. It was all very surreal and cool.

Here are some photos of it.

Walking back to the hotel after the procession... (Amalfi by night)

Anyway we get back to the hotel that night and we were stuffed, so we went straight to bed.

Woke up on Saturday morning and had a leisurely breakfast in the restaurant - all of the waiters were wearing white tuxedos and black ties as per usual. It was very formal and cool. This day we decided we'd head off to the Isle of Capri. To get there we had to drive to Sorrento which was about a 1.5 hour drive away along very windy coastal roads as described earlier. It was quite the hair-raising trip, with many tourist coaches coming the opposite direction on the roads that weren't wide enough for 2 cars let along a car and a coach. But we got there and we didn't break the car again - mission accomplished. After crawling through traffic in Sorrento for what seemed like ages, we then had the fun task of attempting to find a park - no hope. It took us close to an hour just to find a car park (which ended up costing us €18). We made our way to the Grand Marina and bought our tickets for the ferry to the Isle of Capri. While we waited for the next ferry we decided to go and grab a bite to eat - Pizza again for Damo! ;-) The ferry route.... (From Sorrento on the right to Capri)

The weather once again was amazing, and we were on a ferry in the Bay of Naples - we couldn't help thinking how lucky we were. The coastline from the water was even more spectacular, and the colour of the water was clear near the edges fading to a dark azure the deeper it got. The jagged coastline jutting straight up out of the water into mountains on the water's edge was a sight to behold. We'd decided that once we got to Capri we were going to go on a tour of the Grotta Azzurra (Blue Grotto) which is a very cool underwater cave. Prior to going on this we grabbed a lemon gelati and just sat and absorbed the Marina Piccola where we had landed from the ferry.

Marina Piccola at Capri

We bought our tickets for the Blue Grotto and boarded our launch out to the area. The Italians here weren't really very friendly though, but we did meet a lovely Swedish lady on our boat (Annalaina?[sp?]). So we were taken out to the Blue Grotto and found that we'd have to board a smaller launch that holds only three people and the guy who rows it. We were on board this, and there was a large swell, it was rocking side to side, we were very close to the water, and then all of a sudden we're told that we've got to stump up an additional €9 each. Annalaina didn't have any money with her, so while Damo was lying on the floor of this dodgy row-boat that was getting thrown around in the water like a sock in a washing machine we decide it would be best to just pay up and get on with it. We sort of realised that it was money we were meant to pay, but it was a very disorganised set up.

We're rowing over to the very small entry of the Blue Grotto and we're told to lie on the floor of the boat so that we can get through the entry - the hole was that small! We get inside and it was pretty impressive. It was a cave that was illuminated completely blue once inside, and the guy rowing our boat started singing in Italian - it was great, but very expensive - we were probably inside for maybe 4 minutes total and the whole journey cost us €19 each! Never mind though - it was quite cool!

The pay boat

We caught the larger boat back to the Marina Piccola and on the way back we ended up towing 5 of the row boats back because it must have been the end of the day for them.

Our launch towing back the rowboats

From Marina Piccola we decided to board the Funicolare (Tram) to get up to the main area of Capri to check out the old square and boutique stores and just generally have a wander around - it was excellent because it was quite high up so once again the view was sublime. Many palm trees, and old clay pots with the azure backdrop of the Bay of Naples make for spectacular scenery, there can be doubt of it.

Palms and Clay pots...

We went and had a coffee (finally we could get some decent coffee - the coffee in the UK is generally very crap) and a dessert at one of the restaurants in the old square and just sat and enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere and the beautiful Italian sunshine. It was amazing.

The old square at Capri

From here we boarded the ferry back to Sorrento as we didn't want to be travelling too late at night, and watched a beautiful sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was nothing short of astonishing.

Looking back at Capri

The sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea

We made our way back to the apartment in Amalfi and decided that we'd go down to the town for dinner, so we went and got ready and headed off down to the township for dinner. We found this little restaurant in the 'old square' area of Amalfi called Risto. Anyone who goes to Amalfi MUST dine here. We both had the Chef's special, and it was the best pasta that either of us had ever eaten. Their Garlic Bread was excellent too, and they also recommended a great red to have with dinner as well.

The next morning we woke up and we'd decided that we'd try and have a lazy day chilling out in the hotel, which turned out just as well as Damo woke up a little bit crook. We lazed on some sun lounges on the balcony all morning, just soaking up the sun, and by early afternoon we were a little bored so we decided we'd go to Positano, which is a larger town that you can catch the ferry to from Amalfi.

The ferry ride was brilliant, but Positano was sensational. It's a really cool little town, with heaps of little back alleys etc. It was very odd, but we think they may have had an open sewer next to one of the back alleys. Apart from that though, the view from the top of Positano was amazing. We would probably recommend that if you were going to stay at the Amalfi Coast, that this place would have to be high on the list of places to stay. However, the people definitely didn't seem as friendly as they did in Amalfi.

Here are some pics from our time in Positano:

We caught the ferry home from Positano back to Amalfi, and decided that we'd just go to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The food wasn't too bad - it was all very old-fashioned with proper hors d'ouvres etc. It was a pleasant change to just chill out at the hotel and not have to drive anywhere. After we'd finished dinner, we decided we'd go to the lobby bar and have a few drinks. Maurizio and Marcello were there and we ended up hanging at the bar and chatting to them all night - as the night wore on we decided that we'd buy them a few drinks for being so pleasant and forthcoming with information (they had given us advice on where to go to escape the touristy areas, where in Italy to buy cheap, but still excellent quality leather etc.) A few drinks turned into a few more drinks, and before we knew it, it was about 3am. And here was us supposed to be getting up in 4 hours to drive (!!!!!) to Pompeii for the day. Mmm hmm - that now seemed not so likely....

Maurizio & Marcello:

Maurizio

Marcello

Anyway, we eventually woke up at about 10 and packed our stuff up and checked out of the hotel and bid a fond farewell to Hotel Grand Excelsior for our trip to Pompeii. We'd been told of a quicker way of getting there, so we headed off, up and over the top of the mountain near the resort we were staying in and headed for Sorrento again, albeit a quicker (less scenic) way. Once again the roads were interesting, but we made our way back to the Autostrada no problems. We were quite surprised at how much poorer this part of Italy seemed to be - it appeared as though there was no garbage collection service - it was quite sad, and surprising that such a beautiful country could allow this, though we'd seen much the same in Kenya, so it wasn't anything new to us.

We followed the signs to Pompeii and everything was looking well. That was until we got to Pompeii itself - there were two signs - one for Pompeii pointing left, one for Pompeii something else pointing right. The sign going to the right had a brown street sign with it, so we presumed that would be the go - after circling a strange town for about half an hour we decided we'd give the other way a go, and we eventually realised that it looked more like what we were after. We found ourselves a car park, grabbed a bite to eat for lunch (Damo had pizza again... ;-) ) and went to make our way into the ancient city itself - little did we realise that you couldn't use card facilities at the ticket desk, so we had to go and try and find a cash machine. Yep - nearest one was a one and a half kilometre walk away... Damo left Nik and ran down there and back in the 24 degree heat - it was very pleasant really.

So after a lot of stuffing around we finally made it inside the ancient city - it was quite amazing, but I don't think either of us were quite in the right mood for something like this. It's a lot to take in, and you could quite easily spend at least a few days wandering around the ruins of the city - it is HUGE and full on - we went to the Garden of the Fugitives which was really quite eerie and stunning at the same time. There were 13 corpses and of these, several were very small children/babies. Very chilling stuff. The garden itself was very nice. There were also other places within the ruins where some of the bodies were, and there were a couple in one spot where you could even see the detail of their teeth and mouths open etc. It's wierd because somehow you seem to feel strangely removed from it all even though you're in amongst it. We also saw the tile Mosaic of 'Cave Canem' which is supposedly very famous also.

Beware of the Dog....

Garden of the Fugitives

Once we'd finished for the day at Pompeii, we headed to the airport for our trip home. Which shouldn't have been too much of a problem, except for the fact that we still didn't have a Satellite Navigation system. We headed for the city and were sure that the airport signs would be easy to follow, but alas, how wrong we were. As we were going down the Autostrada, there was a sign for Roma with a plane underneath it, and another sign for Napoli with no plane underneath it - what do we do? We don't want to go to Rome airport... So we decide to go to Naples. Unfortunately this took us into central, downtown Naples. We worked out soon enough that we'd probably gone the wrong way, but how to get back? We ask someone in broken Italian/English how to get to 'Napoli Aeroporto', and we were given some vague directions, but they weren't very specific. Nevertheless, we soldiered on. Got to another point where we (well Damo at least) was certain that we'd never get out of Naples alive.... and decided to pull over into a service station to get a map or directions. After trying for about 20 minutes to work out where we were going and also buying a map for €4, we head off again - we turn the first corner, and there is the elusive airport.... Unbelievable.

Anyway, that was our trip to the Amalfi Coast. It was amazing.

This past weekend just gone, we had Mel over for a barbecue and we headed down to the local park. Apparently over here you're not allowed to have a barby in the park. We had the cops up against us (again). Gee we seem to be running into trouble with the law over here a lot... ;-) Also, little did we realise, but public drinking seems to be completely acceptable in London EXCEPT for in the Hammersmith and Fulham Borough. So we were in the park on Saturday with a barbecue and some wine - apparently this was very bad! The police told us not to worry about the drinking (ie. they turned a blind eye), but to make sure that we didn't light the barby. We headed back to our place and had the barby on our back deck. All in all it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. But we did all have a good day anyway. Sunday we spent doing a spot of shopping for summer clothes etc. for our trip away this weekend to Cinque Terra. We are really looking forward to it - there are about 20 people going with us (all friends of friends etc) and apparently our room has been designated the party room! Cripes!

The weather over here in London has taken a turn for the better - on Sunday it was 26° and very sunny. We've really been loving it - it's also not getting dark until about 20:30 at night now too, so we can definitely tell summer is imminent!!!!!!!!!!!

We miss everyone heaps, and hope everyone's health is well!

March Madness

Hi to everyone again!

We haven't had a hugely eventful month thus far, but we've been busy booking up trips and just generally 'living' in London for a while. It's been a pretty good month actually.

The weather has changed a fair bit, and so have the clocks - forwards by an hour, in fact, for daylight savings - we love daylight savings over here - summer in Europe is hard to beat, and with the increase in sunlight and temperatures, our moods have had a shift in the more pleasant direction too!!! :-)

Even though the weather has been getting a lot better, it's still been a bit all over the place. We had one day where Damo was out taking photos around London, and it was Sunny and probably about 12 degrees at about 1pm - Damo got a phone call from Trav to see if he wanted to go meet up and have a few beers. By the time it took Damo to walk from St James's Park to Bond St tube station, which is about a half hour walk, it was snowing hard! Very strange. Then for the next week or so, there was snow. It was very odd - we'd had a week or two previous where we had the temperature get up to about 18 or 19 degrees celcius, and sunny.

We had Mel over for lunch one day so that we could organise our Tuscany bicycle tour. We had a few glasses of wine and a whole lot of tapas/nibblies - it was lovely. Unfortunately, the few glasses of wine turned into many, and then there wasn't much Tuscany happening. It was a lovely day so we decided to take a rug and a bottle of wine down to Ravenscourt Park and we sat there and ate, drank and were merry! It was sensational.

We came home from then and proceeded to have some more nibblies for dinner, and then sat down to watch a movie called 'Under the Tuscan Sun' - considering the trip we were supposed to be organising we thought it might be good to get us in the mood - unfortunately by this point in time it was all too late, and we had had a couple of wines too many.

This trip still isn't booked, but we are going to do it, so we're really looking forward to it.

The trips that we have booked (and confirmed) so far at the moment are:

April - Easter - Amalfi Coast - Italy

May - 2nd Long Weekend - Monaco Formula 1(tm) Grand Prix (Damo has his tickets....) :-)

August - Long Weekend - San Sebastian - Spain

August - Week off work! - Greek Islands Cruise - Greece (With a group of friends)

September - 6 days - Oktoberfest - Munich, Germany (We're also sightseeing in Bavaria while we're there)

The trips that we haven't booked or confirmed (but are intending to go on are):

June - We're taking a long weekend - Belgium - Damo is off to Rockwerchter (Massive music festival in Belgium - camping with Damo's workmates!!!)

July - Week off work - Tuscany - Italy - (Cycling tour with a group of friends)

November - Week - Egypt

So at least we've been busy trying to get on top of all that - it's amazing how much planning has to go into organising each trip though - it's really quite time consuming.

Last weekend we went over to Andria and Steve's place at Notting Hill for a wine-tasting/dinner party. It was just the four of us and one other friend of Steve's - they both work for Google (Steve and his mate), and they were really nice guys. We had a great night, with a couple of Chateauneuf-du-pape's too many (and miles too much food!) :-)

Unfortunately we've captured bugger all photos of anything we've been up to lately, but Damo has just bought a new camera and hopefully that'll inspire him to start taking a few more piccies!

He bought this - Canon EOS 30D with a EF 70-200mm f/4 lense and an 18-50mm f2.8 lense. Mainly bought it so he could get some decent shots when he goes to Monaco, but no doubt it'll come in handy during all of our travels.

We're both going to book into a photography course soon so that we can learn how to make the most out of it.

Consequently, Damo has been spending a bit of time trapseing around London taking a few piccies with the new camera. He did get sidetracked one afternoon when Trav gave him a call to see if he wanted to catch up for a few pints, but he's been enjoying it, so that's good.

Backlit Big Ben & Parliament - (Look kids... Yeah, we know Dad - Big Ben, Parliament)

St James's Park (Just before it was snowing...)

Pretty Flowers

A likely suspect that might be familiar to many of you...

Anyway, that's about all we've been up to - we're off to a party at Damo's bosses' house tonight.

We hope you are all still well, and don't be shy to put some comments up here if you're reading it! ;-)

Dinner with mates and Borough Markets

This last weekend just gone, we were both feeling a bit exhausted after quite a busy few weeks in a row, so we decided that we'd go for a pretty cruisy, relaxing weekend.

We ended up getting invited around to Elliott's place on Friday night for a dinner party and a few bottles of wine. This was a last minute thing, and Elliott invited us late Friday afternoon to come around - prior to that we were expecting a quiet Friday night at home - funny how things like that happen.

After getting to his place pretty late due to shocking traffic (there's something completely unexpected in London - NOT), we settled in with Damo giving him a hand cooking the fajitas, and both of us having a few glasses of wine. In attendance were Elliott, Kat, Antony, Karolin, Sam and (her partner - can't remember his name.... Martin, maybe?) and both of us.

There was plenty of wine being guzzled, and as it turned out, the dinner was very delectable also.

All in all we had a thoroughly enjoyable night.

On Saturday we woke up a little late-ish (about 9am), but it was a nice day though, and we didn't want to be stuck inside all day. We got going about 10-ish and headed off to the shops to take a few things back and pick up a few essentials. We were going to go into a park in the city because it was such a lovely day, but by the time we finished at the shops, walked outside, it was pissing down... Of course. We modified our plans and decided that we'd go to the Borough High Street markets to pick up some fresh fruit and veges for the week and also to have a wander around tasting all of the yummy food. It was great. They always have things like marinated olives, cheeses, breads etc with little morsels available for tasting. We spent most of the afternoon doing this, and then just prior to leaving we decided we'd head off to More London to have fish and chips on the banks of the Thames overlooking Tower Bridge.



Just for a little bit more information, Tooley Street (where we used to live) is one of the oldest streets in London. It got absolutely hammered in the London Blitz, and there is a museum on Tooley Street called "Britain at War". Apparently 68 people died on Tooley Street.

We finished up at More London, made our way home, and rented the Da Vinci Code on DVD as we had both just finished reading the book (and were a little bit stuffed from the previous night). We were both underwhelmed as we thought that they didn't really capture the thrill of the chase, so to speak. It was ok though.

Sunday had us just doing some chores around the house, finishing off watching the movie, and generally having a lazy day - we went down to Chez Kristof which is a cafe just near us (it's about 4 doors down) for a spot of breakfast, but thankfully it was pissing down, so in weather like that you don't feel as guilty for doing very little. Chez is a great place to hang out on a Sunday just drinking coffee and reading the paper.

Nikki was heading out to meet Olivia for coffee in the afternoon (Also at Chez Kristof). While she was off doing that, Damo did absolutely nothing around the house, and just lied on the couch watching Clerks X on DVD on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Ahhhhh!

Damo in F1

*Damo speaking*

I just recently became a part of F1 for this year. I thought it would be a good year to be involved considering that I'm off to the Monaco GP this year.

So therefore, my name will be printed on the Honda Racing Team RA107's front wing.

If you want to do the same thing, you can go to http://www.myearthdream.com and follow the links to pledge.

I should probably also mention that it's going to be microscopic, literally.... The new livery for the Honda this year is a picture of the Earth from Google Earth (pictured below), and the colours will be made up of people's names who make environmental pledges. I've pledged to turn off the TV at the set and to not unnecessarily charge my mobile phone. So my name will be appearing as 1 pixel of the front wing livery of the Honda RA107 - and I got it for the bargain basement price of £1.

*end Damo speaking*