Tuscan Travels

This morning, 26th Ocober, we had the first frost. At least, the car had ice on the windscreen, just after sunrise when I went out to buy fresh bread. It's just thirteen days since we left Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, in warm sunshine, to drive down to Siena in Tuscany to finish our short holiday.

We were now five friends in two cars, Roz and Bob having left by train for Venice, Florence and Rome before flying back to California after another week. We set off heading south across the interminable Lombardy plain, on what must be the most boring and ugly drives in europe, flat as a board and as picturesque as an enormous industrial estate in decline. Siena was 450 kilometres distant and not until Bologna (300 kilometres) can you find anything worth looking at from the motorway.

We knew that Bologna to Siena via Florence meant crossing the Apennine mountains and sure enough, green hills hove into view a few kilometres north of Bologna. We swept into them, climbing steadily, by-passing the city with welcome views of farms and woodlands. I was a bit surprised to find the maximum altitude attained was only 750 metres (according to Fifi, our GPS locator) and the motorway was in pretty poor condition at this point, two lanes only and an uneven surface (not unusual for Italy, even on newly-laid carriageways). 

The route by-passed Florence as we left the 'mountains' passing through more ugly industrial activity and yet more road construction work with the city itself just a smudge in the haze to the east of us. We were now well and truly in Tuscany.

Thomas Patch, an English painter living in Florence painted this 'Distant View of Florence' in 1763. The words 'spinning' and 'grave' come to mind.

Later in the afternoon we were threading our way through the northern suburbs of Siena towards the walled city centre with some trepidation. Complex meeting arrangements had been made; we were not going to be able to park or even unload our luggage near our apartment as it was inside the mediaeval city walls, legal access by vehicle being only available to residents. The plan was, to telephone Jacopo, an old friend and former work-colleague of Marina through whom the accommodation had been arranged. His son-in-law, Pino (who, we imagined, was the owner of the apartment), would drive to meet us, transfer our luggage to his car and then somehow show us where to park and lead us to the apartment at the same time.

All this came to pass- eventually. The apartment was on a steep bluff, just inside the city walls on the north-east side of the city, at the corner of the Piazza San Francesco

I found this photo which actually shows the apartment and part of the mediaeval wall - our green balcony on the yellow building where we took our evening drinks just visible above the trees in front of the looming mass of the Basilica of San Francesco. 

There is an alley between the two buildings which leads to a series of escalators descending to the street and the public car park where we had to leave our vehicles - at 30 euros a day each.

There is no doubt that Siena is one of the world's surviving wonders. The 'Campo' in the centre is a marvel and must not be missed. Of course, we expected and were not wrong in assuming that to sit there at one of the numerous bars and cafés to admire the view while sipping a refreshing drink would not be the cheapest way to quench our thirsts. Beers were three times normal price and nearly nine euros for a gin-and-tonic was mildly eye-watering (not due to the alcoholic strength, I might add).

If one's 'thing' is to visit, study, imbibe the magnificent monuments crammed into a marvel surviving from the middle ages such as Siena, then one could spend a week or more there, discovering new joys by the hour. After two days however, having been let down on various lodging arrangements (Marina had to move twice to nearby B&Bs at the last minute) and worrying somewhat about the security of the vehicles and the haemorrhaging euro in our pockets, we decided to review the situation. Personally, I found the bane of Siena was the noise and local pollution of constant roaring, rattling mopeds weaving in and out of the pedestrians in the narrow streets. The noise was amplified as in canyons so eating out on the pavement, although pleasant in the warm weather, was a spoilt experience.

In addition, Michel was obviously contracting a cold, or worse so we made a trip out to the hilltop village of San Gimignano as everyone should, who visits this region, then headed back to France on the third day.  Michel needed to see a GP and we had decided to settle for a visit to Biot, near Antibes on the Côte d'Azur as a possible rest stop for last part of our trip.

Mountains and Lakes

Back home at last, after a busy schedule outlined in the last blog. The best laid plans are often disrupted and our odyssey into Italy and back through France's Provence was no exception. However, the holiday was great and family bonds were reinforced, as they should be.

The crossing of the alps was the first casualty of my route plan. I turned into the wrong valley while cruising along the autoroute on a warm, sunny afternoon and we couldn't be bothered to retrace once I realised the error. So we went through the Fréjus tunnel instead of climbing over the 'Little St Bernard' pass.  It was just as well. We reached our destination just as it was getting dark. The drive over the top would have set us back further in time, making the final 100 kilometres to Simon's house near Lake Maggiore a bit tricky as we were a two-car convoy with Michel following me on his first visit to Italy. The dense scattering of villages and lanes full of local traffic on steep

hillsides once we'd left the motorway was not the easiest place to try to follow another car in the dark.

Our three-day stay included a day trip on one of the passenger boats which cruise around the southern end of the lake like buses; the ticket was inclusive of stops anywhere around the circuit which included Laveno where we embarked, and the islands of Isola Madre and Isola Pescatori, both of which we visited.

Isola Madre consists entirely of a garden with a 16th century villa in the middle of it which belonged to the Barromeo family, all of which can be seen between passenger boat visits. The picture shows a view from the gardens. I've put a set of these pictures here on 'flickr'

After another superb celebratory dinner, arranged by Simon which took place in a sort of grocer's/butcher's shop which doubled as a restaurant after hours, it was time to leave for the next planned stop on our itinerary - Siena.

So far so good, if not quite as predicted....

Mapmaker

The Days Grow Short

October is well under way and we have a busy schedule ahead. The weather is still kind with warm sun and no rain to speak of. I took this picture this morning from the garden. I was just too late to capture the earlier wisps of mist rising vertically from the water surface like party ribbons, something we see often at this time of year. Promise of a warm day again.

The schedule should run like this: 

Drive to Limoges airport tomorrow, Wednesday to pick-up Roz and Bob who have come all the way from California via the UK. Dinner at the Fouillade in the evening with Chris and Sophie added to the ensemble.

Lunch on Thursday with the 'Entre Deux' crowd, plus Roz, Bob, Nadine and Michel - that makes Fourteen of us. Special occasion, Fleur's birthday on Sunday but we'll be in Italy by then so not all friends here will be able to attend, hence early celebration.

Friday morning, we're off to Italy to Lake Maggiore with Roz, Bob, Nadine, Michel, Fleur and Marina in two cars, to visit Roz's brother and family via the alpine pass alongside Mont Blanc - the 'Little St Bernard' (height 2,188 metres).  I'm keeping an eye on the webcams up there at La Rosiére, a ski resort just below the pass on the French side) but there shouldn't be a problem at this time of year.

Another celebration, Italian style, on Sunday, then the two Californians leave for Venice while the rest of us head for Siena where we have an apartment reserved for the rest of the week, thanks to a friend of Marina.

The return journey is planned (for me, Fleur, Nadine, Michel and Marina) to be via the Mediterranean route with a night or two at St Rémy de Provence, a watering hole we've visited several times before. We should find our way home after that.

Not a bad schedule for October. Well, you only live once and winter is-a -comin', in more ways than one, if the current financial crisis is anything to go by.

Later blogs  - hope to show how it all turned out.....

Mapmaker

Confusers and Electrickery

This blog is about computers, so skip it if the subject bores the pants off you....

I can  think of only one of our large group of friends and acquaintances in this neck of the woods who doesn't have a computer; I'm talking about a group of people, mostly immigrant retirees, with an average age of around 60+, at a guess. Yet nearly all of us have them in the home and feel utterly deprived when they 'go down', get fried by thunderstorms (pretty fierce affairs here when compared with those we remember from times past back in Blighty) or when our 'Internet Providers' inexplicably stop providing on random occasions. 

'Confusers' are what a good friend of mine calls computers - you only have to change a few letters and you're there. 'Electrickery is another word he uses a lot. He's a nice, intelligent chap, running a survey company in the UK. He has to rely on them as tools of the trade (we're talking land survey here - mapping, so lots of numbers have to be crunched), but he's honest too. I spent ten years helping people to do useful things with these desktop, one-eyed beasts and I know that my friend is not alone. Everyone is confused by them, including me.

One thing came home to me very early during this period when I was frantically trying to keep ahead of the latest 'improvements' and 'updates'. My revelation was that these machines will always be confusing until the day comes along when their actual purpose and method of use are as readily understood as those of a toaster, a telephone, or a teapot..

Why do so many of us, even oldies and crinklies, need these wretched machines? What do we actually do with them? We send emails and browse the internet. These two activities have been more or less 'mastered' by most of us, but even then, the finer points of 'cut-and-paste', email attachment formats, 'favourite' web site management, RSS news-feeds etc. etc. are too tricky to bother about. We get by, largely without them.

Some of us like to use the 'media' facilities and enjoy playing with our digital photo or video libraries. As for spreadsheets, databases, desktop publishing, graphics, even computer diaries and 'to do' applications, these are largely spurned by most of us. Yet, a 'home' computer is an incredibly versatile and powerful tool, capable of doing almost anything if you know how. That's why it carries its relatively high price-tag; it's like having a box of tools in the house for any conceivable task. Only a small percentage will ever be used because we haven't learned how to use them, or we're just not interested.

Yet, the complete toolbox is there, cluttering-up the desk.

We don't actually need all this capability. Most of the time we simply need a small device for internet browsing, interaction (booking hotels, flights, ferries etc.) and emailing.

And in my opinion, combining these functions in a portable telephone is not the answer, especially while the telecom companies persist in ripping everyone off with outrageous charges.

Times are changing however. Broadband blues aside (last month's blog on the subject..), hand-held, wireless devices are now available offering email and web access with all that the latter can provide. Not to mention the digital media functionality like photo, music and video facilities. The leader of the pack at the moment is Apple's 'iPod Touch' which is, in fact, its world-beating iPhone without the 'phone bit (i.e., without the crippling charges). Other manufacturers are catching-up, fast.

I can see us all using these before we're driving our Zimmer frames. The computer accessories industry will be right there with us with its 'Zimmer iPod clip-on holder' with built-in speakers, auto-charging as we shuffle along....

I hope so - I look forward to it.

Mapmaker