Monthly Archives: August 2024
The Magic Power of Gelato
Last time we came to Corfu, we went to the Kanoni Causeway and watched jet planes roar in to land right over our heads. On the bus ride back, I’d spotted the Old Fortress and thought it looked interesting. So today’s plan was to pay it a visit. Today’s plan also included a walk along […]
Grit In My Teeth
Any travel guide or blog about Catania will describe this southern Sicilian city as “gritty”. Today I found out why. Not because of its long association with the mafia, or its rough around the edges persona. It’s literally gritty. There is fine, powdery, black ash everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It forms little piles in […]
The Bastions of Valletta
In Malta’s capital, cruise ships berth right under its remarkable defensive walls and bastions. Being so centrally positioned in the Mediterranean, and therefore highly strategic through centuries of wars and conflicts, Valletta has seen many civilisations come and go. It gained independence from Britain in 1964. From the waterfront, we had to find a way […]
Letting Off Steam
We woke to find ourselves already docked in Messina, Sicily. Today’s excursion took us by bus to Taormina, about an hour south. Taormina is most famous for its Roman ampitheatre, and as the location for series 2 of The White Lotus TV series (which we don’t watch). The bus ride took us across some very […]
Napoli
We snuck past Ischia and sailed into the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius towering over its southern end. Naples is a very large and very busy port, with multiple ferries, an icebreaker in dry dock, and the Costa Smeralda at the berth opposite ours. We passed the little lighthouses at the end of each breakwater at […]
Oui or Si
The past few days have been spent on the move. On Sunday we were up at 5am, to catch an airport shuttle at 7am. We flew from Toulouse to Madrid to Rome, and I spent the day trying to remember which language I should be using. Toulouse airport, being the home of Airbus, has an […]
La Ville En Rose
On our last full day in Toulouse, we left the apartment early. Everything here is very quiet until mid morning, and we enjoy the peaceful streets and the cooler temperatures. An extensive fresh fruit and veggie market was in full swing as we walked to Jeanne d’Arc metro, crossed the road, and entered the Capitole […]
L’Aigle S’est Pose
Toulouse is France’s centre for aviation and aerospace. So it was off to Cite de l’Espace, to learn more about Europe’s role in the space industry. Unwisely, we left Captain Kumamon in charge of the ice creams. Set out similarly to Kennedy Space Centre, but much smaller, Cite de l’Espace features a range of indoor […]
Albi (not Aldi) and Cordes (not Coles)
Make that four gold medals … Today I left Ian behind, ostensibly working, although there seems to have been ransacking of the icecream (for which he blamed the Captain), and online purchasing of Lego. I took a bus tour to two medieval towns – Albi, and Cordes Sur Ciel. Ian thought I said Aldi, and […]
A Change of Pace
Ian has been putting up (mostly) gracefully with being dragged around old cities, medieval walls, courtyards, balconies and doorways, for much of this trip. Today it was time to visit Aeroscopia, the aviation museum at Toulouse airport in Blagnac, for something much more recent. First we had a new metro system to come to grips […]
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