Messina

This all started as usual with brave ideas of walking at least three hours around the town. As hot as Rome, if not hotter.

Nice buildings, but nothing startling. After one hour back to the ship.

It is amazing how just having lunch, doing a bit of reading, a swim, and exploring the ship can chew through the time. 

I am writing this sitting on our balcony, and the ship should have cast off ten minutes ago.

Rome: The fourth day

Today started with the best of intentions as usual. The plan was to walk from our hotel to the Trevi fountain, then to the villa Borghese,and the Borghese Gardens.

We thought we would be cheap chops, and not fork out the $25nz for the dubious privilege of being stuffed into metro subway trains like yesterday.

Our first stop, the Trevi fountain was quite memorable, much better than the Spanish Steps. Which we visited again because they were on our way. 

Here is the Trevi Fountain:

 

Just before the Spanish Steps, we stopped in a little cafe for a gelato. Molto delisiosa!

The cafe was beautifully presented, full of character.

Now comes Bill, the map reading dunce....ending up at Flaminio, getting close to the gardens though. Once in the gardens the villa Borghesi proved elusive. We found a tunnel that went under the ground and ended up in the  metro station called Spagna. 

The map I bought for 5 euros proved suspect, for instance there was a tunnel not even on the map.

At this point we were concerned that we might not have enough energy to get home so heading for home became a priority. Going back past the cafe we went in again for a sandwich. Walking home was like watching a petrol gauge reading empty.

After much resting an investigation of a nearby park was called for. 

 Not very park-like as all the grass was dead.  Nearby was the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Entry was free, so it was necessary to have a look. It really is a magnificent piece of craftsmanship.

 Back home for our last dinner at the restaurant we have been frequenting for the last few days.

Rome, the third day.

Above: The queue at the Vatican

The plan was to visit the Vatican to see bits of it. Because it was a long way from our hotel, we decided Metro was the answer. So we got on the train at Cavor, which is right next door to our hotel. This took us to Rome termini on the B line. Coming out of the Metro up onto the surface we headed for the ticket office to buy a ticket to Civitavecchio, which is the port for Rome, where we get on the cruise ship.

Here a con man tried to let him buy our ticket for us from the ticket machine.

Nice try. Rose was not quite convinced of Bill's skill with the ticket machine. So a human ticket operator was required. To get to one of those you had to get a number from a young lady and then wait. After half an hour waiting, Rose said okay let's use the ticket machine. Seem to work out okay but we still had some woman trying to horn in on the action and pressing a buttons for us, so she was told to go away.

Back onto The Metro, and looking at the train stations, decided that Lepanto was the best fit as it said Vatican beside it.  Actually no. Had to walk about 3km to reach the Vatican.  Once there it became blindingly obvious a wrought was going down.  Every five minutes you would be approached by a man who offered to enable us to skip the queue which was at least 300 m long. The only trouble with this idea was that the price was about NZ$160. The other people out in the hot sun queueing up to get in for their $22 New Zealand decided that they weren't going to pay the $160 either. At this point we decided, blow the Vatican, then walked a k up to Ottaviano station, then home.  Not a lot of fun on the metro because of the crowds there were no seats. At every station there would be two soldiers with large guns, presumably for anti-terrorist duty.

A short rest, then back on the Metro heading for Spagna, with the idea of having a look at the Spanish Steps. Luckily just a short walk in the heat after getting off the train. The Spanish Steps were a bit underwhelming but it was a nice fountain.

Here are the steps:

This is the fountain:

We should have a copy of this in Pukekohe. People were using the outlet of the water to cool off. So did I.

Back home in a crowded metro to have yet another rest from the rather high temperatures of 35°.

Feeling guilty at not having seen enough we headed for a look at the Forum. Turns out they did not accept cash, they needed a credit card, which was back at the hotel.

So nuts to that as well.

What is Rome like?

It depends where you are coming from , and when. Last time we were here, we came in on the airport train around dusk, and everything looked tired and dirty.

 The hotel last time was a large distance from the centre, and the area it was in was not very tidy.

This time seems much better, with the Colloseum only 15 minutes walk away.

The when: not a clever plan to come in mid August, as the temperature yesterday was 35 degrees. Which is enough to turn you around and head for home. Then jet lag takes over, and you sleep all afternoon, and wake up at 3am.

Food: a meal is a bit of chicken cooked in tomato sauce?  Fairly tasty, but maybe the idea is you have to have at least two courses?  Clever Romans?

Ancient stuff: to get to these, you must walk down streets that are bounded with buildings around six stories high, good because it shades you from the sun.

A sample of what you walk past:

This is the Venetian Palace:

 

Walked to the Pantheon in the morning when it was cooler. The outside is ordinary, but the inside is beautiful.
Here it is:

 Five minutes walk from there to the Piazza Navona which is mostly empty space, with a beautiful fountain in the middle.

Here it is:

It feels like nobody lives in the buildings, but my brother says in the hot season all smart romans leave the city.

This is a typical Rome street near the Pantheon.

Flooding in Pukekohe

Living next to a pond has it's moments!

...Or is it a lake?

...It does not have a name, so I christened it Misty Lakes, after our cat.

Garden Stuff

I am not a natural gardener.  Just might be a lazy fat person.
Dunno why we now have 2 garden beds, but here they are:

A Trip to Tumbulgum

Lucky us just had a holiday in Coolangatta, which is in Australia.  Eight days, in a very nice apartment style holiday - not quite a hotel - but almost.  We stayed at Kirra Beach in the Nirvana, which is about 15 storeys high.

Nirvana, from the Seventh Floor

I can certainly recommend this as a place to stay: across the road from the beach, a high standard of rooms.  Just enough bars and restaurants downstairs. If you need more shopping, 5 minutes away, around the headland is Coolangatta shopping area.

We got on a river cruise, which I was not carrying high hopes for.
As it happened, it was great, if a little over cast. A very peaceful quiet trip up the Tweed river to a small locality called Tumbulgum.  Hard name to get right.  

Top deck of the boat that took us up the Tweed river

We had morning tea on the boat. What really was a highlight was the the feeding of pelicans.

They came sweeping in a big flock of about twenty, along with seagulls, Ospreys and a Kestrel or two.  Amazing to see.

At the town had a beer/coke at the pub after a stroll around.  What a nice peaceful place, warm too. On the way back they served lunch, a leisurely one!

What most of the journey looked like

All sorts of strange birds and flowers at Tumbulgum, and a weird mountain in the distance called Mt Warning.

View from the pub at Tumbulgum

Because we felt we should get the use out of the rental car, after we got back, we had a rest then set out for Mt Warning.  It was nearly dark by the time we got to the turn off, and we drove about 6 kms up the mountain on a very narrow road with creepy trees either side hanging over most of the road.  Unusual birds trying to get themselves run over, with not another car seen.  

Pleased to get out of there, after seeing too many episodes of sensing murder!

Drove home in the rain, what the heck.

At one stage we got to Byron Bay, a nice place, but unfortunately everyone else thinks so too, and they are all there! No place to park.

Looking at the map, we realised there was a day long road trip inland for a bit.  On a beautiful day we set out up the Currumbin Valley, where there was a rock pool for me to swim in... maybe.

As it happens it did not look particularly inviting, so I skipped a dip, here it is:

Currumbin Valley Rock Pool

I hope this next pic gives an idea of how wonderful the scenery is in this valley:

Currumbin Valley Scenery

Further on, we went past Mt Warning (overtaken by about 50 motorbikes), alongside sugar cane fields with mountain ranges in the distance. 

Mt Warning and Sugar Cane

On the way back to "civilisation" we stopped at the roadside and saw someones front gate, which I thought looked rather nice.

Someones front gate in the boondocks

One of our final acts was to go to Brisbane to have a quick look.  As usual with lack of planning, we did not know where to go so drove down the main street, and said yep, seen Brisbane.  Which is not really fair to Brisbane, as no doubt it has nice places to go.