Cinque Terra: La Bella Italia

Dean’s folks paid us a visit over summer (about time and don’t leave it so long between drinks please parents), so we planned a trip to Italy with them for some flavour of the continent and some guaranteed sunshine and to trace Dean’s Mum’s family roots to the town of Calomini. Lou had always wanted to visit the Cinque Terre so that was our focus, but we also squeezed in a photo opportunity in Pisa; a night in Lucca; a trip to the tiny town of Caolmini; a quick visit to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet; and a couple of nights in Venice. All up it was a fantastic week away, enjoying independent travel dominated by wonderful weather, fantastic food and wine, and not quite enough walking to cancel it out. Highlights follow.

No caption required!

Following the obligatory photos at the leaning tower of Pisa we headed 30 minutes to the walled town of Lucca, our base for the night. We explored the town – which was pretty quiet on a Sunday – taking in the walls, numerous squares and passageways, St Martin’s Cathedral and the Basilica of San Frediano (along with the fascinating – and slightly weird – mummified body of St Zita, patron Saint of maids and servants, on display. Although she died in 1272, when her body was exhumed in1580 it was found to not have decomposed (proof of her Saintliness?) but has since been mummified). We enjoyed an excellent meal that night at Trattoria Da Leo washed down with local wine.

The next day was all about finding our roots. We were off to the tiny town of Calomini, high in the hills, to the hometown of Guiseppe Vangioni, Dean’s great great great great grandfather. Legend has it that Guiseppe fled Italy to Akaroa, New Zealand, in the 1860s after running into trouble with the Coppas when smuggling olive oil over the Italian mountains. The town was pretty quiet, but we paid a visit to the cemetery (lots of Vangionis) and admired the view.

 All (tiny, windy, back) roads lead to Calomini

From there it was off to our main base for the week, Vernazza in the Cinque Terre. We parked the car in La Spezia [top tip: we found it tough to find information about parking online beforehand, get there early and ask at the information centre for directions to the free car park a few blocks away.] Trains to the Cinque Terre are regular and only take around 30 minutes. Our base was A Ca’ Da Nonna, a great little apartment, and after dumping our bags we wandered the couple of minutes to the natural harbour and saw the sunset over foccacia, beer and gelato. Highlights from our few days there were the walk from Vernazza to Monterosso, and from Vernazza to Corniglia, exploring Riomaggiore and Manarola by train, daily swims in the harbour, dinner and breakfast at the Pirate Cafe (lovely staff and free wifi), and each day ending with sundowners on the balcony before exploring the variety of food options in town. Dean, Nik and Pete also enjoyed raw seafood at Puna Pescheria.

 We would definitely recommend Vernazza as a base, it was bigger than a couple of the other villages so had more food and accommodation options, and had the best swimming access apart from Monterosso which had beautiful sandy beaches but was so big it didn't have the topsy turvy village feel of Vernazza.

After four nights in Vernazza we hit the road again to Venice, with a pit stop in Verona, a spectacularly old Italian town where we walked the old streets to Casa de Guilieta for a photo at Juliet’s fictional balcony. 

We ended the holiday with two nights in Venice, doing all the obligatory tourist spots including the canals (by Vaporetto - water bus, we weren’t feeling flush enough for a gondola), St Mark’s cathedral, Rialto bridge, and a worthwhile tour of the Ducal Palace One of the unsung highlights was a trip to Burano (just beyond the more famous Murano) where all the buildings are painted glorious bright colours. Simply beautiful. 

Isle of Wight weekend

Some pics here from our spring time long weekend in the Isle of Wight. It was worth a visit, but we felt like we could have had the same experience elsewhere on the English coast, without having to travel the extra distance to our accommodation in Shanklin on the south east coast of the Isle.

 At Fisherman's Cottage - an old school cottage right on the beach only open part of the year due to the tide. Great food, patchy service.

Lots of walking along wind-swept beaches, exploring the old village of Shanklin (full of thatch-roofed buildings like the cover of a chocolate box), and resting, so it was just what we wanted. The highlight was a day spent at the Needles, a row of three stacks of chalk that rise out of the sea. They’re named after a fourth needle-shaped pillar that collapsed in a storm in 1764, but the name has stuck. Alum bay is also host to colourful cliffs of sand coloured by minerals. The colours run vertically, but actually originally were horizontal lines showing the various ages of the earth, and it’s quite freaky to think at some stage the land was turned 90 degrees. At the park there’s a fairly tacky ‘theme village’ at the top, with rides for kids and an old-fashioned sweet shop, but we bypassed that and walked down to the boat queue and took a quick trip close to the needles themselves, then spent a good few hours trekking up the coastal path to a monument to Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived nearby, and stopping at the site of a top secret space rocked and missile development centre open between 1955 and 1971 – pretty run down with an amusing model of a rocket which looked like a child’s school project, but informative all the same. A really beautiful walk on a windy but sunny day.

 Dean with the Needles in the background

 Alum bay sands

As we were carless, we took a couple of buses each way to the Needles, which took a couple of hours but meant we could enjoy the view from the top deck as we wound our way through villages and farms.

The other highlight was the meal we had at Pendeltons in Shanklin old village: wonderful service, delicious food, and very well priced.

The walking track

We heart NZ

An invitation to a wedding was as good an excuse as any to get back to New Zealand for a visit; the stars aligned, the timing was right, and the country was just finishing up one of the best summers on record so the weather wasn’t looking too bad either. The main purpose of the visit was to attend the wedding of friends, but also to catch up with friends and family. Our two weeks there were super relaxing and reminded us of the very different pace of life we’re living in London. 

During our two week stay we got to:

Akaroa: the home of Dean’s extended family and one of our favourite places on earth.

 Sunset on the bay

Our favourite tree at the family farm, Paua Bay

Wellington: the home of Dean’s family and Lou’s home for her last ten years in the country. Also the capital city and enjoying spectacular weather confiming you really can't beat Wellington on a good day.Caught up with friends and family, and visited some of the favourite old haunts including Oriental Parade and catching a Hurricanes game.

 Wellington's Civic Square

Enjoying Feijoa gelato on the waterfront where we used to go running. And by the way, why does no one grow fejoias outside of New Zealand? It's a conspiracy.

Hawke’s Bay: Lou’s hometown, known as 'wine country', and another of our favourite spots. There we saw more friends and family, and once again indulged in food and wine. This trip, while shaping up to be an excellent one, was not good for the shape of our bodies...  (Check out this cool ad about why you should visit Hawke's Bay). This was where we attended the wedding of our friends too, and had a blast at their ceremony and reception at one of the beautiful local wineries, Craggy Range.

 Supporting the local economy by bolstering our wine collection at Ngatarawa. Check out the colour co-ordination with our local guide (aka Lou's mum)

 Celebrating at Craggy Range

Auckland: for a night with friends and to mentally prepare ourselves for the 28 hour journey back to London.

In between leaving on 27 March and arriving back almost three weeks later, the UK had increased its temperature 15 degrees and gone through daylight savings, both of which made for a pleasant and mostly jet lag-free return to real life.

To our kiwi friends and family: we’ll try not to leave it so long between drinks! For now: haere ra xxx

Singapore - the perfect stopover

March 2013 saw a long-overdue visit back to the homeland, New Zealand. In the past, we’ve flown directly to New Zealand and squeezed in a short stopover on the way back to London, but this time we decided a couple of days in Singapore to shake off the London winter ahead of our kiwi break was in order, so we spent three nights there.

Singapore turned out to be an ideal stopover:

• Hot weather? Check
• Great food? Check
• Enough to do without having to visit all the tourist joints? Check
• More great food? Check
• Easy to get around? Check
• No language barriers for jet-lagged brains? Check
• And a bonus feature: two sets of friends to catch up with while there and get the inside scoop on how best to spend our time.

We really wanted to use the time to thaw out and de-stress so we’d arrive in New Zealand relaxed, and Singapore delivered the goods. From our central hotel, we managed to see the following (suprise, surprise, a von Yarrall holiday featuring lots of eating):

• East Coast Lagoon Food Market, where we joined friends and tried Singapore staples chilli crab, sting ray, carrot cake (nothing to do with carrots, rather stir fried globs of raddish and flour dumplings) and satay washed down with cold beers
• Lau Pa Sat hawker market, set in an old cast iron Victorian structure - for more food
• Breakfast each day of kaya toast (a kind of jam made of coconut, sugar and egg) and kopi (local coffee with sweetend condensed milk)
• Raffles Hotel – just the outside for a nosey
• Little India – like being in another country
• China Town – like China town in any city really
• Orchard Road – famous for its shopping, spent most of the time nipping in and out of giant shopping malls to either soak up air con, or avoid downpours
• The light show, viewed from Bar 33 (on the 33^rd floor of the Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 1) – didn’t really get the point of the light show at all, but the views were fab
• The MerLion, Singapore’s mascot
• Clarke Quay at night, a great wander down the waterfront with a stop for dinner followed by an ice cream sandwich (ice cream in bread – actually delicious)
• The Singapore Zoo, visited first thing in the morning and even then by the time we left we were melting. A pretty amazing zoo as the animals aren't in cages or behind bars, but rather separated from the public by ditches/streams of water. Included an entertaining elephant show and well worth the visit.
• And plenty of quality time pool-side in between

Three nights was plenty of time to get a feel for the city and definitely enough to relax and get over the jetlag before having one final swim and jumping on a plane. Next stop, Aotearoa.

A Skandinavian Christmas

Christmas markets had been taking a back seat since visits to Cologne/Dusseldorf and Luxembourg a few years ago, so we decided it was time to change that. Some cheap flights courtesy of Norwegian air saw us headed to Stockholm for a long weekend at the end of November, just after a heavy snowfall, perfect for getting into the Christmas spirit.

A delayed flight though meant we arrived later than planned on the Friday (the bus from the airport into town is the cheapest way to get there, and usually pretty quick without massive snow falls), so after checking into our hotel we headed straight for the Old Town markets with the sun starting to set mid-afternoon. We found them easily, but they were on the underwhelming side - only around 30 stalls. Not to worry: we tried some glogg (swedish mulled wine) and ginger biscuits to warm us up a bit, then walked around the quaint old streets with snow crunching underfoot. By 4pm it was pitch black, and our soft bodies were finding the cold, cold. 

We marched back through town past the Royal Palace and Parliament, and over a bridge beautifully lit with lights, and enjoyed a quick pricey pint (£6) followed by some traditional nosh at Pyttirian. 

Saturday we had a somewhat later start - let's call it an alarm malfunction. So we hightailed it to Skansen open air museum, the world's first open air museum and one of the oldest and biggest Christmas markets around. Friday's snow had stopped but it was thick all around, deep and crisp and even. A real picture postcard setting for the premier Christmas market maybe 100 stalls, selling a range of stuff from cured reindeer meat (not fans) to warm socks, homemade beer and assorted gifts and decorations. It wasn't long before the -10 degree weather started to bite, so we enjoyed plenty of hot food and wine, including Dean's particular favourite, a coal bun - a mixture  of flour, water and salty bacon all fried in a cast iron pan over a fire. Simple yet effective, it was like a thick doughy pancake, served with cranberry sauce. 

With warm stomachs but cold extremities, we took part in some of the entertainment on offer, a dance around the giant Christmas tree. We joined the crowds for some Swedish folk dancing which ranged from pretending we were a variety of animals to traditional womanly housework (we think). Unfortunately the video evidence of Dean being a bunny rabbit doesn't exist, as Lou pointed a camera doing nothing at him while he danced instead of pressing 'record'. Obviously the traditional housework dance didn't include women and technology... 

Invigorated and feeling the feet again (by this stage it was -5) we checked out the grounds which included traditional Swedish buildings (like a farm house and a working bakery), and the zoo complete with reindeer, wild swine, lynx, foxes, bison, wolverine and seals. The brown bear was, wisely, hibernating for the winter. There had been so much snow and at times we couldn't see nor hear another soul so it really felt like we had the wilderness to ourselves. As we walked back to the centre of the park the snow started falling heavily again, so it was all pretty magic for these two kiwis who still love a bit of snow after spending most of our lives without it.

The following day (Sunday), we headed for the Royal Palace. Rather annoyingly, in winter things are open very limited hours in Stockholm, so it didn't open until mid-day. This did make sight-seeing a bit tricky, it was far too cold to wander around outside for too long, and far to pricey to while away the hours in cafes, but when the Palace opened we enjoyed a couple of hours taking in the history of the building and the obligatory changing of the guards.

Stockholm was a beautiful city surrounded by water - and in our case snow - so we'd happily visit again, perhaps in summer to see more of the city without constantly having to warm ourselves up and battle against short daylight hours. The easiest way to get around was the metro - buy a ticket from a shop which is cheaper than a machine or the ticket guy (weird), for roughly what you'd pay for a trip on the London underground. It's also a small, walkable city, and we found that was the best way to get our bearings and keep ourselves moving in the cold.

Alicante: Late summer sun

Our holiday years are out of sync with each other, so with Lou having a few days to take, and her sister Ange having a week’s holiday as a teacher, they decided on a cheap and cheerful girls’ holiday to Alicante in the south of Spain, where they were guaranteed sunshine even in late October.

We stayed at Playa San Juan, outside of Alicante itself, but an easy 20 minute bus ride to the city. Our hotel was a Holiday Inn, purchased as a 'Top Secret Hotel' through lastminute.com in a super cheap flight and hotel deal. 

It didn’t look like the city had all that much to offer in the off-season, so we were happy with our little hotel at Playa San Juan, complete with swimming pool and 5 minute stroll to the beach cafes and bars. We made good use of them, becoming a regular at GAME bar, which offered live music on Sunday evening, and cheap mojitos everyday. Acqua bar was pretty good for food and cofe, as was Lys de France - all with beach front locations.. 

We spent a happy few days chilling out, reading, walking, and one day exploring the castle overlooking Alicante (which they clearly want visitors to get the elevator to - we walked up and with no signs, spent 2 hours circling the mountain until finally stumbling over the entrance. We got the lift back down!).

Highly recommend Alicante - or Playa San Juan - for a sunny, relaxing time.

Edinburgh tattoo and fringe: Free comedy: laugh or your money back

We finally made it to Scotland for the Edinburgh festival last weekend, with tickets to the Tattoo and nothing else locked into the agenda.

We opted this trip to take the train both ways from Kings Cross, since the time (4 and a half hours) is roughly what it takes to get to the airport, check in, wait, fly, then get into town at the other end. A great way to travel, although our 2pm Friday train was jam packed with people taking up every possible aisle space. Luckily we had booked seats in advance, but all the people made for a pretty warm, squishy trip. We were lucky with our B&B too, Kirklea Guest House, which was charging more normal (affordable) rates than many other options in town, with even youth hostels asking for £100 a night when we looked to book 8 months ago.

First up, the Tattoo. Lucky for us the forecast rain didn't arrive, so we settled in for two hours of piping, drumming, dancing and the Scots not singing God Save the Queen. Highlights were the King of Norway's Guards Band and Drill Team (all youngsters doing their national service), The Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland (drumming so fast you couldn't see their hands move), and the Aussies, who did a pretty humorous set including a spot of Kyle and a Waltzing Mathilda sing-along. There was an extensive set at the end with all the bands re-creating Queen Elizabeth's coronation which we didn't feel the Scots were loving, and it's true, they all stood for the anthem but didn't sing. Not surprising, given one of the later verses of an older version of the the anthem includes the lines "Rebellious Scots to crush, God save the King." The Castle was very cleverly lit up in various ways throughout the Tattoo - some of the best pics here.

The US band playing a superhero mash up

The Castle lit with Union Jacks after the slightly weird and very long tribute to the Queen

The locals: a bit happier at their own flag

On Saturday we grabbed a Fringe guide (the size of a phone book) and planned the day as follows:
Improv: Aaand here's another thing - at a very small room in a pub, got jam packed and very hot and lots of people missed out getting in. Very clever and funny (donation)

Play: Executive Stress/Corporate Retreat - a hilarious play with plenty of audience participation by a group of young Aussies, Applespeil. We loved this, our competitive sides came out during the audience participation. Lou ended up the winner of the crowd in the end. Here she is proudly in her t-shirt, which we like to refer to as her 'Team Building Exercise '99' t-shirt, a la Flight of the Conchords. (£7 well spent)
Combination stand up: Lolympics - a flavour of a few of the acts at the festival (donation)
Stand up: Yianni, Numb and Number - an Aussie with number-based humour (donation)
Stand up: Kiwi Ben Crellin - funny, and good to support a kiwi, but a couple of the audience got pretty offended at his padeophile/murderer set which ruined the buzz a bit (donation)
Bingo: Bogan Bingo - does what it says on the tin. Two Aussies, in mullets, rocking to 80s tunes, while we all played a good old fashioned game of bingo. Pleased to find these guys play every Thursday close to us, so we might go laugh with them again some time soon (donation)

Our train on Sunday was departing mid-afternoon, so we had time for just two more shows:
Sketch: The Tourists - a small group of Manchurians with a set of bizarre, very funny skits (donation)
Variety: Free Footlights - another super popular show featuring some of the best young talent. Stand outs were I am I am, a musical duo with an amusing song about the London underground; Johnny Lenox as an 'author' reading some of his very clever and funny stories; and Phil Wang, a regular old fashioned stand up comic (donation)

A fantastic, albeit exhausting and full on, weekend. Will happily pop back again for another weekend during the festival.