Two coins in a fountain

The Gilmore Girls is on TV dubbed in Italian...in the original they talk

really fast, in Italian it is supersonic.

Today we went to the Capitoline museums - stunning and it isn't even up there in the top 5 or so. We have realised a week isn't nearly enough to see "everything". The object is to enjoy what we see, which isn't difficult. After that we checked out the Pantheon - stunning (again). As one of my students once said, "You gotta give it to them Romans – they knew how to get it done". 

The philosopher, soldier and emperor, Marcus Aurelius is here seen posing with his horse and an apparently overweight fan. I swear the money belt makes me look fat. (Well, I'll exercise when I get home.)

The delight was the gallery of the Doria Pamphylli. The family has inhabited this spectacular palace in the middle of one of Rome's main drags ever since an uncle got himself chosen as Pope Innocent X. (The gallery includes Velasquez's famous portrait of that Pope - he looks about as innocent as a mafia don.) The Doria have been decorating and collecting ever since. A lot of the art looks pretty ho hum now - but there are some stunning things. The audio guide by the latest Prince Doria Pamphylli is pure Oxbridge, which makes sense because since the 1830s the princes have been marrying Englishwomen. The whole experience was pretty wonderful, and, special bonus, not crowded.

Palazzo Doria Pamphili

A typically understated room in the palace

Not so innocent Innocent

After wine and naps we did the Trevi Fountain/ Spanish Steps thing. Wherever Audrey Hepburn or John Keats went in this city it is packed. We threw the coins, took the photos and braved the buses.

She'll be back.

So will he.

 

So will all these people...

(We also checked out the nearby fashionable shopping streets. The shops looked gorgeous and were staffed by gorgeous young Italians with schmick suits who looked as if they knew they were part of the show.)

Now that's a shop!

I have to say that this city has more police on its streets than you could imagine. There are endless sirens, and many interesting uniforms. Law and order is less apparent... I think everybody likes it that way.

Both Italian parking and a shop we found selling priests vestments and church doodads intrigued Lyn. (Surely this stuff is supplied free?!/;$@&).

We saw this sort of thing everywhere.

 

Not supplied?

After dinner at our local trattoria we are home relaxing.

Caesar Shuffle

So today was the route known as the "Caesar Shuffle". We climbed the Palatine hill and saw lots of red-brick shock and awe as various emperors built their stuff on top of the stuff that earlier emperors built. That much of all this still stands is a tribute to Roman bricklayers and Roman concrete.

View from the Palatine Hill

Grinning idiot by the Tiber

Lyn on some emperor's balcony

Temple of Saturn with very small Leon (arm raised). Everything is bigger than I thought.

Then we strolled through the Roman Forum and Lyn had to listen to me because it is in our marriage contract, and besides, there were no 17 year olds for me to torment. 

Then we went back for naps ... then walked back to the Colosseum ... except it is really the Flavian Amphitheatre ... pay attention class!  The trip home was a completely random (brilliantly chosen) bus ride. 

Evening ended with another great meal, in another local restaurant (49 metres up the street), dining al fresco.

Loving Rome so far. 

Profound thought for the day - Romans built really big stuff.

Trastavere, Rome

We just finished our first day in Rome. We have a gorgeous apartment in Trastavere - the old trendy quarter of Rome. Despite an exhausting plane trip and an exhausting/amusing struggle to get about 1500 people through passport check and customs at Leonardo Da Vinci airport, we still managed to fit in two excursions: a walk around the neighbourhood and a tram ride and walk through bits of Rome. Got a little lost, but kept finding famous stuff, and this being Rome on Sunday, managed to attend parts of about three masses!

Finished the day with a litre of red, pizza and salad on a sidewalk restaurant around the corner. Live the cliche!

We are here. Via di Salumi, 50. 

Sydney and Singapore

We were very impressed by Singapore Airlines and Singapore airport. Our transfer went well and we booked into our hotel. We then had to cope with an elevator that missed our floor twice. By the time we reached our room Lyn was very frazzled. It ensured, I suspect, that we will never stay in a hotel requiring elevator access again – ever.

Singapore in the evening was hot, in a humid stinky oppressive way. We found the pool – but it provided only limited relief – because it was warm and smelt suffocatingly of chlorine. The other unpleasant surprise was that Singapore is expensive. The beer, however, is good.

The following day we explored the shops. Our only significant purchase was an expensive battery for our camera. (What I really needed was a recharger. This meant that most of our photographs were taken on my iPad. In the end it worked out well enough. Lyn found a decent handbag and we both found the commercialism as overwhelming as the heat. We found a brass band and a display about Singapore's military contribution in Iraq or Afghanistan.

We haeded for the botanic gardens by foot and bus. These are beautiful and we had an encounter with a monkey!

Lyn proved how determined she can be in solving travel problems. Despite road works, and the many changes caused by Grand Prix weekend, she successfully found us the right buses to get back to the hotel. 

We found a restaurant for dinner across the road – but were no more impressed by the food than the weather or the inhabitants. 

We left early for the airport and read books and watched movies on our iPads in the luxurious and efficiently air-conditioned terminal. Our flight was at the ridiculous hour of 1.00 am. At last we left for Rome ... both of us, I think, a little discouraged at the thought of coming back to Singapore on the way home.

What to do for hours in Auckland Airport?

Not a lot is the answer.

Today was Lyn’s birthday. We realised the absurdities of our itinerary. This had us flying to Auckland and then waiting an eternity for a connecting flight. Auckland airport is just not that interesting so we hiked in search of amusement. I put in a very creditable performance at Putt Putt. We bought Lyn a shell pendant at the airport shop. Then it was home to Australia and Warrimoo.

Lyn says we need to go back and see the North Island. I say we need to go back to see the northern bit of the South Island. Then there are the bits we missed this time: Invercargill, most of the Caitlins, the High Alps, the glaciers ... and the bits we don’t even know we missed ...

Moeraki to Marmite

After two nights in Dunedin it was time to drive north to Christchurch. It is not an exciting drive unless you are Lyn.  We had to stop to look at sundry sheep and alpacas and admire (as we had throughout) the regional variations in hay stacks. Along the way we made two stops. We saw the odd Moeraki Boulders. These are unusually large and spherical rocks lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach. We also stopped for a break at the rose garden at Oamaru.

We really did not have the time to head inland to see Mt Cook. (The highest alps could be seen from a distance as we drove – another case of next time.) At Christchurch we had one more mission. We needed to find the Marmite factory for Kassie Cottee. Mission accomplished, we returned the car, stayed overnight at an airport hotel and packed for home. 

 

 

Dunedin

We had a great day exploring Dunedin. We went for a short walk on the Otago Peninsula. The views were spectacular.

Dunedin is an odd place. It began as a sort of Scottish immigrant colony and by the beginning of the 20th Century was a bit of a boom town. This is reflected in its improbable railway station, designed by an architect known as 'Gingerbread George'. Inside there were beautiful old stained glass windows. It even has a decent little sports museum. 

Larnach Castle was a spectacular old house in an incredible setting. The story of the family who built it was rather sad.

Dunedin is a university city so we enjoyed the cheap restaurants and were blessed by beautiful weather. 

Crossing Over - Te Anau to Dunedin

After sleeping soundly in Te Anau we woke to sunny skies and a world transformed. In the night there had been very heavy snow all over the Southern Alps, in January! We walked outside to a brilliant blue lake ringed by snow-capped mountains.

We had a driving day ahead of us. We didn’t have the time to go further south along the scenic route or to Invercargill. We cut straight across the island along the Waipahu Highway through country towns like Gore and Clinton. But EVERY drive is a scenic drive in the South Island and we got to see lots of hills and sheep and coloured mailboxes and road signs.  Lyn became increasingly obsessed by the mailboxes. They were all the same design but came in different colours.

At Balclutha we diverted to the coast to see “the Nuggets” from Nugget Point and stopped at the unfortunately named Kaka Beach on the way.

We walked out to Nugget Point Lighthouse and heard and saw, and definitely smelt, the fur seals way below us.

After a pleasant drive we arrived at Dunedin where we will spend the next two nights.

 

 

Water, water everywhere ...

We were lucky today. The morning dawned grey and grim but the tour guide had been tipped off that the road tunnel into Milford Sound would open later that morning - so we set off. The guided tour seemed a good idea to Lyn because apparently the long road tunnel into Milford Sound is not really scary in a crowded mini-bus but definitely is scary in a car (with me).  Also big boats are ok but small boats are not. (This is what I live with.)

We waited in the traffic lined up at the tunnel entrance. It opened despite some epic overnight rainfall that on the previous day had washed bridges away on the road to Haast Pass. If anything, all that rain made the day even more spectacular. 

We spent the day towered over by mountains which disappeared into clouds. Waterfalls fell thousands of feet into the sea. It was a universe of water. There were seals.

The day trip to Milford Sound is difficult to capture in photographs because they don’t give a proper sense of scale. So look carefully at the picture above and you will see a boat. It is a big boat. You will also notice you cannot see the tops of the mountains.

It was a great day.  

Rainy Day Driving

My plans for Queenstown didn't work out, frustrated again by the weather. We had hoped to go on the cable car to take in the views but it was closed because of the increasing wind and rain. When we tried to explore the town we were caught in a massive traffic jam from which it took us over an hour to escape.

We drove south along the lake shore and then west, in ever worsening weather, to Te Anau. Our day trip to Milford Sound was due to leave from here next morning. 

At our motel we were told that the road into Milford Sound was closed but that there were "fingers crossed" for the next morning. We put on our rain jackets and walked along the lake shore. It was hard to see much but we enjoyed the air after a frustrating day.

The lake at Te Anau with the mountains obscured by cloud.