An early landing on a crisp Sydney morning that hints at the arrival of autumn, a fact that is confirmed as we look out from our balcony at home to see yellowing leaves and already bare trees. How different from the scene one month ago when we left, and a sharp counterpoint to the green leafiness of the northern spring we’ve just experienced during our travels. These signs of growth and decline spark a recollection in me of some lines from Wallace Stevens’ poem “The Comedian as the letter C” …. What was the purpose of his pilgrimage, Whatever shape it [View Full Entry]

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It's ironic that in our previous posts we've talked about the view from our accommodation while here in Florence, the city made famous by “Room with a View”, our current place really doesn't have a view. What we do have however is a big airy room, with tall windows and floods of natural light from a small inner courtyard and a window box filled with jolly red geraniums. And we also have as our hosts a Florentine-Japanese couple - Alessio & Asumi - who combine the besy aspects of charm and grace of both cultures to make this a great place [View Full Entry]

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We have left the coast and Liguria behind and have now entered Tuscany, to spend four days in the lovely little town of Lucca - a BIG thank you to Brendan for alerting us to this gem. It is not a particularly touristy town, and there aren't lots of must-do sights to see, however we are enjoying the opportunity to drop back a couple of gears after Rome and the Cinque Terre to just simply be for a short while. So we find ourselves wandering Lucca's little winding streets which hold surprises, not as grand as those of Rome, but still [View Full Entry]

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Four hours of intercity train travel from Rome - the magnificence and vagaries of the Italian rail system warrant a posting in their own right but I shall desist other than to say that the UN should give up on world peace and direct its energies to making the man and his little refreshment cart with its bicycle bell a mandatory onboard feature of train travel everywhere in the world - and an 8 minute journey on a regionale service from La Spezzia and we step onto the platform of Riomaggiore and are arrested by the sight that greets us. Right [View Full Entry]

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Yes that inevitable time has come for us to unsettle ourselves at Chiavari, pack our bags and leave Rome to head north. So what are our impressions and recollections of the Eternal City at this time? For me, they are best expressed in the Centrale Montemartini “museum” where roman sculptures (the cast offs from the Capitoline museum, but as cast offs go they are pretty amazing) are wonderfully displayed in a 1920's modernist style electricity generation station. Although separated in time by two millenia the two sit very comfortably together, and really do create something that i [View Full Entry]

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The title of this posting is not a direct quote from us (although it does resonate with us, and appropriate given that it is Anzac Day at home) but rather a message that we saw on a blackboard outside a restaurant during our rambles the other day (don't ask me where - it was another of our times of walking with no real objective). And so the subject of this posting - as alluded to in our previous post - is of our food experiences here in Rome. So let's begin - mangare amici. One of our daily rituals and delights [View Full Entry]

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It's the end of our first week in Rome and I'm not sure which I should get to recount our visit so far - my tired feet or my happy heart. Perhaps I should let them both speak. My tired feet would tell you that we have walked high and low over this eminently walkable city, and at this moment are being soothed as we sit down to a meal that we have prepared at home this evening, made entirely from ingredients purchased at the markets in Campo di Fiori just five minutes walk away. It is a dish of our [View Full Entry]

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Well we made it - and all rather painlessly, or should I say smoothly, as those long plane flights are bits of killers even if the travel is uneventful - and are now settled into Via dei Chiavari. And the apartment is wonderful, everything we had hoped for and more. And as I compose this posting the view I have is exactly the one in the photo, and so here is a bit of vicarious Rome for you, although you won't get the sounds of the church bells chiming and so you will need to imagine that for yourself. As the [View Full Entry]

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It's Easter Sunday and we are moving toward tomorrow morning's departure for Rome when there will be only 36 hours of delightful :-[ air travel between our familiar cityscape outlook and a whole new view in the Eternal City. Probably somewhere between Hong Kong and Zurich the only thing that will feel eternal is the plane flight. Ahh the tyranny of distance so familiar to many travelling Australians, although on the upside it is always a great rationale for staying at the trip's destination for as long as possible. Or at least this is the excuse that we use. At the [View Full Entry]

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And so we begin a holiday that was not just planned from when we arrived home from our last long trip 2 years ago (Spain / Portugal / England in 2007) which is our usual practice - return home from one trip with the next one already being planned - but was hatched out of our journey to Barcelona and Paris 4 years ago. While Dianne was enamoured with Paris I always felt overwhelmed both by its scale and its prettiness - Haussmann did a great job knocking down all the old stuff and replacing it with new at about the [View Full Entry]

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