Author archive
26 August 2016
We had it in our plan to visit Florence today and there was no reason to change that plan. It was an hour drive to get there and we managed to park about 10 minutes walk from Piazza Duomo. The crowds were pretty horrendous. It isn’t something we face very often as we travel to some […]
25 August 2016
The drive from Bologna to our next nightstop is only 2h but we took a bit of detour. We left the hotel around 1100 and drove to the small town of Badicorte, east of Siena (both further than our accommodation). Our friends Riccardo had asked us to drop in at his friend Marina’s restaurant (and […]
24 August 2016
We woke up to messages enquiring on our safety, as there had been an earthquake in central Italy. We wouldn’t have known otherwise until seeing the TV at the hotel breakfast. We left the hotel around 1000 for a 40 min drive to Ferrari’s other museum in Modena (rather than Maranello). Again, I sat outside […]
23 August 2016
Our waking times have been creeping towards more decent times (sevenish rather than sixish). With very little urgency to do things, we made it down to breakfast around 0930. It was a little rushed as the buffet finishes at 1000. We saw a table with a shocking mess on it, a fair amount of unconsumed […]
22 August 2016
We checked out from our guesthouse and drove down to Bologna today. The drive through very narrow and remote roads weren’t as worrying today as we didn’t have the same concerns of being led astray by Google Maps. It was a 3h plus journey non-stop but we stopped in Parma for a walk around the […]
21 August 2016
Italians aren’t big on breakfast; usually just coffee and maybe a pastry at most. So we were pleasantly surprised by the relatively big breakfast at our guesthouse consisting of packaged toast, egg and some pastries. Our Nepali hostess had suggested that we take the bus 0915 down to Vernaza and then the boat to explore […]
20 August 2016
It was great to have a hotel next to the train station that goes straight to the airport. The train goes every 20 minutes and I just missed that one at 0600. I got to the airport in plenty of time still to use the lounge after going through Copenhagen’s user-friendly security checkpoint. I found […]
19 August 2016
I walked to the train station and took the train to Helsinki airport. There was no queue at check-in. The kiosk wouldn’t through-check me or my bags to Milan probably because I had 20 hours in Copenhagen. However, I asked at the counter and that was done easily for me, leaving me a little lighter […]
18 August 2016
Today was my day for mushroom picking with my old friend from Yemen days, Sami. The weather was wet. Sami wasn’t free till early afternoon as he had doctor’s appointment. When the rain eased I wandered out back to Market Square and visited Market Hall which I had missed yesterday. It wasn’t a true market […]
17 August 2016
I had tried to change my 1200 ferry to 1000 so I’d have a little extra time in Helsinki. As I had bought a very good promotional fare, the fare difference to pay on changing it was too huge so I left it. I walked to the ferry terminal about 1030. I didn’t want to […]