Last year we headed to the Henley show. It was our favourite show of the year. For me this was because they have a giant vegetable competition! Again I was keen to checkout the large marrow, pumpkin and carrots. I wasn’t disappointed!
The chickens were also interesting, especially the one that was about twice the size of Kate’s head! (he was after all “Buff”)
Plenty more photos here
We recently made a trip down the Portsmouth to visit the historic dockyards. The absolute highlight for me was the ruins of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose – Henry VIII’s favourite ship – or so they say. The Mary Rose was sunk just out of the harbour of Portsmouth in 1545. In the 1970′s it was found, and in 1982 it was raised. They have been impregnating it with a synthetic polymer to stabilise the timber against decay, so you can view it in it’s “shower” of preserving fluids. It is amazing to think that you are looking at a ship that is almost 500 years old. Another bonus was that when it sunk, it was covered in silt and preserved. So many objects were recovered along with the ship. Even some of the cannons, dated from their manufacture at around 1535.
These cannons were all individually cast, which meant no two were the same. That provided the problem of different size cannon balls.
Other ships that were at the historic dockyard included the HMS Victory (Lord Nelson’s ship and the oldest commissioned ship). There were also a fair contingent of the British Navy as Portsmouth is the main base for the Navy. We were lucky to see all three of their air craft carriers.
We ended our sightseeing day with fish and chips on the beach.
The rest of the photos are here
While we were in the Peaks District, we did a cycle from Asbourne up to Hume End then back again. It was a 58.1 km ride which was supposed to take about 3-4 hours. Given that we didn’t leave until just before midday, we thought we’d be back in time for dinner. We were, of course, wrong. About as far from home as possible, Roger’s chain broke. Luckily, he, I and a rock from a dry stone wall managed to fix it. The downside was we were then coming home in the darker part of the evening. The upside was our attempt at bike maintenance on the go seemed to work, Roger’s chain survived the trip home.
The scenery on the trip was amazing. We were following a rail trail, that is a bike path made on top of a former rail line, which gave us a traffic free route.
Some highlights: the tunnels, a cave and some scenery
Some photos here
After our day of cycling, we took the next couple of days for some sightseeing around Buxton (the home of Buxton Water) and Bakewell (the home of Bakewell tart).
“Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes”
Ok, It’s not my work – don’t worry – it’s a nursery rhyme (do you remember it?). We headed to Banbury today to see the cross amongst other things. It’s quite neat, although it’s Victorian (me thinks that’s not that old these days). Anyway, Banbury is about 20 mins north of us on the train, so we took our bikes on the train and headed up there for the afternoon. One of the highlights wasn’t the cross though, it was that the Oxford canal runs right though Banbury so you can sit and watch the boats go through the locks! Banbury also played an important role in the Civil war, Charles I spent a bit of time fighting the parliamentarians here in 1644.
Anyway, this is Banbury Cross
More photos here
Finally we’ve done the three most touristy things in York. York is only slightly smaller than Oxford, but it seems to suffer from tourists more than Oxford, I’m not sure why. What I hear you ask is “suffering” from tourists. Picture this, a lovely foot path full of people looking up, down, left, right – in fact people looking in every direction except where they are walking. Then you bump into them. If they are English tourists, they apologise “sorry”, “sorry about that”, “Oh, I’m sorry”. English people apologise for everything – believe me! BUT if they are French, Spanish, American (and yes Australian) they just seem surprised that you walked into them when it’s obvious they can’t see you while they are looking up, left etc etc. Oh and to add to this, they tend to walk onto the roads. Unannounced. They appear surprised when you almost knock them to the ground when you whizz by on your bike.
Anyway, enough ranting. York = tourists. But it’s still a lovely place. OK, the three must see things in York in a particular order…
1. The city walls. York was a walled city, and most of the city walls and gate houses still exist. They are lovely to walk around
2. York’s Minster. England’s largest church. And large it is. This time I went to the top, next time I’ll go to the bottom. I also saw the middle. Kate took the opportunity to go shopping while I went around this Church…
3. The National Rail Museum. Yes several large buildings full of trains and carriages. This place was super amazing. I expected a few trains, and a lot of little stuff. I was really wrong, it was FULL of many trains from some of the earliest some very recent trains.
Beauties like…
Finally we went for a drive with Roger and Danielle to Bempton Cliffs. The cliff home to many sea birds including Puffins! We saw several puffins flying out and about and one sitting in the cliffs. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to get any snaps, but you can see that Kate found one puffin that didn’t move too quickly.
The easy to find puffin
I’ve taken a few more photos, feel free to check them out HERE.
A couple of our day trips provided some intersting sights… the highlights as follows…
The bones of St Nicholas in the Cathedral in Trani. St Nicholas (Santa Clause) was thought to be a fool, but eventually I guess they realised that he wasn’t a bad chap. So, bones in box. Lovely!
A Knights’ Templa Church in Trani. Trani was one of several places used as a staging point for the Crusades – hence Kights needed somewhere to, reflect I guess…
Barletta was also lovely, here’s a 3 wheel “ute”
And the local turtles were doing an ancient ritual known as “a turtle stack”
From Ruvo we made a trip further south into the heel of the boot that is Italy. Lecce has a wonderful historic centre within medieval walls. We holed up an a BnB and tripped around some of the Roman ruins of Lecce as well as checking out the amazing Baroque arcitecture that Lecce is famous for for example Santa Croce’s Basilica
More photos of Lecce start here.
Some things in Lecce were closed to visitors because on the weekend after we were here, the G8 summit was being held in the Castle.
I did, however, enjoy (as I do) the many Roman ruins. This place was littered with them like this one right in the town square
We also tripped down to Gallipoli, a lovely sea-side town right down the south. We did some swimming here as it was getting hot. BUT there was some time to checkout the local church. The interior of the Church was full of lovely oil paintings. The beach was also lovely with water so clear you could see your feet!
After three days down here, we headed back up to Ruvo. On the way back, we stopped into an enormous cave system, the Castlellana Grotte. It was about a 3 hour walk down into this system of caves formed in limestone. Absolutely amazing. The tour guide was also amazing. How one person could have three accents on top of her english had me bluffed. I’m not sure how her geological knowledge was though, she spent the entire tour pointing out various rock formations that look like things… everything from a rabbit to the Madonna and child. By the end, I think I was seeing animals, food and inate objects in every rock formation! It was an impressive, deep and varied system.
Upon our return to Ruvo, we did one more day trip to Molfetta, another staging point for the crusades. Given the temperature, we again hit the beach. But there was a lovely port…
So that ended our two weeks in Italy. Naomi and D saw us off at the tain station, which in true Italian style was pretty much marble wall to wall…
The complete photo set from Italy can be found here
It’s good to be home, but I will miss the pizza…
A.k.a. “the bus from hell”
Following the wedding that D+N were here for, we all headed south. Italy is about 1000 km from North to South, we were heading almost to the very South some 800 km. We were told by the husband of one of Naomi’s cousins that the bus was the way to do it. The bus was supposed to be cheap (which it was), quick (which it sort of was- 11 hours) and finally the bus was supposed to be comfortable. The bus was not comfortable. Being an over night service was probably a contributor to the lack of comfort. On the trip we did see why so much marble is used by Italians, we saw entire paddocks full of 1.5 x 1.5 x 3 meter blocks of raw marble in many colours…
Upon arrival at our change over destination of Bari, we jumped a metro train to arrive bleary eyed at Ruvo.
Ruvo was to be our base for the next few days. It’s a lovely small town where a lot of Naomi’s relatives live. Of an evening the town commes alive in the most bizzare way. Young and old the inhabinants flock to one of the larger streets to promenade. Yes they walk up and down this particular street talking and walking. When they get to the end of this street they turn around and go back. It’s an amazing sight, it so social and friendly. Kate and I have sat and watched this practice a few times now, it is just amazing and also so nice.
Thursday we headed to the world heritage region of chinque terra. It’s an amazing mountain-ocean area where steep hills meet the Mediterranean sea. The land is terraced and the resulting flat land is farmed. It is thought that if the land wasn’t farmed it would slip into the sea. That would be a pity… They grow a lot of grapes for wine!
We trained it between the 5 main villages to see what each had to offer. Each village was different but they all had spectacular views up into the surrounding hills and down into the Med. Due to the heat we also managed a swim. Swimming in June in the UK would require a 4mm wetsuit…
One problem i have as a tourist in places like this is every time you turn around i take another photo… Even if i’m standing in the same spot! Some of my many hundred photos can be found here (starting at Chinque Terre).
While D+N did the family thing, Kate and I were left to our own devices. We wandered around Genoa using all means of transport – even the underground. It seems that the underground is a secret. I’m not sure if it’s under used because there is only one line, or because it doesn’t cover much ground. Either way, it is amazingly clean, frequent and newish. We found the aquarium, re-visited the mountain cable car and hit our first Italian museum. The museum was interesting, in the “more staff than visitors” way. The content was nice enough, lots of Jesus paintings and marble carvings, but given the abundance of staff, we were followed around like a novelty. Maybe they don’t get many visitors…
To finish off our day we did a bit ofshopping. The main purchase was some anti-histamines for kate’s cat allergy. Lucky the pharmist spoke the international language of medication so kate asking for something for
“meow, meow – achoo, achoo”
Got us what we wanted….