Rome

Rome: We have been here a few times before, so we really haven’t taken too many pics, but we did the Villa Borghese today, WOW the history and masterpieces of painting and sculpture, especially by the Masters; Bernini & Michelangelo, just breathtaking, and then all the Roman Art, many by unknown artists, magnificent! Pity you can’t take photos. Then most of our time as been in shops…. So just a few pics from our wanderings; tomorrow, we are on our way back home!

Caserta.

Caserta: Reggio di Caserta, or the Residence of Caserta, was the Palace of Ferdinand II. It’s about 45 minutes from Naples, and it is the Italian equivalent of Frances Palace of Versailles. The palace is amazingly grand, imposing, and opulent, honestly I don’t know why they made laces this big, but what a spectacle! Then there are the grounds that are 3.5kms long from the palace to the waterfalls. then a magnificent private garden to one side at the end. We walked nearly 10 kms, there and back and around the gardens. Very weary feet and legs by the end of this, but definitely worth it!

Florence

Florence: After 36 hours of rough seas in the Med, we arrived back in Italy, and from port we took rains to Florence. We had 2 nights here, and while was not to kind for the greater part of our stay, the first afternoon was blue skies, the next day and a half was drizzly rain, off and on, more annoying than anything… This city is truly beautiful, or hotel, was a majestic old hotel from the 1800’s and we really enjoyed it, it’s location was perfect. The food in Florence is great, we found some great little spots, in the narrow cobbled streets that were just so nice, getting an insight to the regional taste of Tuscany. Speaking of which, we got out into the hills of Tuscany, and for one brief window it snowed very lightly, unfortunately, it turned to more rain, so we got no pictures, which was a sad, you just don’t see that countryside anywhere else. There is the best Gelato shop here, called, Coronas, it's always packed, and once you have tasted the Gelato, you understand why! Last 3 days coming up, in Rome.

Mijas, Spain

Mijas, Malaga Spain. About 45 minutes drive out of Malaga, up in the hill country is Mijas. It’s a quaint little village, totally painted white, with cobble- stoned streets, and while not as ancient as I was expecting, it was still a beautiful place. We would have enjoyed it much more has we not be underprepared for how freezing cold it was. It caught us off guard, and we didn’t have anywhere near enough warm gear with us…..I think we had have has so much warm weather it didn’t enter our minds it could be that cold. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time in Malaga, we had an early departure from port, as it’s a day and a half to Rome from here.

Funchal, Portugal

Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.
We hopped on board our coach and toured here for a few hours, on what is a beautiful Island. We went up to the second highest costal cliff face in the world, it has a glass floor walkway out over the water, of which I couldn’t bring myself to walk on, but Sharon did (but I did take pictures hanging over it). I didn’t get to document the trip as much as I would have liked, as our coach window was double glazed, but moisture was trapped between them and it basically whited out our view, and unfortunately it was a full coach, so nowhere else to sit. Still, there were some amazing vistas from many vantage points, high in the mountains all around. The port of Funchal, was a wonderful experience, very classy and relaxed, with great architecture, old and new, a fusion of resort feel and a cosmopolitan heart. The main area of town, was closed off to traffic, and tree lined pedestrian areas, with historic buildings, the place was just buzzing,the pictures don’t do this place justice!

Casablanca, Morocco and Tenerife, Canary Is.

Casablanca,Morocco and Tenerife,Canary Islands: Between days at sea, we had 2 days on land; Casablanca: meaning White house. Well maybe we didn’t get to see the best of Morocco, but Casablanca was a bit of an interesting place. The main streets near the port were nice, but it fell away into filth not far from the main streets. We wandered the maize that is the old Medina, it was an eye opener, it was a good representation of the lifestyle of the population. This led us to the new Mosque Hassan II. They spent 2 billion Euro on this place, (and people go on about churches). It is an imposing structure, and beautiful, but its amazing how they don’t maintain anything in these countries, you can see how it is already starting to age, and needs a lot of minor repair already. Tenerife: A nice surprise this place. We did a tour, which was a good thing, it took us up high in the mountains to La Laguna, the old capital, this is a very beautiful and historic place, in- fact it is a UNESCO world heritage site. Places like Porto Rico / St John’s are heavily influenced by the architecture here. Then off around the spine of the volcanic ridges that make this island what it is, lush and dramatic. The beaches have sand imported from the Sarah desert, so they look nice and golden. Santa Cruz the main city, is massive, over 1 million people. A great day out and about!

Portofino, Barcelona

Portofino, Cruise, Barcelona:
The next morning, I just had to get a sunrise shot, and a walk onto the private beach below, really beautiful. From there it was onto Genova, where we dropped off our rental car, and then make our way to the Cruise terminal. We boarded MSC Davina, and set sail on our 11 day Western Med Cruise. This is a massive ship, 16 decks high, over 3 rugby fields long; mind you the amount of eating you do on board, you need to walk it off.
Our first port, Barcelona, we went to the metro, and went to Parc Guell, where the gifted Gaudi, built the most incredible structures; as quirky as ever! The we went for stroll down “La Rambla”, and went to the markets, that was a great experience as well. We are at sea all day the next day, and will be in Casablanca, Morocco, when we post this.

Lugano, Milan, Portofino

Lugano, Milan, Portofino:
Woke up and had to take a picture of Lake Lugano at sunrise, then breky with Matt, Bethany & Issy, then we hit the road for Milan, to get a keepsake for Rosie Milan Lett !  I don’t know why so many travel sites give Milan a hard time, it really is a nice city centre, very much like Vienna in its layout of tree lines boulevards.  The New Year sales were on, I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but we did get a few things for Rosie. The Vittorio Emanuele II is a imposing structure along with The Duomo in the main square.
We had made a last minute decision to go to Portofino, as in all my previous research, it looked like it was basically closed down for the winter. But I found a hotel on a last minute site, so we drove another 2 hours from Milan to there. Well this was a stroke of genius, what an amazing area, it’s the Italian Rivera, just between, the Cinque Terre and Genova. The hotel, was a blow away deal and a stunning location; we thought there must have been a mistake, but it wasn’t. I would hate to think what this would cost in the peak of Tourist season, probably add another zero!  We walked the winding walkways and through the little lanes in this picture postcard village!

Bergamo & Lugano

Bergamo & Lugano: Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 January.

Bergamo: This is a great city. The old city is perched on the hillside above, and while downtown is good for shopping, the old city was a great few hours of wandering through the ancient streets, sampling fruit flans, Vin Brule (mulled wine), and pizza, in the most amazing place, it was wall to wall people, with the most amazing array of choices of slabs of pizza, it was a great feed.
This place was really buzzing with people and atmosphere, and the buildings, churches and piazza’s were a constant feast for the eyes. Sharon did some street market shopping and got some good finds there.

Lugano: A  short trip across the border into lower Switzerland to catch up with our friends Matt & Bethany and their baby girl Issy. who came down from Zurich to spend some time together with us. Well this place is a stunning lakeside town, very posh, and very beautiful. We have the best view of lake Lugano from our baclony of our room, what a vista! It is balmy weather here today, I’m in a t- shirt at night time in winter in Switzerland ???  And I was hoping for snow!
We have walked the lake during the day and night, it really is tranquil and beautiful. We drove up to Mont Bre’ and got an amazing look at the lake and the snow capped mountains in the distance. All the way up are multi million Euro mansions where the very privileged come to play and relax.
Tomorrow we are off south again heading for Portofino, via Milan.

Modena, Bologna & Parma

Modena, Bologna & Parma. Thursday & Friday, 3&4 January.

Modena: Nice place this, the old town feels old, and peaceful, lots of people on pushbikes here. We went looking for Balsamic Vinegar (the good stuff) and stumbled on a beautiful little produce market there. It’s the home of Balsamic and for the boys, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati .

Bologna: This was a bit of a eventful day, took ages to find the hotel, had to swap rooms at it wasn’t up to scratch, but turned out a good day. This place is known for Bolognese, but actually it is the birthplace of Tortellini, We had both for dinner, they were so yum!  and 2 doors down the best wine bar, what a great experience that was! It is a huge city, very different, a medieval town centre, with massive buildings all with Portico’s ad shopping central, Kilometre’s of them, up the main street into the Central Piazza, then from there and uptown all the Ritzy stores, for blocks and blocks. Serious shopping for the ladies!

Parma: We were here en-route to ‘Antica Corte Pallavicina” for my birthday lunch. This place caught our eye on Master Chef Australia a few months, it was one of the things that prompted us to do the trip. Their signature dish, Guinea Fowl wrapped in Cutello baked in a clay based pastry wrapped around it and baked. Along with all the produce on this place being organic, and a Slow Food ethos, the story of Massimo, the owner and the castle in which it sits is an amazing story, but the experience was a once in a lifetime opportunity. It did not disappoint in any way, it was near perfection….
Then after our 3 hour lunch, we came back and tried to walk off this feast around Parma. This is a very cute old city centre, lots of  amazing structures and churches. Tomorrow, Bergamo.