We left on Wednesday 5 June and returned Sunday 7 July.
The trip was divided into 5 sections.
1.
London for a week staying with Vivienne's sister's family
2.
Barcelona for 4 days
3.
Cruise Barcelona to Rome
4.
Rome for 4 days.
5.
Cruise around Malta and Sicily.
London
We arrived to be told the weather had been beautiful for the
past two weeks.
For us it rained every day;
it was cold and bleak; you begin to understand how the UK produced so many
great novelists and poets.
On the other
hand it was a good time to catch up with old friends.
I supplied the alcohol at two lunches at clubs
where I had reciprocal rights via my membership of the Union, University &
Schools Club (UUSC).
On Friday we had
lunch with old Cambridge friends and their wives at the Oxford & Cambridge
Club.
On Tuesday I caught up with old
London Business School friends at the East India Club.
Both events were most enjoyable.
We also had meals at Le Vacherin and Annies in
Chiswick and Daylesford in Westbourne Grove.
All this eating was great training for the next four weeks.
After we left London had a heatwave.
Barcelona
Mercifully after London the weather was sunny and warm.
It had been at least 17 years since we were
last in Barcelona and I had forgotten how attractive a city it is.
We stayed at the Circulo Ecuestre another
reciprocal club with the UUSC.
It is
conveniently located on the corner of Balmes and Diagonal on the edge of the Eixample
neighbourhood of Barcelona, home to many of the iconic Modernista
buildings.
The first day we spend wandering that area and
finished up with a terrific dinner in the Rambla de Catalyunya in the street
café associated with the Hotel Murmuri.
The second day we caught the metro down to the Barri Gothic, visited the
cathedral and wandered around the old town and had lunch at the Plaza Reial
finishing the afternoon with a stroll down the Ramblas.
In the evening we had dinner at Cheri another great
restaurant just around the corner from the club.
On the final day we did a Barcelona Architect tour which was
great.
Rafeal was our guide and provided
a terrific explanation of what drove Gaudi and the other Modernista
architects.
In the afternoon we took a
taxi to the Barcelona Cruise terminal (the largest in the Med) and caught our
ship to Rome.
The only problems we faced in Barcelona was on the last
evening when yours truly slipped off a kerb while fetching Vivienne some
breakfast pastries from a gluten-free bakery we found.
I managed to avoid a face plant, landed
heavily on my right shoulder and causing it to freeze up.
Cruise Barcelona to Rome.
This was a 7-day trip aboard the Oceania Riviera.
This was our third trip on Oceania boats
which we like because they are small.
The Riviera has 1,200 passengers compared for example to Oasis of the
Seas with over 6,500.
We visited 7
ports:
Palma:
The ultimate
Spanish tourist trip.
A simple tour of
the city centre including the cathedral and free time on the souvenir shopping
strip.
This was followed by a 30 minute
coach trip out of Palma to tapas and a flamenco show which sounds terrible but
was actually not that bad.
I finally
felt like a tourist.
Marseille:
We gave
Marseille a miss.
Instead we headed into
the Luberon of Provence where we had a terrific wine tasting and garden lunch
at the Chateau Val Joanis.
Then in the
afternoon we visited Aix en Provence, surely one of the most stunning towns in
France.
Monaco: Another long but interesting day.
We started by visiting Eze, a hill top down
which requires a 30 minute uphill climb via stairs to reach the village.
Great to do once but never again.
Then we went to Nice visiting the old
town.
We had been to Nice before and
were unimpressed but we never had reached to old town on the port which was
actually quite impressive with a lively market and café scene.
Our final visit was to Monaco which was a
complete change of scene.
Very elegant
but overbuilt.
They made so much money
from the casino the government abolished income tax.
The city is much smaller than you think and
is a warren of tunnels.
The car parks
are filled with Mercedes and Lamborghinis.
Every second store seems to be a shop selling Monaco Gran Prix
souvenirs.
We tried to buy a drink in
the casino but failed to get the single waiter’s attention after 45 minutes.
Even so our day based in Monaco cost me $992.
Not through gambling or living the high
life.
I had put Vivienne and my mobile on Telstra’s
$10/day international pass.
Unfortunately,
since I have returned I discover it does not apply to Monaco.
Antibes:
On the tour
we visited the Picasso museum and an absinthe shop.
We then spent time wandering around the old
town and the market.
Antibes is a very
attractive port and certainly well worth a return visit.
Ajaccio:
The major
city of Corsica and you would never guess it except for numerous statues,
squares and streets named after him the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.
He left Corsica when he was teenager to go to
military school and only returned for 3 days afterwards.
Totally understandable.
Livorno/Lucca: This is the gateway to Tuscany which we have
visited/stayed on numerous occasions.
Various tours were offered to Florence, Sienna, etc. but we chose Lucca
being the shortest coach trip by several hours.
We had been to Lucca before but it is a beautiful city and well worth
revisiting.
The Via Fillungo is a great
shopping street and the Roman Amphitheatre is an excellent place for a beer and
people watching.
Civitavecchia:
This
is the port for Rome.
The cruise company
could organise a car to our hotel for US$449.
There were some taxis but they refused to take us to the train station.
Instead we took a free bus shuttle to the
edge of the port, planning to catch a taxi to the train station.
At the edge of the port the free market was
action with a whole host of travel touts.
We ended up catching an 8 seater minivan owned by a Russian entrepreneur
direct to our hotel for 70 euros (US$80).
Capitalism is a wonderful system when it is allowed to operate.
Finally the Spa on the cruise boat organised a series of
lectures.
I noticed one of them was
acupuncture and frozen shoulders.
Trained at Cambridge in the Natural Sciences I was totally cynical but
decided to give the Indian doctor proposing the treatment a go.
Not only did he insert the needles but he
subsequently attached the needles to electrodes and gave my shoulder
electro-stimulation.
I had 4 treatments
which cost me US$600.
There was some
partial relief.
The doctor said it would
take a month to work.
Rome
We arrived at the Hotel Quirinale Sunday morning 23 June.
I had chosen this hotel because earlier in
the year we saw the opera
A Turk in Italy at the Sydney Opera House and
in one of the chorus scenes a newspaper was unfurled with a full-page advert
for the hotel.
It was conveniently
located in Via Nationale next to the A line metro station, Republica.
Unfortunately, we subsequently discovered the
station was closed.
This was after we
had purchased a 3-day travel pass.
Too early to go to our room we walked to the Spanish steps
and had lunch at a great restaurant, Alla Rampa in the Piazza Mignanelli.
Beautiful parma ham and melon and beautiful
women.
The highlight was when a
Lamboughini pulled up, emitted several roars and the out stepped a stunner with
an advertising exec complete with pony tail.
The next morning we caught the bus and went to the quirkiest
sight in Rome. Hidden in the Palazzo (or Galleria) Spada is the Borromini
Perspective. It looks like an imposing colonnade about 37 metres long that
opens off the courtyard. In fact, the gallery is less than nine metres long and
the ‘life-sized’ statue at the far end is just 60cm high. The
forced-perspective illusion was created by Borromini in 1653 with a rising
floor, descending ceiling and reducing columns to prove Cardinal Spada’s view
of “the misleading image of the world”. To maintain the illusion, you aren’t
permitted to enter the colonnade.
The
Spada has a 4-room museum which is the right size.
We had a pleasant lunch followed by a nice
stroll around the area and caught the bus back to the hotel.
The next day we had a tour booked around the Vatican Museums
at 10am.
I had planned to go there by
underground walking to Termini station and catching the A line.
When we got to Termini we discovered the A
line was shut.
There was also a bus
strike and the taxi line outside Termini was over 400 people long.
Fortunately, we looked like tourists; we
walked back towards our hotel and got luxury hotel next door to call a taxi
that got us to the museum at 9:55am along with 30,000 other tourists.
After visiting a number of sub-galleries we
finally made it to the Sistine Chapel realising that we had seen it with our
daughters some 30 years ago.
As the
public transport system was collapsing we managed to snag a taxi back to the
Restaurant Alla Rampa.
In the evening we
had a very pleasant meal at the Ambrosia roof-top restaurant in the Hotel
Artemedi.
The following day we visited two sights nearby our hotel (I
was somewhat off the Rome public transport system) the Baths of Diocletian and
the Roman Museum near Termini.
That
evening we went to the Baths of Caracalla to see the Tokyo Ballet give an
outdoor performance.
The setting was
spectacular and I booked us in the front row sets.
The only other event of note is that one of my old crowns
fell out over breakfast so now I was toothless, with a partially frozen right
shoulder, some 20 kilos lighter with limited saliva and taste buds.
Food and wine cruise tour of Sicily
I had booked this tour before being detected with cancer
late last year.
Given the state of my
taste buds and saliva glands plus Vivienne being a coeliac I decided to book us
on all the architecture tours.
Valleta: Our first night was spent at the luxury hotel
Excelsior which was very pleasant.
The
next day we did a tour of Valletta which is quite an attractive town.
We finally boarded La Bougainville at 4pm,
meeting the Captain who had the film start looks.
The boat was only launched in April and was in
terrific nick as you would expect having only done 11 cruises.
Porto Empedocle: We were travelling in a clockwise direction
around Sicily and this was our first port of call.
We completely by passed the port, instead
visiting the Valley of the Temples which were quite impressive especially the
Temple of Concordia.
Actually Valley is
a misnomer it should have been ridge.
After spending 3 hours walking across the ridge we went to the local
museum in Agrigento.
This was the
pattern for the rest of the trip.
Out on
tour in the morning, back in time for a light lunch as the heat built up, swim
in the afternoon and read Donna Leon’s latest novel, nap and dress up for
dinner.
Trapani: Today we went to ancient Segesta where we saw the
theatre and the temple that was not a temple.
It was never finished so it never became a consecrated temple so when
the Christians took over the town they did not destroy or build a church on top
of it.
Palermo: We spent two days here.
It is a gritty city, reminiscent of Naples.
We saw two spectacular churches with really
terrific mosaics.
The first was the
Palantine Chapel of the Palazzo Reale, commissioned by King Roger II of the
Normans in 1132.
The second was the
Cathedral on Monreale located some 20 minutes outside of town.
Our guide told us a joke.
“The Italians drive on the right, the English
drive on the left, the Sicilians drive in the shade.”
The second day we spend walking the town and having lunch in
the Bisso Bistrot.
I tried to stimulate
the economy by buying some shoes but failed.
Taormina: Certainly the highlight of the trip to
Sicily.
This is a stunning town built
high a ridge clinging to Mount Tauro, overlooking the Bay of Naxos and Mount Etna.
The drive to the town was unbelievable
bringing back memories of the Amalfi coast.
The town has great shopping and a number of spectacular buildings and
sights including a Greek theatre still in use.
And I bought two pairs of shoes.
Syracuse:
Cicero
described it as the most beautiful city in the world.
I beg to differ.
We spent the morning on Ortygia, a small
island that was the original centre of Syracuse.
The cathedral located in the stunning Piazza
del Duomo is an interesting combination of Greek temple, Byzantine Church, with
a Baroque façade.
We also saw the
Cavaggio painting in the Church of Santa Lucia.
Archimedes was born here.
Summing up:
A good 5 weeks and now I need a holiday.
I am still cynical about acupuncture.
I tried to gain weight but lost some more.
I have now lost 22.6 kilos.
Donna Leon has jumped the shark and lost it in her latest
novel.
Don’t go to England while we are there.
Our next trip to the UK will be around 26 September
2020.
Switch off your mobile if you are in Monaco.
Chris Golis
Australia's expert on practical emotional intelligence
website: www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgolis
Email: cgolis@emotionalintelligencecourse.com
mobile: +61-418-222219
