The Great Escape

  Aug 22 - Menaggio to Bardolino (Lake Garda) One of our more long distance travel days today that seemed even longer due to the lack of A/C on the train 🥵 .  I know it’s a first world problem, and I certainly don’t remember moaning about that when ‘training’ around in India, but maybe I’m just getting old! 😊 On the last leg of our journey, on the bus from Peschiera del Garda to Bardolino, I had a “OMG what have I done” moment.  All along the road are ‘Waterworld’-type theme  parks, imitation castles, ‘eat all you can for €5’-type restaurants, and caravan sites as far as the eye can see. It’s like a Lake Garda Goldcoast and I can see it’s going to be an interesting next 3 days! To be fair to Bardolino when we went out to dinner tonight we realised that here is not like the vision we saw on the way here.  The town here is actually quite old with loads of small laneways and streets, still a bit touristy but not as bad as we thought it was going to be. ...

  Aug 21 - Menaggio (Day trip to Bellagio) Another local ‘Day trip’ today, this time to Bellagio.  Sitting on the tip of the peninsula that ‘divides Lake Como’ this, with Varenna, is another more upmarket town in comparison with Menaggio.  Wandering along the coastline we found ourselves a quiet little beach where JEM had her first ‘dip’ in Italy.  Apparently  the water was “nice and warm” however, considering the lake is fed by water from mountains next door to the Alps, I decided I’d take that comment on trust!   After the swim we then moved on to another beach for lunch with, not surprisingly, more spectacular views but also equally impressive prices! 😩 😆    On our return to Menaggio we went for a wander along the coast to an area we hadn’t been to previously.  A lot nicer than we were expecting we both decided that although Menaggio is a little more ‘downmarket’ than Varenna and Bellagio we’re glad we stayed here and this is a pl...

  Aug 20 - Menaggio (Day trip to Varenna) Not really a ‘Day trip’, ‘cos it’s only a 15 minute ferry ride, but over Lake Como we went and spent the day wandering around Varenna.  To be honest, and as nice as these lakeside towns are, there really isn’t a lot to see and do here.  It’s not a criticism but it’s more like we thought of Maastricht in the Netherlands, a lovely place to go away for a long weekend for food and drink and take in the scenery.  I might be being a bit unfair, friends of ours can go away for a week and do absolutely nothing and have a great time, but 3 or 4 days for us is probably enough (he says bearing in mind that after here we’re off to Lake Garda! Oops! 🤔😆 ) Anyway Varenna IS a nice place and after a wander through town we had a bit of a stroll along the ‘coast’ to Fiumelatte, a much, much smaller, and quieter, version of its northerly neighbour. 

  Aug 19 - Milan to Menaggio (Lake Como) A travel day today to Menaggio, about 75 kms north of Milan and on Lake Como.  It was quite a pleasant journey with train, ferry, and car (we got picked up by our host) and we were all settled in by early afternoon.  Our accommodation, not quite the cottage I was expecting, is up on the hills overlooking Menaggio and is in a great spot for the fantastic views of the mountains and Lake Como below, I think we’re going to like it here.  However, having seen the steepness of the paths leading into town I think that we’ll probably end feeling like mountain goats by the time we leave on Monday! 🥵😅

  Aug 18 - Milan Not a busy day today as it didn’t stop raining, however it was pretty special nevertheless as we went to see ‘The Last Supper’ by Da Vinci.  I’d screwed up originally by leaving it too late to book tickets, however, JEM managed to get some on a “We can charge what we like as you stuffed up and you’re only going to come here once!” website!  That aside it was absolutely worth every penny we paid and I’d do it again in a heartbeat! It was fantastic, and what a surprise, for me anyway, this painting is heaps bigger than I ever imagined. For some reason I thought it was only about 2 or 3 metres across, but it’s nearly 9 across and over 4 metres in height.  Although drastically faded, it’s a painting and not a fresco, our guide talked us through Leonardo’s detail, the handling of space, and his mastery of perspective, it’s just fantastic and a recommendation to anyone coming to Milan (apparently there’s a old copy at the Royal Academy of Art in Lond...

  Aug 17 - Milan We went for a walk into town this morning, the area where the touristy bits are, and I must admit that my opinion of Milan has improved a little.  There are some lovely old impressive buildings around but it’s still a little bit grubby. I know it’s a big city but the city councils need to lift their game a touch and start doing some cleaning.  Our first stop in town was to the Milan Cathedral.  This IS a building that’s having some work done to it and, although mostly covered in scaffolding, it looks pretty spectacular (apparently there are over 3,000 statues on the building!).  Unusual for us and cathedrals but we didn’t actually go in this time. There were four entrances to the building, all with queues, and the longest was about 200 metres long!  Even the ticket office queue was about 100 metres long so we took the decision that the inside can wait for another occasion.  Our next stop was to the nearby Galleria de Vittorio Ema...

  Aug 11-15 - Worthing   We’ve had a nice few relaxing days at home this week while at the same managing to catch up with some friends from Oz (this last activity necessitating the ingestion of large amounts of Panadol! 🤕😆 ).  Aug 16 - Worthing to Milan An early start today for the cab to the airport before finding ourselves sitting on the runway for 2 hours!  For those who know my views on Gatwick, i.e. that you have to queue for absolutely everything related to this place, this would come as no surprise, but the reason for this morning’s delay was the weather, it was raining!  Once in the air though, and over Europe, there was some lovely scenery before our landing in Italy.  Our first sight of Milan, at least for a few years, was Milano Centrale, the railway station. It is enormous!  Not so much for the number of lines and platforms but the building itself. It’s actually shades of a communist era monstrosity but with quite a bit more class to...

  Aug 10 - Guernsey to Worthing   A travel day today as we left Guernsey and head back ‘home’ to Worthing.  It was quite a good flight (even for a prop plane) but British Rail were up to their usual tricks by cancelling/ redirecting trains ‘mid flight’!  Glad we won’t be here for winter! 😆 We’re off to Italy next Tuesday so I suspect we won’t be doing too much over the next few days as we’ll be doing more domestic-type duties. 

  Aug 09 - Guernsey   Off on another coastal walk today, this time to Jerbourg Bay.  About 5kms south of St Peter Port the path here was different from our previous walks as it runs along the top of cliffs and through some beautiful woodlands.  With many stops along the way taking in the great scenery we also spent a fair bit of time ‘blackberrying’ along the way.  Deeeelicious!! 😋 Back into St Peter Port this afternoon for a bit of a meander.  With it’s cobbled streets, castle, and views out to sea of Herm and Sark, this really is a lovely place. There’s also an extensive harbour here and, judging by some of the boats in the harbour, you can understand why Guernsey has a reputation for being ’monied’! 💰😊

  Aug 08 - Guernsey (Day trip to Herm) We went on a bit of a sailing trip today and caught the ferry to Herm, a quiet little island off the east coast of Guernsey.  Owned by Guernsey and, according to the latest census, only has 60 residents. However today, being in the middle of summer and in school holidays, the place could almost have been called busy.  Although quite tiny, the island’s only 6.3 kms in circumference, the scenery is great and it has some fantastic walking paths and so on arrival we took off for a bit of a wander.  On our travels we came across the islands only church, St Tugual’s Chapel.  Built in 1028 the design of the church is quite unusual in that it was designed so that the occupants of the nave, the monks, were not visible to the main congregation.