~ burano (as a cure for winter blues) ~

Today was grey again - its been 50 shades of freezing cold, sleety grey all week. 

This afternoon we attended a wake to celebrate the life of a colleague who died suddenly last week - a vibrant, active, healthy, intelligent lady who died far too young.

The stories of war-time atrocities, of terrorism, of disease and famine are everywhere I turn.

My head is fuzzy - full of winter cold and tiredness. 

Colours - a whole rainbow in fact - in the form of photos from Burano has been my antidote to the enveloping greyness.

Burano is a 30 minute vaporetto ride across the lagoon in Venice. 
An island famous for lace making. And rainbow-hued fishermen's houses.
The variety of paint colours is said to be so the fishermen could easily identify their own houses as they returned home.  Apparently the colours are allocated by the government so that no neighbours share colours. 
I love their commitment to their rainbow houses.  To the choice of whimsy and joy.

Surely we all need a little more joy in our lives.

Canary yellow, kermit green, lipstick pink....which would you choose?

~ Roma ~

It was thundery, hot and humid in Rome - very Latin weather if you like.

Rome never changes - its crazy beautiful.  

Loud, fast and furious.

Majestic even amongst the filth, crumbling buildings and revolting smells.

The traffic is insane ... the numbers of tourists even more so.

As we approach the tail-end of our grand adventure its becoming harder to walk the fine line of educative touristing and trying too hard.  Here we skipped the queue (because we could) at the Vatican and marvelled at the room of maps more so than the Sistine chapel (because you could hardly breathe in there) and we left St Peter's for next time (because the queues were over 2 hours long...and you do need a reason to come back).

We wandered and soaked up the essence of Roma.  We sat in the piazzas and crowd watched as we slurped our gelati.  We drank espresso and campari and ate fabulous pizza. 

We will be back

~ cinque terre ~

Eighteen years ago we fell in love with Italy.

We'd worked for a year in the UK and were flush with pounds and seeking some sunshine and fun.  We had 6 weeks in spring time - travelling by train, exploring with no set plans - and yet we didn't make it south of Rome.

We learnt to drink espresso standing up, to defy the crazy traffic, to use our rudimentary Italian with a smile.  We ate better than we'd ever done before - the gelati, the pizza, the risotto, the pasta  -  and we vowed never to try limoncello ever again.

So when we were planning this trip Italy was a must - and the Cinque Terre was near the top of the list.

Last time we walked between the 5 towns in a single day.  Admittedly the coastal track was still in place (it was washed away in several places by the devastating floods of 2011) but I remember it being a big day with several hard climbs (and several stops for refreshment).

This time we based ourselves in Monterosso for 4 days.  We did 3 sections of the walk over 2 days and had 2 quiet days on the beach and exporing the little towns.

     Riomaggiore --> Manarolo (in the past an easy, flat 850m stroll - now a very steep climb along a path built for goats through tiny farms and vineyards).  About an hour

     Corniglia --> Vernazza  An hour and a half

     Monterosso -->Vernazza An hour and a half

The last section is the only one officially open at the moment - we were charged to enter the National Park here (less than 20 Euro for the family) and there were heaps more people on a very clearly marked track. All 3 sections were spectacular but did require gelati bribes at the next town to help the little legs up the steep bits (and they're very steep - these are not walks for the faint-hearted or the off-balance).

We fell in love all over again.

It won't be so long before we're back next time.

~ some French blues ~

I like France better than Spain.

Mainly because it's prettier (which is an incredibly shallow reason for choosing one country over another but there you go).

There are some other reasons;

     I love the hearing the French speak french (I can even understand a little bit)

     The food is to die for (that bread, the cheeses, citron tart...)

     I can operate the postal system - ie I can find an open post office, purchase stamps and post items

     They keep more civilised hours ( we can put the children to bed earlier)

     We've had better weather here and everyone knows the index for liking a country is weighted towards those countries with a higher blue sky incidence

     Ummm....Paris

We've been driving without purpose for much of this week

Stopping next to fields with white horses, interesting signs, pretty wheat or towns with great names

The weather has been kind and the adventuring is good.  

~ lately ~

It wasn't an auspicious start to our week in San Sebastián - the GPS took us the wrong way down a one way street and then had us parking in a pedestrian mall outside our apartment!

Fortunately it's improved since then. 

We've lapsed into Spanish time (thanks to shutters that block out ALL the morning light...and the fact that nothing opens for dinner until after 8.30pm and so even the kids are up until after 10 every night. And they're not alone...the streets are full of people promenading, wandering, gelati searching...) and have settled nicely into San Sebastián where there really isn't much to do beyond enjoying the beach, the walking, the good and the icecream. 

We're still finding our rhythm to this holiday/adventure. I am fighting the tendency to mild anxiety if we're not doing SOMETHING cultural or specifically Spanish (...or French/Finnish .. depending), the children are slowly adapting to a life without routines and we're working on their ability to wander without purpose (In other words the endless refrains of Where are we going? When will we get there? What are we going next? are s.l.o.w.ly diminishing). The Doc is just revelling...in being with us, being in the moment, not being at work...really just what this was all about. 

We wander, we wonder, we observe the new, the different, the down right odd and we learn. 

About other countries. Other lives.  Ourselves. 

(Photos La Concha beach and the carousel on the waterfront, playing with shapes, Hondarribia, Getaria, our local grocer, wall wanderings, laneways in the old town, tulips at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, wandering feet)