Blogging on the train seems like an ok idea. Although microblogging with something like Twitter would probably be more appropriate. Anyways, because the network is so up and down, using the WordPress app is more convenient – it let’s you write local drafts and publish them later. Cool!
In the days before the plebs could read, those in power communicated their ideas in pictures. Here in the Duomo of Florence is such an example. Near the top are those who are in heaven. At the bottom are those in hell – if you look to the lower right you’ll see a couple of unlucky souls being sodomised by what appears to be some kind of burning shaft.
This must have a shocking effect on children or the uneducated. Being brought up to actually believe this would be terrifying.
I think it was Francis of Assisi ( I’ll have to check ) that said one of the pleasures of heaven was that you get to watch those in hell. Religion really brings out the best in humanity.
Had one of, if not the, best steak ever, at an Argentinian restaurant “Baires“. It was 300 grams of Argentinian Angus and came on a plate with 2 strips of carrot. Check it:
Thanks to Tom for the recommendation.
Driving a car around Italy has probably been more trouble than it’s worth. Once you get into the swing of driving in Italy it all becomes easier. We’ve seen plenty of funny sights. This one time, in Pisa, we were in a single lane road which had to give way and merge into another single lane road. The car directly behind us followed us as we merged into this other road. A car on the main road decided he didn’t want to let the other car in. They proceeded to drive next to each other refusing to admit the other in front. As our road merged with oncoming traffic, one car was forced to drive half in oncoming traffic, whilst the other had two wheels in the gravel. They each tried to get in front of the other – at one point the car half in oncoming traffic tried getting around us and had to break, and merge back into the single lane with the other car. When he finally got past us, the remaining car decided he had to over take the original car and sprinted off overtaking at speed.Italy has some of the greatest tunnels and bridges I’ve driven through. We often think our tunnels in Australia are massive engineering feats, but we must have driven through 20 – 30 tunnels between Pisa and Santa Margherita Ligure ranging in length from 100 meters ( like a bridge with a mountain on top ) to +2000 meters in length, with driving speeds up to 130km/h. They often popped out of mountains directly onto bridges across massive ravines, only to dive back into a mountain tunnel. Pretty cool. Trucks are always required to drive at 100km/h on the motorways, are are not allowed to overtake within tunnels. Pretty sensible and straightforward.We did a day trip from Santa Margherita Ligure to Cinque Terre and walked from the southern most town Riomaggiore to Vernazza. It took about 3 hours.
It’s a great place to visit. Anyways, time to get off the internet. Ciao!
Florence is such a great place. Clean, well maintained and beautiful with plenty of places to eat and drink. We were just thinking what a wonderful place it was when the waiter we’d asked to take a photo of us dropped our little camera on the slate floor. The lens looked to be on a weird angle. The photo looked like this:
It wasn’t able to focus anymore. Turning it off and on just gave a message along the lines of “Lens error – please restart camera.”. This really put us in a foul mood. When we got back to the hotel and called the insurance company, they said we should buy a new camera, and they’ll reimburse us the value of the old one provided we’ve got a receipt for the old camera. Problem is, this camera is already an insurance provided camera we got for loosing the previous one. Sitting around wondering what to do I tried popping the lens back into place one more time. The amount of force required is really substantial. It didn’t pop back into place, it cracked back into place. Seems to work fine, albeit with a bit of crunching and whiring as it moves in and out.
Takes quite good night photos:
The hotel we stayed at in Florence was excellent. Right in the center, friendly and not too pricy ( as we’ve come to discover ).
Next stop is Santa Margherita Ligure – just past Cinque Terre where we stayed at Hotel Mediterraneo.
Here’s a photo of our little apartment, €80 per night, no AC. The fan works well tho, and it’s quite ok, if a little warm.
We’re in Rome. It’s hot!
Despite the swealtering heat we took the walking tour of Roman monuments this afternoon, which was great.
It’s too frecking hot to write anything else.
29 hours in a tin can is’t that bad in the scheme of things. 29 hours in a tin can, 10km up, travelling at ~850 km/h for 12 hours. And we’re complaining about the food. The extraordinary becomes mundane. Continue Reading »
Well, after leaving our Honda Accord parked in the street with an enormous dint in the back for over 3 months, it’s finally been sold. Procrastination, thy name is Dkam. Before this year, I’d never bought or sold a car – the most expensive thing I’d purchased prior to our Golf was my laptop. So I dilly-dallied about – when I finally got around to surfing to VicRoads, it was all massively simple. You’ve got two choices:
Pretty straight forward really. We went with option two, so I had to take the number plates off. When / if I return them to Vic Roads I’ll get my Rego fee back pro-rata – 10%. The guy picked the car up on Saturday, the Rego expired Sunday. I’m going with “Perfect Timing”.
Last night we celebrated Cass & Andy’s wedding. It went off like a frog in a sock. Cass looked beautiful, Andy looked dashing and they were both suitably nervous. We’ve uploaded our photos here.