Jet lag's a bitch

back home..awake too!

Random thoughts: 

***Rome was a bit of a trial…

• I was really tired and nearly fell asleep while on the open top tour bus…actually, unless they missed out a part of the tour I think I DID fall asleep since I didn’t get to see what is described as the most famous fountain in the world……!
• Sadly the Lazzaretti bike shop was a disappointment…I keep forgetting that in general European  and UK bike shops are very small and don’t have much on display to gaze at..we’re lucky in Aus, not only do we have easily found bike shops in many suburbs, but they also have heaps of stock/things to look at  and make browsing worthwhile. 
• Memo to self ….if you’re going to claim a return of VAT from goods bought in Europe…don’t fly out from Rome.  Here you have to do the following….put tax free stuff in checked in baggage, go and get it checked in, go to customs with checked in baggage, passport and boarding pass, wait in queue for up to an hour, get paper stamped, put luggage on special location, go to a special gate once through security to wait in another queue to get cash refund or a different one again for a credit card refund.  Had I known it was going to be soooo slow I’d not have bothered, but when I went to check  out what to do there was no queue at all.  Still an'all...I got 32 euros back. 
• On the positive side..... unlike  in Florence, either people living in the part of Rome I was walking in don't have dogs  or the dog owners clear up after the dogs 'cos the pavements were really clean.

***The flight was bearable..

• The leg from Dubai wasn't direct, it was via Singapore which turned out to be a good thing  since, even although it ended up a couple of hours longer, it broke the journey into bite sized chunks and what's more there's free internet at Changi ;-)
• Since there is always a queue for the ladies toilets everywhere, but especially in airports…….what should be the  ratio of  toilets provided  to the expected number of females in the building at anyone time!!?...1 each, 1 for every 5,10,15??????  I feel distress for anyone with continence issues.
• Sitting next to a tall person is the same as sitting next to a fat one…they take over your space..boney elbows and knees.

There's always a group pix on the last day..and as usual 100% multicultural..Dutch, Japanese, Swiss, Spanish, American, Brazilian, Australian with  Lorenzo the Italian teacher at the back.

Many of the Japanese girls stayed a year or so working while learning the language

As one loved by mozzies, this was a sign I  couldn't ignore

Farewell!

Farewell Fabulous Firenze+late extra pix

I guess eventually all good things have to come to an end, and my holiday  is rapidly approaching it's conclusion.  Today is my last day at school and tomorrow I get the 08:40 train to Rome for a day's worth of sight-seeing before reluctantly, resignedly getting on the plane for a 10pm departure.So today I have to ensure my walk during the 2 hour lunch break takes me to the parts of Firenze that I've yet to explore.

Firenze... a city of many parts,  full of tourists, noise, dirt, motor scooters, art, shops full of leather goods, street markets,and beautiful buildings.  I will miss it all, although being a total Philistine who refuses point blank to queue, museums, galleries and churches do not feature high on my list of things I must  do anywhere, even here.

Yet more statues

 Stenciled on a very old building....graffiti Italian style?

Hmm.........what to do while in Rome?.....(memo to self to be very very aware of pickpockets).

First up...visit the famous Lazzarotti bike shop of course!  then I might walk over to the Vatican City to wander in the gardens if it's allowed although with my anti queue policy there'll be no visit to see anything that requires standing in a line. At least I'll have my UK passport with me which is proof positive that I'm not only a citizen of Europe but am also over 65 and so entry to most things will be free. I didn't get to see the Colosseum last time round and of course I'll be keeping my eye out for typos, signs and other quirky  things to take pix of.

yup.......despite the dog poo on the pavements!

thanks all for reading this blog, there have been almost 2000 visits to it.  There'll be only one more post on my adventures in Europe, then back to the usual, written in a somewhat less exotic locale.

Late addition...in 1966 there was an enormous flood...the river Arno broke its banks and the flood water damaged many works of art and beautiful buildings.  The photo below is of a building perhaps 500-600m up from where the river is now and the small white-ish plaque to the right of the  first floor window (English style first floor...not American 1st floor) is the level the water got to at this spot.

 I was lucky to notice this plaque..... I was chugga-lugging a can of lemon tea and so had my head back and eyes up otherwise I'd never have seen it......

Sunday in Firenze Part 3

Weird fact about Firenze:
It is forbidden to put heating on in public buildings until November 1st and it must go off completely at the end if March!
Apparently there is also a similar rule for other parts of the country with different dates, depending on whether it's north and therefore colder sooner or south and not quite such an issue.

Old walls!

More old walls

Old streets

Boar's head outside a shop.....which was selling...?

View from the rose garden

and from the Michelangelo Piazza, high on the south bank of the fiume Arno

ditto

and finally 2 signs....

well,  perhaps I wasn't s'posed to take it...whoops!

and this one .......well ..... the shop is in the tourist area and was closed when I took the photo on Tuesday at 1pm

Sunday in Firenze part 2

Transport of all types

Segway I think

Tour group plus guide

The best size car for Firenze..electric too, so quiet and cheaper

Quadrem??..or am I making that up!

Sunday in Firenze - "exploration by foot day" Part 1

We were extremely grateful that the weekend's weather was clement, since the thought of spending alot of time in our room in the apartment was not a good one.  Actually, had it been wet, I would have hired a car and gone out of town.  In the event the weather was good and while my sister went to Fiesole, I opted to go on a 6 hour walking tour of parts of the city I'd not yet explored.

I got the camera in action early on but realised I'd left the SD card in the lap top and so the early pix were saved to the camera's memory and are only accessible when I get home.  I eventually found a place to buy  a new one.

Statues

This was in front of a fort in the vicinity of the main station..not sure why or what.

Same as above..located in the private area of a government building

 The following statues are located in a rose garden just below the Piazzale Michelangelo.  I'd walked past this locale many times when I was here with the bike tour and never once noticed it.

Lots of really quirky statues..a lovely spot.....quiet too.

No...this is not a trompe d'oeil....the statue is the frame of the case, the rocks and the ship...the rest is space through which you see......Firenze.

I think I'm going to have to make time to go there again.

Who's reading my blog?..!

I've just been looking at the stats for this blog ..seeing how/why readers arrive at it... ie via which web sites.
While most are  known to me, I clicked on 1 of the ones I didn't know to see what sort of web site it was to see why they linked to mine.....

and it was a porn streaming website...I clicked off VERY quickly:-) if only 'cos I'm using my host's WiFi!

so now I'm looking at the titles of my various posts to see what on earth enticed someone looking for porn ended up reading my blog!....was it the discussion about saddles...or the "fat knee" post about a wasp sting?...whatever it was they must have been sorely disappointed!