End of November

My my, the month is drawing to an end and I haven't told you a thing about Portugal!

I flew into Lisbon at an indecently early hour of the morning. The hotel room was nice, but had a very um... interesting art. This rather Dr Who reminiscent photo:

Terry had said that Lisbon was warm, and although it was definitely warmer than Geneva, it was not, by any means warm. Nonetheless the next day we ventured out to see what we could see. A bit of drizzle was a minor deterrent, and just meant that we bolted for shelter occasionally, and well and truly earnt the amazingly rich hot chocolate we drank at the Confeitaria Nacional (after almost 200 years in business they should have the hang of making it eh?).

Our next trip out was to take the train to Sintra. I had been to the national palace before, but none of the other palaces in Sintra. The national palace was closed to the public anyway, so we decided to see the moorish and palacio Pena. The wind was bitter as we walked around the moorish palace, so we clambered over the walls for as long as we could stand the cold. I did get some pretty lovely photos:

We were both happy to get to the Palacios Pena and have a bowl of reheated soup in the cafe. The Pena is one of those funky neo gothic extravaganzas.

No photos of the inside I am sorry to say, as they are not permitted. All I can say is that they were a combination of surprisingly cramped and very OTT.

The next day was lovely and sunny... just so nice to see sunshine after far too many weeks of rain in Geneva (and Florence). We caught the tram to Belem to check out the Monastery of Jeronimo. This marvellous building is a real example of the best of 16th century stonework. The neo gothic section is spectacular and the lovely honey coloured stone glowed in the bright afternoon light.

and ya know... I think I finally found my niche... <grin>

After our little religious experience, we went on to enjoy a gastronomic one... glorious pasteo de nata.. these little egg custard tarts are just sooooo good and this particular cafe is famous the world over for theirs, and for good reason. You can probably tell from the photo that Terry and I had already inhaled two tarts before pausing to photograph the two remaining.

The next day Terry and I hopped on a bus. The plan was to go to Obidos, because last time I was in Portugal I really didn't get to explore it as much as I had wanted to. But... we missed the stop! Then instead of changing bus and going back at the next stop we had this thought that the bus would be doing a circle. It wasn't, and we ended up in Alcobacar. Luckily, Alcobacar is well worth a visit in and of itself, with the Monastery of Saint Maria (founded in 1153) a UNESCO listed building of quite spectacular proportions. The stark beauty of the building was a little disrupted by an international monastery convention for sweets and liqueurs, but the amazing stonework was still worth seeing. It has the smuggest happiest looking gargoyles I have ever soon.

and as for the sweets....

pretty amazing eh? I bought some tourte, one of the fig and almond crosses, one of those bizarre bright orange things and some of the seashells.

On the way home we did drop in at Obidos but Terry was tired and cold and just wanted to go home, so we did.

Our last full day in Portugal was another sunny one... how glorious the sunshine is when you compare it to how ghastly and gloomy Geneva had been and tends to be in winter. We headed up hill to visit the castle. On the way, we got to see a spectacular view over Lisbon. We also visited the Cathedral of St Vincent. This was unexpectedly cool for me, as there was an interesting display of medieval artifacts found in the rubbish. The cathedral is far more famous for its blue tiles, but they are 18th century, so the older stuff was more interesting to me. There were some lovely fabrics and laces, thimbles and dice. But for me, most fascinating of all were the bead flowers.

The castle was actually not as interesting, being just a shell, but it was still worthwhile visiting it, and wandering about the battlements:

Terry's energy had gone by then, so he headed home for a nap, while I walked around some more and visited the lisbon Cathedral. On the way home I spotted a Fado bar. It is one of those things you have to do when in Portugal, hear Fado, so Terry and I headed back there for an ok dinner and some entertainment.

The next day Terry flew out before me, so I ended up going to a shopping centre, where I visited a supermarket... something I really enjoy doing in strange cities. You never know what you will see which is every day for the locals but bizarre to visitors. In this case, it was the bacalhau. Great huge mounds of dried fish.

Time to fly home, back to normal life and work. Darn. Could have stayed another month with pleasure. Still, after two weeks of travelling and spending it is no bad thing to stay at home and do some saving!

8 November

Michelle and I took a walk around the Bargello, which was fabbo. There was all sorts of gorgeous stuff that we weren't allowed to photograph, but when we got to the ceramics section there was a ceramics class there taking heaps of photos, so I took some too.

Then I snuck into the costume symposium for a very interesting session on codpieces. Poor Michelle's sinuses were giving her agony, so after picking up her amazingly gorgeous new bracelet followed by some other excellent retail therapy she crashed out and I joined up with a couple of other friends that were across for the costume symposium too. We had a very impressive hot chocolate together and having had as much Italian food as I could stand, I found one of the two chinese restaurants in Florence and bought take-away.

7 November

I persuaded Ryan that no, he really couldn't manage to see both Pisa and Florence in one day, so he decided to nip back to Lucca and then come to Florence and stay the night there, so that he could see Florence during the day and then catch the train to Venice in the evening. He arrived late in the evening and stayed in my hotel (got a very nice room indeed for the price) and in the morning we met up and went to the Palazzo Vecchio. I had a rendezvous there before that to see the secret rooms and passages and also the inside of the ceiling, which was very cool!

The Palazzo Vecchio is one of the few places where you are allowed to take photos so I clicked away merrily, trying to capture all its wonderful detail.

Ryan had to head off to his next destination: Venice - he tried to persuade me to join him, but I had decided to continue to hang with Michelle: that's why I was in Florence, after all!

That night Michelle and I ate dinner in a very fine restaurant (we later discovered it was in the michelin guide). I think it had been far too long since Michelle had been out to a fancy dinner, and far too long since I had been out to dinner with just me and a girlfriend. The restaurant is in the most amazing situation, with roman ruins in the basement, and real frescoes (including the earliest painting of Dante known) on the walls. The food was perhaps a bit overpriced I thought, but still very enjoyable, and the company was of course superb.

6 November

Michelle was off to her conference, leaving me to make mischief alone. I caught the train to Pisa, and before I had even gotten to the leaning tower, had met Ryan. Ryan is a charming young man from the US who was doing an amazingly flying visit through Europe. I met him when he offered to take this photo of me in front of some ruins:

Of course I offered to take his photo back, and it seemed natural to walk together and to get the ubiquitous photos of ourselves with the leaning tower. We ended up spending the day together, wandering around and checking out the sights. Ryan used to be a Hollywood actor (seriously he was: apparently one of the kids in Kindergarten Cop) and is still working for Sony Pictures.

He seemed slightly taken aback that I didn't want many pictures with myself in them. I get them 'cause my mum likes them, but really I can pretty much live without having myself in photos.

5 November (Wednesday)

This was the day to visit the Uffizi. I wish I could share with you some of the fabulous paintings we saw, but of course they don't allow photos in the Uffizi. Darn it. More glorious paintings that of course they didn't have as either posters or postcards. C'est la vie. The only photo I have to share with you is this one of the view from my hotel window. Perhaps not a million dollar view, but that is the medici chapel and for 32 euros a night including breakfast, I can tell you there are no complaints from me!

4 November

Michelle and I caught the train to Montelupo. I had never even heard of Montelupo, but for Michelle it was one of her biggest MUST see destinations, being one of the homes of ceramics in the renaissance. The weather was miserable but the ceramics museum was excellent. I wish I could offer you photos but sadly they weren't allowed. I can offer you proof that we were there:

and I was allowed to take photos in the archeological museum, which had a few montelupo pots on display, and a three tined fork from the 1530s which is particularly interesting...

Despite the rain and my gammy leg (yes again it decided it hated me) we walked all the way to the Montelupo glass factory in search of some jugs that we had seen in the ceramics museum. They were not to be found, but we did pick up a few pieces of other glass.

3 November (Monday)

Designated shopping day, because most museums in Florence are closed, Michelle and I hit the shops. I had of course already blown my budget, but I could still happily window shop. Unfortunately I got hit with appallingly painful sciatica, and my shopping was curtailed by a visit to the chiropractor. Michelle was very patient with me as I limped along in the morning, and despite my limitations we did some serious shopping, including Michelle finding a truly beautiful gold bracelet to be made to measure for her (to be picked up on Saturday) some braid for her and buttons for me (of which I bought very few - $18 a button is a bit over the top however lovely and renaissance they may be!).

2 November (Sunday)

On Sunday we took the hop on hop off tourist bus. We started with the tour around Florence... evidence of which is a particularly unflattering photo I took of the two of us in which I have no neck. But I am sure you don't want to see that. You would much rather see these flattering photos of Florence wouldn't you?

The next tour was up to Fiosole. The weather was pretty good, which was a change from the last time I sat in the open top of one of those buses with my mum and dad in Jan 2007 - I don't remember too much of the things we saw on that day because we were mostly focused on how cold we were!

The drive up the long winding road goes far too quickly to catch many good photos, but I did manage to set my camera up to take multiple shots, so between passing trees caught a few views back down towards Florence, and up the hill to Fiosole. Of course it also meant that much of the time I got four photos of something blurry.

When we got there, we decided rather than just leap off, take photos for 10 minutes and leap back on the bus, we would stay a while and look around. Lured by the temptation of views combined with museum, Michelle and I took ourselves into the Fiosole museum of archeology. They had, among other things, an interesting collection of etruscan and greek pottery:

Lunch was at Vinandro, which is a very cute wine bar. I certainly recommend the chicken cacciatore, which was richly flavoured and tender as can be.

On the bus again, and touring down the hill, attempting once more to take speed photos. We hopped off not long after the Ponte Vecchio and headed towards the Palazzo Vecchio, where a lovely gelato awaited us. This provided the much needed sustenance to tackle one last museum before dinner. What? What? It's Italy after all! You want we should starve ourselves while visiting a great centre of gastronomy?

The museum is a tiny one, just next to the Duomo and has its own charm as a building. Of course next to the grandeur of the Duomo and Baptistry, it disappears, but I think it is one of the sweetest buildings in Florence, and has a little museum that doesn't cost much to enter and includes some lovely frescoes.

In fact we decided we weren't ready for dinner after all, so wandered a bit more, and just kind of stumbled into the Piazza Santissima Anunziata. It was dark, but the square was still filled with a sort of craft and food market. There were musicians playing and some people set up doing circus stuff just for the hell of it. A delightful spot to sit on a step, eat some fresh cheese and take in the atmosphere.

1 November (Saturday)

Day 1 of my stay in Florence. So lovely to see Michelle. We have been chatting constantly, catching up on life the universe and everything.

The day started off both well and badly. The good part was that over breakfast I had a lovely morning chat with a charming Brazilian guy with about 12 words of english, and a really nice lady from Malaysia. Gomez seemed very taken with me and terribly regretful that he was leaving this evening for Paris. Nothing like being chatted up over breakfast to give a cheerful start to the day.

The bad part was that my hip, which had gone out of whack somehow last night, kept me awake for much of the night, and in the morning alternated between "painful to walk" and "hot flush involuntary shriek stabbing agony". Walking became a bit of an optional extra, and rather curtailed the speed at which Michelle and I began our day. Still, the worst of the pain came and went, so during the better bits we walked quite a bit, and during the worse, I sat on the nearest surface and clenched my teeth.

As we wound our way toward the Ponte Vecchio, we saw that there was an exhibition on at the Palazzo Strossi. There were some really stunning portraits of renaissance gals, all wearing grand finery and glowing jewelry.

Then we headed over the bridge, with obligatory pause for photos by Michelle and teeth-grinding collapse on a piece of bridge by me. We persisted and found our way to the Pitti Palace, where Michelle was kind enough to queue for tickets while I sat. As the weather looked a bit on the changeable side, we decided to tackle the outdoor options first, and did a brief foray into the Boboli garden, which has some quite lovely views over Florence.

Then we headed in a side door, which we discovered was the entrance to the costume museum. Unfortunately most of the exhibition wasn't very interesting to us, being only 18th c and later clothes on display. But there was the little side room which had the Eleanor of Toledo dress and some other marvellous 16th century mens clothes.

When we walked past the bookshop, we saw some spiffy postcards of portraits. Michelle pointed out that these were all from the Palatino Museum, which our tickets did not include. Grrr. You see you have to buy two tickets to see all of the Palazzo Pitti: 10 euro to get into the Boboli gardens, museum of costume, modern art and science museums. 12 euros to get into the silver museum and the Palatino. Darn. Disappointed we decided that we would go have some lunch and then go back and fork out the cash to go to the Palatino.

Heading for what I thought was the way out, someone told me I had to take my backpack off. Puzzled I did as requested and walked on. I looked back to see Michelle hanging behind and wondered why. Michelle came and spoke to me and a nonchalant fashion joined me. It was only then that it twigged on me that we had just walked into the Palatino, sans ticket! Oops. Oh dear. What a pity.

And OH MY, what an amazing gallery it is. I have never seen so many renaissance paintings in one place before. Titian, Fiorentina, Passerotti... Michelle and I were drooling and exclaiming and pointing like kids choosing their favourite ice cream flavour. No surprises, we both bought the catalogue. In the bookshop, they had spekky reproductions of jewelry in the portraits which were very tempting, but the prices were pretty ouchy - things started at about 69 euros and went up to around 150, for pieces that are made of a silver/copper alloy, plated with gold. At that price I was able to resist them.

On the way home though, we walked our way more slowly along the ponte vecchio, and it was there I was attacked. Viciously. By this:

Honest guvnor it wasn't my fault . It leapt out at me it did, and bit me cruelly in the wallet. In my defence, I had just been through the Palazzo Pitti and the Museo Palantina where I had seen SO many stunning portraits with people wearing gorgeous jewelry.  I had also fought off the attack of the reproduction renaissance jewelry, only to be attacked by this18ct pendant set with rubies pearls and a teeny diamond. What could I do? 

I succumbed. Je ne regrette rien.

We returned to Michelle's hotel to store our shopping. Collapsing briefly on Michelle's bed (as my hip and leg were aching badly) I tried stretching a bit to try and relieve things. Then, in the way you do, I stood, and saying to Michelle "the odd thing about this is that there are some ways in which I can move my leg which are entirely normal, while in others I can't move it at all. I can do this for example... " I stretched my leg up in a sort of side kick. There was an audible pop sound and Michelle said "did your hip just go back in? I heard a pop". Much to my joy and surprise it had. Must remember that move for next time! Ah the sweet joy of relieved pain.

After a long walk around the leather markets, where I was far more succesful at fending off attacks by wayward handbags, Michelle and I enjoyed a lovely dinner at "Guido's" just up the street from my hostel. Michelle's delicately flavoured pasta carbonara and my veal "Florentine style" were both very good. I squeezed in a pannacotta for dessert. The meal for the two of us including a bottle of water, cost 23 Euros - not bad at all.

Tomorrow being Sunday things may be a little quiet in town, so we are going to go on the city sightseeing bus tour - something I have done before but am happy to do again.