timharnesstravels

Rhodes 2024 – A Bad Trip

Tuesday 17 September 2024

It was Tuesday morning and I was driving both of us down to Gatwick Airport, a journey we have made many times. Some retired people like to spend their retirement on the sofa watching daytime TV and bitching about their friends. We like to explore the world through the medium of EasyJet, it’s cheap and I can sit for four hours bold upright as long as there is the promise of an Aperol Spritz and some crispy calamari at the end.

The M3 motorway was fine, the M23 was fine, but on the M23 things started to get a little dicey..

“Ooh I want to go to the loo”

“OK love we’ll be there in twenty minutes”

Five minutes later

“Ooooh, my stomach is cramping up, I really need to go”

This was a potent combination of a bean-based diet and pre-flight anxiety.

“Oh God I think I’m going to poo myself”

I was driving and was in no position to do anything apart from get us to the North Terminal as swiftly and safely as I could.

But the tortoise’s head had started to emerge, and my encouraging words were not helping

“We’ll be there in five minutes, can you err… suck it back ?”

I opened the car window and braced myself for the worst. If a major accident did happen, at least she had a suitcase full of clothes. I felt like I was driving an expectant mother to the hospital, and a particularly ugly baby was on its way.

Fortunately our arrival at the airport did not coincide with an epic in-car Poonami, and Julie was able to go to the loo and successfully “drop the kids at the pool”. We got through security quickly, and everything seemed to have calmed down.

The EasyJet flight to Rhodes was blissfully uneventful, and we got a cab to our apartment, which was above some shops close to the Old Town.

In the evening we walked to the harbour and heard some music in the distance. In the distance I saw a stage and some ballet dancers who appeared to be in their … birthday suits. Naturally we were curious, maybe naked dancing was “a thing” in Rhodes, after all the ancient Greeks did enjoy their gymnastics “sans culottes”.

When we got closer we could see they had beige body suits on, and there were several rows of seats with a polite audience. I am as interested in ballet as I am in Premier League football, so we continued walking to the beach at the pointy end of the island.

By good fortune we arrived at sunset, and got the mandatory selfie with the sun going down.

Wednesday 18 September

Wednesday was a proper lovely Greek holiday day, spent exploring the Old Town of Rhodes. It is a very well preserved medieval city with massive walls built by the Knights of St John, who bought Rhodes from a Genoese pirate when they had been turfed out of the Crusader states in the Levant by Muslim forces.

The Old Town is a maze of narrow streets and cobbled alleys built of stone. It really does look unchanged for hundreds of years. The houses along the streets are supported by flying buttresses which cross from wall to wall.

The walls of the city are incredibly massive, with a huge surrounding dry moat. There are piles of enormous stone cannon balls about 60 cm across, relics from the Turkish siege of 1522.

The main streets are packed with souvenir shops and restaurants, but there are many side streets and alleys where the people of the city live. The main form of transport are noisy, smokey scooters that speed past anxious tourists.

Little did we know at the time, but a nasty little virus was brewing inside of both of us like John Hurt’s Alien which was soon to make its presence felt in an explosive manner.

Thursday 19 September

I slept like a log that night, but it was hot in the room. Julie had barely slept at all. She had been feeling sick most of the night, and all our investment in Greek food was wasted. Julie was “Talking to God on the Great White Telephone”, while I slept very well, apart from polluting the air from both ends.

“Good morning darling”

“Ooh I feel horrible, I was up most night being sick”

“I didn’t hear anything”

“That’s because you were snoring and farting all night”

“Sorry about that, it must be the rich food”

“Then I was woken up by this terrible bang bang banging and people shouting, I didn’t know what it was and I was frightened”

Whatever the banging and shouting was, I slept blissfully through it.

Julie was feeling sick and tired and not at all happy. I was a dutiful husband and went out for the day into Rhodes Old Town

I explored the busy shopping streets packed with restaurants and souvenir shops, and the quiet residential areas and quaint cobbled alleys. Strangely, I didn’t feel hungry at all, which is most unusual for me.

For lunch I had an apple and a bottle of water, while I sat on a bench under a tree watching other tourists scoff enormous souvlaki and chips. Not having an appetite was most un-Harness-like, and not fancying a beer was unfathomable.

After a few hours I wandered back to the flat in Lampraki Street. The residents lift which we had been using to get to our 4th floor flat had a smashed window which had blood on it. The window was made with toughened glass with wire in it, it must have been very difficult to break.

While I was looking, a lady from one of the shops told me that at 4 in the morning, 6 young people had squeezed into a lift designed for 3 people and it had jammed. Hence the shouting and banging and blood. There was a sign on the lift in Greek saying something about “3 atom”, which I guess means 3 people, so 6 people would have overloaded it by 100%.

Julie was in bed, still feeling ill and she got up to let me in.

“How are you darling ?”

“I still feel like shit, I’m going back to bed”

So I lay on the sofa and had a little siesta. When I awoke at about 5pm, I thought I ought to eat something. I got a Greek yoghurt out of the fridge and sat on a bar stool to consume it while watching a YouTube video on my phone.

Empty stomach, plus virus, plus creamy yoghurt was a big mistake.

The next thing I remember was..

“Tim Tim are you alright, I heard a big crash!”

I had fainted and fallen off my bar stool, Julie found me on the floor with a big cut on my head at the front, next to my hairline.

I wiped my head, and saw blood on my hand, bloody hell I had properly hurt myself!

Julie found some tissues and mopped my split head. She took a photo to show me a 4 centimetre cut, which looked quite nasty. What the hell had happened to me? I reckon that I had the same bug as Julie which suppressed my appetite, and then that few mouthfuls of yoghurt made my blood pressure drop very suddenly and I fell off my bar stool and banged my bonce on the tiled floor. Thank goodness I didn’t feel my head connect with the tiles.

I moved onto the sofa and felt very sorry for myself. Julie got on her phone and found a private medical centre close by. They could see me straight away, so we walked, slowly, straight there. I put a hat on so that I didn’t frighten any children.

Look at that cut, it’s like someone has taken an axe to my head! Who knew that yoghurt could be so dangerous?

At the clinic I sat in a low reception chair and told the receptionist and a man in dark blue scrubs my tale of woe. But worse was to come.

“Julie, I feel a bit queasy”

“Excuse me, Tim is feeling a bit sick, have you got a bucket?”

Julie’s appeal for a receptacle was not in time. Moments later I erupted in a massive gush of projectile vomit like when Mr Creosote erupted in Monty Pythons Meaning of Life. Once again, I was not conscious during my finest moment, and woke up covered in puke. I guess that was concussion showing its effects.

There was mashed up apple in the ejected material, the remains of my meagre lunch, and it was all over me.

The receptionist found some paper towels to clean me up, they should have been quicker with a bucket!

I took off my tee shirt and shorts and Julie carefully put them in a carrier bag. I went through to the treatment room, and lay down on a couch which was covered in a long sheet of paper.

A doctor (at least I hope he was a doctor) came into the room, wearing pale blue scrubs. He took my blood pressure, then attached cables to my arms and legs for an ECG. All this medical business was looking serious.

My blood pressure must have been low, I think fainting twice was a strong indicator of that. So he cleaned the inside of my left elbow, and stuck a needle in my arm attached to a bottle of saline, hung from a rack

Bloody hell, this was just like in MASH, except I had a Greek doctor with little English, rather than a wisecracking Hawkeye Pierce.

He took a good look at my head, and then cleaned it with a tissue soaked in Iodine solution. It wasn’t a gentle dab like your mum would do to your knee when you fell over as a kid. This was the sort or vigorous rubbing you do when you are cleaning some tomato ketchup off your jeans when you are sloppily eating a burger.

“Owww” I whimpered while trying to maintain a manly silence

Once I was sterile, he said

“I’m just going to put this paper over your eyes while I stitch you up, it doesn’t look nice”

I braced myself, I have never had any stitches before.

I felt a few sharp pricks, which I guess was a local anaesthetic, but he could have been stitching, I couldn’t see. I definitely felt it when he pinched the edges of the cut together and stuck the needle through both sides and pulled the thread. It was painful, but not intensely so.

After a few minutes of pricking and pulling, he snipped off the thread, and the job was done. I had been patched up like an old teddy bear in The Repair Shop.

The doctor left me with the saline continuing to drain into me. This me with a pathetic smile, I wanted to be a brave little soldier for the camera.

Julie returned from our flat with some clean shorts and tee shirt, so that I didn’t have to walk home in my baggy black underpants.

The doctor gave me an injection in my hip to relieve my nausea, I expect he didn’t want his treatment room to be redecorated with whatever was left in my stomach. He put a big plaster on my head, and gave me a few spares.

Julie sorted out the bill with the receptionist, at which point I almost fainted again. As well as losing the Winter Fuel Allowance, I had to pay about 50 Euros for each stitch of Greek embroidery. My bank balance was less healthy than my scalp.

I bought some plain biscuits for dinner from a supermarket, I didn’t fancy any barbecued pork on a stick with a pile of chips.

When I got back to the flat I noticed that my Casio watch (a timeless classic design which is great value for money) was stuck at 3 minutes past 5. That must have been the time I whacked it on the floor, at the same time as my head, forever immortalising the momentous event. The same thing happened during the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, the clocks were frozen at 9.40.

I don’t suppose historians will categorise my head-meets-floor event in the same order of magnitude as the Lisbon earthquake. But from my point of view it was enormously significant. From now on I will have a scar on my forehead which will be a talking point for years to come, and I can have some empathy with Harry Potter, who was similarly disfigured.

As you can imagine, our Rhodes holiday was somewhat spoiled, and it wasn’t the joyous, carefree experience that we anticipated. But there is the small consolation that it wasn’t as bad as when Julie broke her leg on a mountain in British Columbia in 2012

Now that really was a clusterfuck.

Friday 20 September 2024

The day after my collapse, we both still felt awful, and didn’t want to do anything to exert our minds or exhausted bodies. Fortunately we were a short walk from Elli beach, a strip of gritty sand almost completely covered in recliners and umbrellas.

Since we didn’t want to actually be in the sun, we chose some light-weight recliners that we could move into the shade cast by the thatched umbrella. So every so often we shifted the beds round to follow the shade, like a human sundial.

This was not our normal holiday habitat. Julie has a distaste for sand because “it gets everywhere”. I suggested she wore a Still Suit like Paul Atriedes in Dune, but that idea was not appreciated.

Doing nothing was actually very pleasant, I enjoyed reading my Sci Fi book interspersed with discreet people watching. The beach was mostly occupied by retired folk from all over northern Europe, many of them decorated with a rich selection of tattoos. I’m sure you’ve seen those David Attenborough films of Elephant Seals on the beach, it was very similar but with colourful swimwear

The sun somehow managed to penetrate the umbrella, and cooked me like sausage on a barbecue. By the end of the afternoon I was as pink as a shrimp, and wished I had kept my shirt on like a Proper Englishman.

Now I was sunburned, a stiff neck from hitting the floor, and a wounded head.

Saturday 21 September 2024

I had an appointment back at the clinic at 12 to have my head dressing changed.

The doctor asked me how I was

“How do you feel?”

“Er, fine, I think”

“It looks OK, I’ll clean it up”

He was a man of few words, but didn’t say “Infection” or “gangrene”, so that was a good thing.

He took the plaster off, vigorously rubbed some iodine in the stitches with his customary gentleness and put a fresh plaster on. The receptionist gave me my ECG which the doctor took at the last visit. It was a zig-zag line on a piece of graph paper and she didn’t tell me there was anything wrong, so I assume I hadn’t had a heart attack or something else life-threatening.

We walked back to the Old Town and paid 8 Euros each to go into the Grand Masters Palace. Originally this was a fortified castle belonging to the Grand Master of the Knights of St John. It looks very impressive, like one of those big castles that Edward the First built in Wales. But it is mostly a modern fake.

The mediaeval castle was destroyed in an explosion 1856, and most of what is there now was built built Italian colonisers in the 1930’s. Rhodes was part of the Ottoman empire until 1912, then the Italians took it over. It’s only been part of Greece since 1947.

Inside the Palace there are a series of large empty rooms with some mosaics on the floor, all quite dull. It does feel like the city authorities can’t be bothered to do anything with it apart from taking the admission at the door.

We wandered around the Old Town, and at lunch time thought we should eat something, I didn’t want to pass out again. There are a huge number of places to choose from, and I selected a place called Zizi. It has a bizarre statue of Winston Churchill in a chef’s hat outside, so being a True Brit, it was the perfect place.

I was actually properly hungry and ordered burger and chips and a beer, what could possibly go wrong?

About a third of the burger I started feeling dizzy, oh dear.

“Sorry Julie, I feel a bit peculiar again”

Julie called over the waiter. He practically carried me to a bench seat at the edge of the restaurant and I lay down with him holding my legs up high. Fortunately I had chosen to flake out in a restaurant employing an aspiring para medic.

“Don’t worry Tim, just relax, I’ll keep your legs up”

I was very embarrassed at flaking out in a busy place at lunch time, but he was such a kind man, and said all the right things. His name was Ari and he had family in England. He wanted to take a medical qualification in Ipswich. Ari wanted to call an ambulance, but we declined since we were in the middle of the Old Town, so the transport would be very tricky and I didn’t feel that bad. He brought our food over and I ate a few chips, but I left the burger and beer.

After 20 minutes or so we paid our bill and thanked Ari for his kindness.

That was one helluva powerful virus, and it still wasn’t clear of my system.

Sunday 22 September

Sunday was a re-run of Friday, doing nowt on the beach . This time I kept my tee shirt on. I’ll bet all the other Elephant Seals on the beach were secretly laughing at me, but I was happy reading my Kindle and necking the occasional Fanta.

In the evening we dined at the Napoleon Restaurant and I was very happy to demolish a pizza. Julie struggled with her spaghetti, I expect the virus was still fighting back. I made a major ordering error by selecting the “local wine”, which was possible the worst wine I have ever paid for. I suspect it had been syphoned directly from the tank of one of the vile scooters that tear around the old town. I think it was the first time that I have not drunk all of the wine I have paid for.

Monday 23 September

During the first glorious 36 hours of being in Rhodes, we had expectations of visiting Lindos to see the Acropolis, and take a boat trip to the nearby island of Symi. After our major conflicts with an aggressive virus, long bus and sea journeys did not feel like a wise choice. Our options were:

A) Old Town

B) Elli Beach

Having finished the Sci Fi epic on my Kindle, the Old Town was the best choice. The Rhodes authorities are not great at explaining the long and fascinating history of their incredible city. Some of the exposed Roman and Greek remains have a small scruffy board saying what it is, but for the most part the city is used as a means to sell tat to the tourists.

There are splendid city walls, but the only time you can walk around them is between midday and 3 in the afternoon, exactly coinciding with the hottest part of the day. But I mustn’t grouse too much, because the level of preservation of the Old Town is amazing.

There are several mosques complete with minarets, but they were all being restored and not accessible, which was a pity. The town was Turkish until 1912, and Turks, Greeks and Jews lived in relative harmony together.

Near the southern wall of the town on Omirou street we found the Minos cafe on top of a terrace with wonderful views of the city. I had a meagre chicken baguette and a very average beer, but it was worth it for the views of the town and the harbour.

Tuesday 27 September

Our last day on Rhodes, and somewhat of a relief to be going home. Being really sick on holiday is a lot of a bummer. I wanted to go home with a bottle of Ouzo and fridge magnet, instead I had 8 stitches and a medical bill.

But you have to look on the bright side of things, the beach and the Old Town were entertaining, and at least I didn’t fall on my nose, that would have been really messy, which is what I did while running (and falling over) in 2021.

So what happened to me?

I think I had the same virus as Julie, which is why I had no appetite on Thursday. Then I started to eat a Greek Yoghurt (damn you Greeks) and the blood in my head rushed to my stomach very suddenly. That caused a very sudden drop in blood pressure and I fainted.

I think I was concussed, and after I walked down to the medical centre, that caused me to pass out again and gush like a Thames Water overflow.

On Saturday at the restaurant my stomach still wasn’t better, but fortunately I didn’t pass out that time. I hope Ari fulfils his dream to work in medicine in England.

So how did I get the bug? Possibly Julie had it first, and she could have literally picked it up from a door handle or a rail on a bus, its a mystery.

You will be pleased to know that my head is healing nicely, and I’m still available for any modelling jobs if Saga need me for some cruise holiday shots. It was a terrible holiday in many ways, but bits of it were pleasant and I enjoyed a few good meals. But the beer and wine was terrible every time.

From Curiosity to Commitment: Buying My First EV

Lets go back, back in time

Sometime during lockdown I started watching Fully Charged videos on YouTube. It is a long establish (14 years ago) channel all about electric cars which is presented by Robert Llewelyn who was Kryten in Red Dwarf and also presented Scrap Heap Challenge. His daft humour appeals to me, and it is also quite nerdy, like I am.

https://www.youtube.com/@fullychargedshow/videos

I have watched hundreds of videos about electric cars (and trucks and bikes), the videos are usually amusing and informative. The combination of engineering, technology and sustainability made me interested in electric cars, which I never have been before. Mostly for the last 45 years they have been machines to get me from place to place, and driving is a bit of a necessary chore.

Almost always the Fully Charged channel has reviewed new cars, and the cheapest of those cost more than £25,000. I suppose I could pay that, but I just don’t want to.

Then I saw a video, sometime in June 2024 I think, which was about the second-hand price of EVs, and I thought “maybe I can afford that!” A quick look at my bank balance confirmed that I could, and all of a sudden I was looking for a new car!

But of course I had to get the agreement of my wife, Julie. She has seen me watching car videos for years, and has watched a few herself. So she is well aware of my interest in the technology. When I worked for the BBC my job title was “Lead Technologist”. I wasn’t some type of heavy metal worker, I worked with IT and broadcast technology, so I have always been interested in gadgets, especially those which are good for the environment and sustainability. I have long believed that Global Warming is an existential threat to humanity and that I should do what I can to mitigate that threat. So driving a car that doesn’t burn fossil fuels was something I seriously wanted to do. About 5 years ago I decided my next car would be electric, but the time had to be right.

Should I go Hybrid?

The Toyota Prius hybrid car has been around since 2000, and most of the mini-cab drivers in London drive them, so they are a very familiar sight and sound when they hum past on their electric motors.

I did consider buying one as a step towards a fully electric vehicle. But IMHO they are not a good choice. They have both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, so they have double the complexity. An internal combustion engine (ICE) can has about 2,000 moving parts, whereas an electric vehicle has about 20.

https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/guides/general/how-do-electric-cars-work/

Think about how many parts there are in a conventional motor, all those pistons, valves, con rods, belts and cam shaft whizzing around incredibly fast lubricated by oil. An EV motor has a single moving part, the Rotor. They are 100 times less complex, and there is so much less to wear out and be maintained. There is no need to put engine oil into an EV.

So I waited until I could get the EV that I wanted, when the time was right for me.

The Time is Right

Julie agreed almost immediately that I/we should by an EV – which was nice. I had wittered on long enough for her to understand the benefits of electric cars, and she thought I should just just put my money where my mouth is and get on with it. So next I only had to choose the car I wanted out of of dozens of possible models.

I looked at more YouTube videos, including Fully Charged, Car Wow, Electrify and EV Man. I particularly enjoyed and appreciated EV Man because he is a plain speaking Yorkshireman who explains things about EVs very clearly and simply.

https://www.youtube.com/@ElectricVehicleMan

Since 2022 I have been to three Fully Charged motor shows at Farnborough and Excel. I have driven two EVs, a Nissan Leaf and an MG5, neither of which particularly impressed me. Besides the new price of these cars was too much for me (i’m “careful” with my money). But at the Excel (an exhibition centre in Londons Docklands) EV show in March 2024 I came across a second hand EV garage who had a stand, called Arnold Clarke. They are a big car dealer, which has a dedicated EV garage in Sydenham in South London.

On June 24th we made a train journey across South London to Sydenham. The last time was there was about 40 years for a curry, when I was completely mystified by the names of all the dishes and had to rely on my mate to help me choose something to eat.

A very nice guy called James gave me two test drives in a Hyundai Kona and an MG4. I was more impressed by the Kona, because the higher seating position was more like I was used to in my Nissan Qashqai. I’m quite a big fella, and like a (modest) SUV style car. Arnold Clarke only had higher milage cars that were black, white or grey, not colours we wanted. We have had a silver grey Qashqai since 2016, and wanted something different. The salesman explained to me that the Hyundai Kona is the same car as a Kia e-Niro, there are just differences in styling. Hyundai actually own Kia. I gave the salesman my details, and promised to keep in touch, just like a holiday romance.

We did have another showroom outing to an MG showroom, but the traffic was so bad a test drive was not practical, and the sales woman reminded me of a vampire in a Hammer horror film. It was an omen.

Choosing the Car

After further research and lots of umming and aahing I decided on my purchase criteria:

Less than 4 years old

A 64 KwH battery

Average Milage

NOT grey, silver, black or white

With the Kia warranty

Less than £18,000

So I kept looking on Autotrader and other websites and filtered the results from what I wanted.

The only way to be certain to get the Kia warranty was to buy from a Kia dealership. On June 29th I was perusing Kia Approved Used Car site and up came the car I was after, a 3 year old e-Niro with 21,000 on the clock in Yacht Blue. I rang the sales lady at Snows in Guildford and arranged to see it the same afternoon.

We drove over to Guildford and (accompanied by the sales lady) I took the car “out for a spin”. Dear Reader, I was smitten. It drove like a dream, accelerated like a sports car and I fell in love. We made a deal the same afternoon and I even knocked her down £200, which made me feel very manly and in charge.

My Kia at Snows (they fixed the scuffed wheels)

Julie was especially pleased with the Yacht Blue, which is pretty much the same colour as my neighbours Tesla Model 3.

Getting Started

My first outing was almost back to Guildford to take my mates on an outing to Brooklands Museum. I failed to start the car by forgetting to put my foot on the brake first, and flapped about a bit until I figured out the error of my ways. That was embarrassing. Once we arrived my mates disagreed with the Sat Nav, and we drove around Weybridge a bit until we found the Museum behind Mercedes World.

The first long trip with Julie was down to Bridport in Dorset for a couple of days. In a very rainy car park in Dorchester I charged the car up on a public charger for a first time. It was like a first date, and after a bit of a fumble the power lead was fully engaged and the digital clock was ticking up. So we walked up and down Dorchester high street in the rain, there ain’t a lot to see. The car behaved beautifully during the trip and we both enjoyed driving and learning all the systems.

Do you remember 10 or 12 years ago when you first got a smart phone and you thought WTF, how do I make this thing work? An EV is like a big smart phone on wheels which can go very fast and has a gigantic battery that weighs 327 kilos.

There are both a touch screen and a plethora of buttons to learn about. There are alien concepts to master, like Kilowatts (kW) and Kilowatt Hours (kWh). There is estimated range on the display which drops as soon as I put the air conditioning on or put my foot down. It does accelerate like the proverbial shit off a shiny shovel, but with great speed comes great battery depletion.

Getting a Charger Installed

Because I have off-street parking, I wanted my own charger. Thats adds more complexity to ownership. I’m already a customer of Octopus, and they have a tariff called Intelligent Go, which will charge ones car overnight for 7p per kWh. A high speed charger in a service station can cost up to 75p per kWh, and a slow charger on a lamp post can cost 40p per kWh and take ages.

Octopus would install an Ohme charger for £1000, but i would have to give them all my payment details before they would tell me when they would install it. No Thanks Mr Octopus. So Julie engaged a local electrician called Charles to install it for us, which he did very well for £200 less than Octopus. Its a neat little box with a 5 metre cable looped on a hook on the wall.

EV Apps: Intro the Electroverse

When I got my Mini in the early 80’s, I needed an ignition key to make the car go. Now I need a my pocket computer/smartphone and at least 3 apps!

The Kia Connect app lets me do loads of things remotely, including setting the parameters for charging it up. I can set the charging limit so it stops at 80% if I want to. I can lock or unlock the car from my phone, which is quite handy if I forget to lock it and I’m sat comfortably on my sofa and can’t be arsed to go outside.

The Ohme app is needed to make the charger work and it is magically “married” to my Intelligent Go electricity tariff. So I can plug the charge in a 8pm, but it won’t start charging on cheap leccy until 11.30 and then it stops at 05.30. It costs just a few pounds to charge the car overnight because windmills are still turning and not many people are watching EastEnders or making their dinner. So the home charger electricity is cheap, but it cost £800 to install – swings and roundabouts. I also have the considerable convenience of not having to find an available charger and hang around until its done.

The Zap Map app is very useful on long journeys away from home to show me where chargers are along the road, whether they are available and how much they charge.

So you need to be a Technophile to successfully run an EV, its quite a steep learning curve. I have watched several of EV Man’s videos to understand how it all works. If you have ever started using an Apple computer after using Windows for 30 years, you will understand how it feels.

Is the Honeymoon Over?

We brought the baby home on 8th July, almost 2 months ago, and I’m still excited by it. In fact I washed the car yesterday for the third time, I’m that much in love. It’s just so damned nice to drive. There are no gears to worry about. It has Autohold, so when I stop, it just puts on the hand brake for me. It has the best “entertainment” system I have ever owned, with a digital radio and perfect bluetooth pairing. If I drift into another lane on the motorway it will chide me with bleeps and vibrate the steering wheel. It feels much easier and less tiring to drive than a regular car.

But what about the dreaded Range Anxiety I hear you ask ? On a long journey to Nottinghamshire I had a couple of sweaty-palm moments, but I overcame them and learned some lessons for the future, which I will cover in another post

So after about 4 years of thinking about it, I have bought an EV and I’m very pleased with it. The Kia e-Niro isn’t sporty or particularly cool looking, but it does everything I want very comfortably.

But how much did it cost? I got it for about half the new price in June 2021, so you can work that out for yourself. I am very,very pleased with my new Electric Vehicle.

Brussels and Antwerp 2024

Eurostar to Brussels Monday 5 August 2024

We now have got a taste for train travel on the Continent after our big Interrail trip, and Julie spotted a very good Eurostar offer to go to Brussels. It would be rude not to.

Our train was the 09.00 from St Pancras International, and we had to be there an hour in advance, which mean we had to leave home at 7am to get the train and tube. I had forgotten what it was like to get up at stupid o’clock and commute across London, it’s no fun at all.

In the time it takes to get from my house to Brighton, we were at Brussels Midi station, where the Eurostar stop is. Julie booked a hotel conveniently close to Brussels Central station rather than Brussels Midi, which was annoying. So we dragged our trolley bags over cobbles for 40 minutes to the Motel One on Rue Royale, which wasn’t the best start. But we had done it plenty of times before, because we are hardened Interrailers.

Motel One is modern and stylish, but the rooms aren’t much bigger than the bed. Fortunately Julie had booked a room with a balcony, so we could sit in deckchairs and admire the roofs of central Brussels.

After getting settle in we followed Google maps into the old town. Our hotel was very close to the Cathedral of Saints Michel et Gudule, which has a beautiful front facade, but we didn’t venture in.

A short walk along Rue de la Montagne brought us to a busy touristy area with lost of cafes, so we guessed we were near our destination, the Grand Place. But before we got there we came across Galerie de la Reine, a beautiful Victorian shopping gallery which reminded me of similar galleries in Leeds and Cardiff. Naturally many of them were flogging fridge magnets and chocolate, which is a big deal in Brussels.

The Grand Place is the central old market place, and was largely built after Brussels had been bombarded with incendiary cannon balls by the French in 1695 as part of the Nine Years War. The French used the tower of Town Hall as their target, and much of it was destroyed along with a third of the walled city.

The Buxellois are resilient people and rebuilt the Grand Place better than it was before. It is lined with very fancy guild halls which flamboyantly display the commercial wealth of the city, which was one of the biggest and richest in Europe. The finials of the Flemish gables glisten with gold leaf and the tower of the Town Hall looks like a Gothic rocket, really quite spectacular.

Looking at lovely architecture does make one thirsty, and luckily in the Rue des Bouchers we came across a bar, the Delirium Cafe. To be fair, you are practically tripping over bars in Brussels, there is no shortage of them since that’s where you get the other comestible the city is famous for, beer.

Since it was the Delirium Cafe, I had a glass on Delirium Tremens. It is very tasty, 8% alcohol and fortunately comes in a 250 ml glass. I could feel the effect, which was quite pleasant. But the bar was a bit of a tourist trap and had the most horrible toilets I have been in for a long time, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Our next stop was the Place Royale, in a part of Brussels that was built by Austrians, so it looks a bit like Vienna. The history of Belgium is a bit complicated (like all history really), and Brussels fell into the hands of the Spanish Hapsburgs, then the Austrian Hapsburgs, then Napoleon took it. So the architectural styles depend on who was in charge at the time.

On the way from the Grand Place to the Place Royal we came across the Brasserie de la Madeleine, which was more-or-less a pub, so I quite liked it. It wasn’t a touristy place so they sold Jupiler (a bog-standard lager) for €5 a big glass, which was just what I needed.

After more site seeing we went back to the hotel and sat on the balcony to rest our weary feet. Later we went to a Thai restaurant on Rue de Congres called Better Than Hungry and ate a huge pile of delicious noodles, washed down with more Jupiler.

Antwerp Tuesday 6 August 2024

On our second day we took the train north to Antwerp, a city I know almost nothing about before we got there. It only takes about 40 minutes on the train, and there are plenty of trains from the Central station.

Antwerp Central station is huge and built like a cathedral, a massive statement of Belgian confidence in the 19th century. I have never been to a station where som many people were stopping to take photos. No one does that at Waterloo station.

It is almost a straight line walking from the station to the Grote Makt, which is Flemish for Great Market and sounds like someone clearing their throat. Part of the walk is along Meir, which is Antwerps Oxford Street. It is pedestrianised and lined with familiar chain stores, you could be anywhere in Europe.

A fancy entrance way took us into one of the most extraordinary shopping centre I have ever seen, the Stadsfeestzaal. It is a huge hall with an arched glass roof, and the walls are decorated with elaborate plaster work picked out in gold. The Belgians certainly like gold decoration on their buildings. Like most cities it had a branch of Flying Tiger, so we had a look around and bought some bits of tat we don’t really need.

On a side road nearby was Rubens House House, where Rubens lived for 30 years with his family and painted many of his great works there. Sadly it was shut for renovation, so we didn’t see the inside.

I recently visited a National Trust house called Kingston Lacy and saw a stunning portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria, an Italian noble woman who Rubens painted in Genoa.

The old town in Antwerp is smaller than in Brussel, but still very impressive. It has a huge Gothic cathedral of Our Lady that towers 123 metres above the city. Close by is the Grote Makt (Great Market) which has a huge town hall and grand guildhalls topped in gold. A statue in the city show a mythical hero called Silvius Brabo throwing the severed hand of a giant called Antigoon. The Dutch for “hand throw” is handwerpen, which is how (allegedly) the city got it’s name. In the 16th and 17th century, Antwerp thrived on shipping trade on the river Scheldt and was one of Euope’s richest cities.

Around the corner from the market place is the Vleeshius (flesh house) which was a guildhall and market hall for the cities butchers. It was completed in 1502, and had space for 62 butchers.

Trade on the river Scheldt made Antwerp very rich, and it was protected by a castle called Het Steen, which roughly means The Rock. I’m surprised Dwayne Johnson hasn’t sued them yet. It has been rebuilt and modified over the centuries, but still looks very impressive. There is a museum inside, which we didn’t explore, but did go up on the roof to enjoy views of the city and the river.

A kilometre along the river is MAS (Museum an de Stroom), which was built in 2011 to house a collection of 470,000 objects. The architecture is very impressive, made from red Indian sandstone and curved glass.

We spent a couple of hours there, and could easily have spent much longer. The view from the room is amazing, especially the view towards the port, which is the second biggest in Europe (after Rotterdam).

The strange looking contraption floating outside MAS is a grain pump which was for transferring grain from ships onto barges for shipment into Europe.

Ambling back towards the station we stopped at a bar for a Duffel and then at Frituur t Stad, a very good chip shop to eat Belgiums second finest product. We had a medium sized portion between us, with mayo and peanut sauce. It cost us 6 Euros and was so filling we didn’t need to eat any dinner!

Antwerp Wednesday 7 August 2024

One day was not enough to see Antwerp, so on our third day in Belgium we went back again. We got off at Antwerp-Bercham station so we could visit a district called Zurenborg, which my guidebook recommended for its architecture. It didn’t disappoint, there are several streets with a wonderful collection of Gothic, Neo-Classical, Tudor and Art Deco Houses built at the end of the 19th century.

I have never seen so many really stunning Art Nouveau houses together, real gems with mosaics on the walls and circular windows. The streets are quiet and pretty, its well worth a visit.

Since we were in a cultural frame of mind we got a bus to Middleheim Sculpture park, a few kilometres away. To be honest it was a bit dull. There were lots of modern-ish sculptures set in grassland in a fairly uninspiring park. But then again, I don’t really enjoy sculpture unless I can recognise what it is.

One item on display was a large stainless steel tank with plumbing attached, which I suspect was a birthing pool. It was in the same vain as the famous urinal call Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, equally mystifying.

Luckily there was a very nice cafe in an old manor house, where we had a delicious sandwich and a Bolleke. What a great name for a beer! My favourite art work was next to it, a droopy yacht.

After returning to Brussels we went out in the local area and visited a resaurant called Caberdouche where I had meatballs and more beer, La Couffe I think this time. All the beers I sampled were strong and tasty, but only in small glasses. It wouldn’t be healthy to drink a pint of 8% lager!

On our way back to the hotel we walked up the Rue de Congres, and at the end was the Colonne de Congres, which commemorates Belgiums first National Congress in 1830.

It was early when we got to the hotel, so we sat in the hotel garden and had a beer. Julie surprised me by treating me to a Belgian waffle, it was bloody delicious!

Antwerp Thursday 8 August 2024

On our last day in Belgium we returned to the old town for a better look at some of the old buildings. The Broodhuis (Bread House) is a big Neo Gothic building on the site of a 16th century building which was demolished (before it fell down). The museum is very good and has many historic artefacts and models of Brussels in the middle ages.

The main attraction for local people is the original Manneken Pis, a statue of a small boy having a pee. For some bizarre reason it is a much loved symbol for Brussels that schoolchildren get excited to see. The statue in the street is a copy of the one in the museum. In the city centre there are also a female version, and a doggy version. I’ll bet it freaks out people from Utah.

Away from the Grand Place there are some lovely quieter streets to explore, and cheaper cafes to enjoy.

We walked up Boulevard Anspach, a busy shopping street to see the old stock exchange, the Bourse. It is a huge Neo Classical building that looks like the Parthenon or the Royal Exchange in London. Inside it is a Beer Museum, how very Belgian.

From there we took the Metro to the Upper Town to see the Parc du Cinquantenaire, a huge formal park built at the time of the evil King Leopold. He owned the Congo as a personal estate, and treated the local people in the worst possible ways. He was so bad that the Belgian government took it off him and turned it into a colony. I’m sure the local people were very grateful.

It is a lovely park, and has a huge monumental arch and several museums. By then we were museumed-out, and enjoyed sitting in the sunshine reading books.

Walking back to Motel One we went through the European Quarter where all the huge EU building are. It was very quiet because the bureaucrats are on holiday. Even the Old Hacks Pub looked dead, they are probably missing all the custom they got from Nigel Effing Farage when he was a member of the European Parliament.

Conclusion

Go to Brussels and Antwerp, they are a great place to visit for a short holiday. They are so easy to get to, only 2 hours from St Pancras on a comfortable train. I managed to consume all the Big Belgian Four: Beer, Chocolate, Chips and a Waffle. None of them are healthy, but all are delicious.

These are the beers I drank and they are all good:Jupiler, Delirium Tremens, Stella Artois, Duvel, Leffe Blonde, Leffe Brun, Bolleke, La Chouffe and Barbara Blonde.

I drank them over 4 days, and only small glasses, so that’s perfectly alright.

Luckily we had perfect weather, which was great for site seeing. We didn’t hire bikes, but there was plenty of bike hire places and scooters as well. The public transport is very good and easy to use.

So there is more to Belgium than Stella and Tintin, go there.

Sicily 2024 – Taormina

Saturday 25th May

Taormina is a hilltop town between Catania and Messina, famous for being the location of a Netflix show about a glamorous hotel called White Lotus. It is high up on a mountain side with spectacular views of beach resorts beneath it and the Straits of Messina to the north.

Knowing that Taormina a very popular town, we took an early 8.30 bus from the Archimede bus station, a large expanse of drab concrete close to the train station in Catania. The bus stopped at the seaside town of Naxos before starting its climb to Taormina. The road is steep and windy, and I was very pleased not to be driving the bus up that switchback. At one stage it met another bus coming down the hill, which had to reverse back quite distance to let ours through.

By the time we arrived at the bus terminal it was raining hard, so we sheltered until the worst was over. Our cheap Siracusa umbrellas kept us slightly drier while we walked up to the main street in the town.

Have you ever been to Padstowe or St Ives in the summer? Taormina is very similar to those popular Cornish towns, narrow picturesque streets lined with upmarket shops and restaurants. There is a central high street, with side streets running at 90 degrees from it, both up hill and down hill. It is a very pretty town and it attracts thousands of visitors, so the streets are a stream of tourists buying capuccinos, gelato and fridge magnets.

It has both a small Roman theatre and a much bigger Greek theatre. The Roman one is free to see, but you have to pay to see the Greek one. But having seen the one in Siracusa, we didn’t want to pay to see another ruin.

The Roman (free) not the Greek (pay to view) theatre

We sheltered from the rain in a cafe and steamed like wet Labradors. After an Americano and a brioche the rain and stopped and we explored the small town. Looking over to Etna in the south i could see the cloud starting to rise with a promise of better weather.

The town does have a lovely small civic park called the Villa Communale, a mixture of botanic garden and Peter Jackson film set. It was created by Florence Trevelyan, a Scottish lady who had an affair with the future King Edward VII and had to leave the country. It contains some fantastic folies, structures that look like they could have been built for a fantasy movie. They look great amongst the cacti, palm trees and exotic plants.

The main drag is very busy, but there is plenty to see in the side streets, as long as you keep out of the way of big taxis taking the wealthy to and from their hotels. We saw one beautifully painted house which extended the decoration to the scooter parked outside.

Taormini is a very pretty tourist trap, and a few hours was enough for me. Judging by the number of hotels and restaurants it is a very popular place to stay for a holiday. I have already bought a fridge magnet, and don’t want and overpriced lemoncello or white linen shirts. So we caught the 15.45 bus back to Catania.

On the way down we passed a Roman cemetery, the tombs looking like a row of pizza ovens.

In the evening we went to Ciaru i Mari restaurant for the third time, the staff are very friendly and attentive and the food is excellent. It is in a lively street behind the Bellini theatre, which attract two sets of diners. Between 7 and 10 the tourists come out to drink Spritz and eat fishy dinners. After that the locals come out and stay much later. I asked Andrea how the Sicilians mange to stay up late and then work the next day. His honest answer was “they don’t work”.

Sicily 2024 – Catania’s Markets

Friday 24 May

The weather has been consistently wonderful in Sicily, apart from the thunderstorm on the first day. So it has been very conducive to sitting in cafes, one of the many pleasures in going to Italy. Our first cafe was in Via Vitoria Emanuel, a very busy street where our flat is situated. It is in a big baroque mansion block, which has huge gates on the street and multiple gates to reach our staircase. The street is quite scruffy now and disfigured with graffiti, but would have been beautiful in its 18th century heyday.

We had a cappucino and walked the short distance down to Saint Agatha’s cathedral in the plaza. It is attractive without being impressive, as cathedrals go. There were flashy memorials to various dead bishops, who I’m sure were all very humble, modest men.

Just round the corner from the duomo is the fish market, which is quite an assault on the senses. There are dozens of stalls selling every type of Mediterranian fish, from tiny clams the size of a finger nail, to huge tuna and swordfish as thick as tree trunks. I have never seen such big fish being hacked to pieces by fishmongers with huge clevers. I wouldn’t get into a fight with one of those guys. There were plenty of stalls selling fresh oysters, and rows of restaurants selling seafood dinners. There appeared to be many more tourists (like me) taking photos than customers buying slabs of dark red tuna or swordfish for 10 Euros a kilo. The octopuses, squid and cuttlefish looked like deflated grey ballons on their marble slabs, when in life they are fantastic dynamic creatures of intelligence that can change their colour to blend in with their environment to hide from predators.

It was a short walk to Via Etnea, the main shopping street that runs from the cathedral towards Etna. After exhausting fish watching, we revived ourselves in a big cafe and drank Americano’s and watched people, always a good sport.

The fish market is compact and mostly fish, but close to the Piazza Stezicoro (where we met Ernesto yesterday) is the city’s main street market. It is the real living heart of the city, selling fruit, vegetables, meat, clothes, hardware and souvenirs. It is alive with the cries of competing stall holders trying to sell huge aubergines and radishes (I think) that are a metre long. As we shuffled our way through, we occasionally had to stand aside while a scooter came through loaded with ice for a stall. The fruit and vegetables were cheap and looked great, I think Rick Stein would be getting very excited if he was here.

At the end of the market was a street cafe called La Salumania, where we stopped for a panini and beer. It was possibly the best panini I have ever eaten, with crusty bread and a filling of bacon, salami and salad.

The world’s best paninis are served here

After lunch we ambled back to the flat for a little R&R. But what to do next? We had seen most of what was recommended in the Rough Guide and on Tripadvisor. A place we had seen was La Ciminiere, which was an old sulphur refining factory converted into a conference and cultural centre. It was about 15 minutes away on the coast near the bus station. It appeared to have had lots of money spent on it 30 years ago and is now rusting and looks dreadful, don’t go there. There just isn’t enough money in Catania to keep the city looking smart.

In the evening we went to Ciaru i Mari in Via San D’Orsolo, a seafood restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the flat. It was our second visit because it is such a good place. The staff speak excellent English and are very charming and helpful. I had swordfish (spada) and Julie had tuna (tonno), the best meal we have eaten in Sicily. Their chips were just awesome, and I am a very good judge of chips. The house wine was a Sicilian chardonnay for 15 Euros a bottle, bloody lovely. So I am now a very happy, and slightly drunk, boy.

And finally, I saw this specialist butcher near the port. Anyone hungry?

Sicily 2024 – Taormina

Sicily 2024 – Mount Etna

Thursday 23 May

Expedition day today, the great ascent of the south face of Mount Etna. Most of the ascent was by mini-bus, and we didn’t get to the top, but it was further up than anyone else I know. Also we didn’t have Sherpas to carry our bags and I had to film everything myself on my phone.

We met our guide Ernesto by the Roman Amphitheatre that we sussed out yesterday. Five others joined us, a family from Toronto and a charming lady from Cape Town. It took a very pleasant hour of driving upward through pretty towns with narrow winding streets. Like all Sicilians, Ernesto drove like Mad Max trying to escape wild men in armoured quad bikes, very fast and with great confidence.

After an hour of zig zagging we reached base camp, Refugio Giovanni Sapienza. Ernesto takes his work as a mountain guide very seriously, and provided us with walking sticks (hiking variety, not broken leg variety) and gaiters. I have never worn gaiters before, but they are tight cuffs you wear round your calves to stop grit getting in your boots.

Then we walked up narrow tracks following Ernesto. The path was steep, narrow, and not solid underfoot. The surface was black volcanic cinders, surounded by cushions of attractive but spikey vegetation, definitly not for sitting on.

We plodded up and up and up until we got to the top of a ridge. We were treated to a fantastic view of the smoking summit of Etna, streaked with sulphure and a few patches of snow. Beneath us was the Val de Bove, an enormous expanse of black volcanic cinders hundred of metres long and wide covering a huge area of the slope of the volcano.

At the top I found we had walked about a mile from the minibus. But it was all up hill, without Sherpas or complicated ladders n’shit.

The descent was less arduous, and we looked over Catania far below all the time. The last big eruption was in 2001, and the lava flows destroyed the road where our van is parked. At one stage we trudged through thick soft black sand, like a Gothic Evil sand dune.

This year I will mostly be wearing Gaiters!

At the end I treated us both to a Magnum icecream, sadly they didn’t have the ones with nuts on the outside.

It was a slightly challenging hike because it was narrow and steep on the way up, but worth it for the fantastic views. It cost 62 Euros each, and I think it was worth it.

Back in Catania we went to the Villa Bellini gardens which are very pretty with a great view of the volcano. Just up the road (Etna) we visited the Ortico Botanico, which looked unloved in the same way that the castle in Ortigia is. I think Sicily just doesn’t have much money for public spaces, it’s one of the poorest parts of Italy.

And finally, some photos to prove that two and a half thousand years of civilisation doesn’t always work in Sicily.

Sicily 2024 – Catania’s Markets

Sicily 2024 – Catania

Wednesday 22 May

Ortigia was very lovely and I would highly recommend it for a short break. All the attractions can be reached by foot. In fact we walked about 10 miles yesterday, but wine aided our recovery and Nero D’Avolo in particular. This morning the air was very clear and we got our first view of Etna from the balcony, which was quite exciting for someone from Lincolnshire where the highest point is about 460 feet.

But Tempus does indeed Fugit, and we caught the train to Catania this morning. The 10.25 to Rome trundled along the coast taking about an hour to reach Sicily’s second biggest city. The route took us past oil refineries, a huge port (at Augusta) and Catania airport. I don’t think Michael Portillo will be making a film about it.

We tugged our suitcases for about 10 minutes to reach the next Airbnb, which was on the second floor of a fairly grand 19th century building. it’s quite possibly the best one we have stayed in, and we have stayed in over 50 since 2015. The furnishing is top notch, and the owner left us a selection of cakes in cellophane packets, luxury!

Catania is at the foot of Etna, and has suffered from eruptions and earthquakes over thousands of years. The city centre has been rebuilt in Baroque style, like Noto, but in black volcanic stone rather than yellow limestone. It gives the city a more dowdy feel, and looks like London 50 years ago when it was all black from the coal smoke.

It was lunch time by the time we left the flat, so we stopped at the nearest street cafe that our host had recommended. If they gave awards for the weight of food in a set lunch, this cafe would have won it. The first course was a huge slab of lasagna-ish. It was green and cheesy and enough to feed Tyson Fury on the night before he lost his fight. After battling through that, we got 2 huge meat balls with salad. They could have been beef, or donkey, horse or even camel for all I know. I ate both of mine, Julie could only manage one. Dessert was a tiny sort-of creme caramel in a short glass. After all of that I felt like Mr Creosote ready to explode!

Mystery meat balls and a massive slab of lasagna-ish

The Piazza del Duoma is a short walk from the flat, and in the centre is a stone statue of an elephant with an Egyptian obelisk on its back. It’s the symbol for Catania, and no dafter than the Liver Bird stuck on top a building in Liverpool.

The Duomo is all very Baroque and the architect Sig. Vaccarrini clearly thought you couldn’t have too many statues or columns.

The fish market was shut, so I missed out on all the dead scaley fauna, but we did have a walk to follow to see the highlights of Catania.

I could describe it all to you, but it’s easiest to sum it all up in two words: Baroque Churches. There are many of them, and once you have seen a few, they all start to look the same. Many of them have freakily realistic statues of dead Jesus, his mother and saints all painted in realist colours . There are banks of electric candles which will switch on if you put a Euro in the slot, and will automatically bump you up in the queue for heaven.

The biggest church is San Nicolo L’Arena, which is cathedral sized. Unfortunately the front facade was never completed, so it looks really weird on the outside. But churches commonly take hundreds of years to finish off, so maybe some billionaire pasta manufacturer will pay for it to be completed.

In the middle of the central shopping area is a pizza-slice of a Roman amphitheatre. Most of it is covered by the city, and only a fraction is on show. A sign said it would have held 15,000 people originally.

Just as we were getting a bit churched-out, we saw a fast food outlet and were able to have a McPiss, which was an immense relief. Our run of luck continued with the discovery of – Praise the Lord – a Lidl! So we were able to buy some food for dinner tonight and to take with us on our Etna trip tomorrow.

Sicily 2024 – Mount Etna

Sicily 2024 – Neapolis Archeological Park

Tuesday 22 May

Our tiny flat (I won’t use the word “apartment”, I’m neither French nor American) overlooks the roofs of Ortigia. A few hundred metres away is a big imposing building. I took a photo of it, and Google Lens told me that it was a prison built by the Bourbon Kings in the 1850’s when they were worried about rebels after the 1848 attempted revolution. It was damaged by an earthquake in 1990, and has been left unused since then. The sky is still full of swifts flying in arcs catching invisible flying insects, quite miraculous really.

Siracusa is Syracuse, an ancient settlement at the cross roads of the Mediterranian that has been fought over for thousands of years. At one time it rivalled Athens in size and power in the Greek world.

The centre of the Greek and Roman city is now the Neapolis Archeological Park, which is a 45 minute walk from where we are staying on the island of Ortigia. The modern part of Siracusa is made of of post-war blocks of flats and uninspriring shops. We were very disappointed not to find either a Lidl or an Aldi in walking distance, which is one of the markers of civilisation for me.

We stopped for a capuccino and pastry in a cafe, but failed to blend in with the locals. Today we both look like tourists from Badiddlyboing Idaho, wearing stripy teeshirts, shorts, baseball caps and Merell walking shoes. Our attire was suitable for waking around ruins in the hot sunshine, but we would never get asked to be extras in the next Godfather movie.

Perfect Peter and Sensible Susan from Badiddlyboing – hi y’all!

Our arrival at Neapolis coincided with another huge herd of students and numerous coaches of foreign tourists also wearing Merells and shorts. The park is a big open area with pathways winding between the various places of interest.

The first part we reached was the Greek theatre which was constructed about 500 BC. At one time it would have seated about 3,000 people watching the Greek equivalent of The Mousetrap or Les Mis. I wouldnt be surprised if Phantom of the Opera is still running two thousand years in the future in some glass dome on Mars.

The theatre was largely looted for its stone by the Spanish 500 years ago, but the stone seats have been replaced by timber seats and audiences still enjoy versions of classic Greek tragedies.

Above the theatre are caves which were probably overpriced cocktail bars at the time of Christ. Carved into the wall are many square niches of varying sizes. They are votive niches where people would place small statues in honour of the gods. Julie was convinced they were places to rest your cocktail during the intermission in tragedy, but they were too rough to support a proper Aperol Spritz glass.

Following the herd we went down steps to the Gardens of Paradise. This is an ironically named area which is now a garden filled with citrus trees, but was once a massive quarry and prison to thousands of slaves who carved out all the stone to build the city.

Gardens where slaves once quarried stone

Within the quarry are some enormous caves which were excavated for their building stone. The most impressive is Dionysus Ear, which tapers towards the top and reflects sound very well. It is particularly noticeable when there are 200 8 years old kids all shouting at once.

All around the park are statues of men with various body parts absent, sometimes there is just part of the face like a giant BAFTA mask. They do look good in context. The explanatory text that accompanies them is what I would call “total bollocks”, I sometime wonder what these artists are ingesting. Every time I go to the Tate Modern I think “Eh?” Just put me in the box marked pleb.

The last big site is the Roman Amphitheatre, which would have been as big as the one in Verona. But the Spanish stole all the stone in the 16th century to build Ortigia, so there are only remains left. The square tank in the middle is thought to be for containing all the gore after a circus event, and I don’t mean clowns on trick bicycles.

At the tip of Ortigia is Maniace Castle, a huge fortification first built by King Frederick II Of Swabia in the 13th century. It looks interesting, and on t’internet the ticket cost is a reasonable 4 Euros. It’s actually the entry price is a more unreasonable 9 Euros, considering what you get.

It has a huge Great Hall with nothing in it .There are several other empty stone rooms. You can descend steps to see Spanish gun emplacements with nothing in them.

The best part of the castle, the great hall

There really is fuck-all there, I have seen more explanation boards in a minor National Trust house than there is in this huge castle. You can’t even buy an ice-cream, which is a huge mistake. If the National Trust took it over there would be eager volunteers every 20 metres and a cafe with a huge array of cakes. It would be generating a massive profit within a week.

We left just as massive mob of teenagers arrived screaming like banshees.

Walking back through the narrow streets we saw an Ape three-wheeler trying to get past a big group of small children, the Ape didn’t stand a chance.

The Duomo is a gorgeous baroque cathedral on the outside, but considerably more subdued on the inside. The collonade of incredibly old Doric columns which were once part of a temple to Athen are massive and imposing.

We did enjoy sitting inside in the cool air sending WhatsApp messages. I’m sure its what Jesus would want

Doric columns – you knew that didn’t you?

After a big day of Culture we went and had a Spritz by the promenade and ate more UPF snacks – perfect.

Sicily 2024 – Catania

Sicily 2024 – Noto

Monday 20 May

Sicily has a long history, and for most of that time the primary means of transport was foot or horse. Consequently the Sicilian towns are not great places to drive around, we didn’t hire a car for our trip. So we are missing out on all the fun of being stuck behind tractors, driving round hair-pin bends up mountains and trying to find a parking place in a hill-top village.

The buses are regular and reasonably priced, but they are a bit slow. I have a thick Stephen King novel to read, so I can spare the time rattling along congested highways.

Today we went to Noto, which is about an hour to the south of Siracusa on a hill. Its origins go back to the Greeks, and has subsequently been occupied by all the many invaders after that. For a while it was part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a short lived 19th century kingdom. At the time, bizarrely, the Kingdom of Naples was also called the Kingdom of Sicily. When it amalgamated with yer actual Sicily it became the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.

There is a local Twickenham connection to this area. The daughter of King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies, Princess Amilie, married Phillipe the Duc D’Orleans and lived in Twickenham in Orleans House. He later became King of the French and she became the Queen.

Anyway I digress considerably. Noto was destroyed by an earthquake in 1693 and was rebuilt in the Baroque style, and is mostly intact. This is in contrast to other Sicilian cities which were badly damaged by bombing in WWII. It is a UNESCO Heritage site, so you can’t add Velux windows or bi-fold doors to your Baroque palazzo.

We arrived at the impressive entrance gate at the same time as about five million school kids moving like wilderbeest on the Serengeti. I’m sure Italians get lessons in how to talk over each other extremely loudly. Having a conversation appears to be a competitive event, and a sprint rather than a long distance race. The mass of kids were slowly ingested through the gate like a crocodile swallowing a herd of colourful squirrels.

Once they had been swallowed we took a side street up from the main drag. The road was steep and lined with honey coloured houses with fancy balconies. I was convinced that there would be a spectacular view of the stunning countryside at the top. But there was just a big white concrete wall. What a bloody waste of energy.

S0 we walked back down to the town centre on a footpath about two feet wide. When someone walked in the opposite direction with a dog it was a stare-off until I decided the dachshund looked vicious and stepped onto the road.

We stopped at a cafe and ordered a sandwich for me and a salad for Julie. Oh, and I had a Heineken, it’s my birthday still innit? I noticed that in the cafe opposite they had cones of fried seafood which smelled delicious, and I immediately got food envy. C’est la vie.

There was a kind of flower festival in the town, with displays made up of petals and coloured rice making pictures. That’s why there were so many school kids visiting. It is a well-known fact that kids adore floral displays.

I would imagine that the local pigeons and rats would make short work of the colourful displays, so maybe they mix the petals and rice with a hideous poison or guard them with marksmen on the rooftops.

I heard a car revving extremely hard and noisily in the street. There were lots of Carabiniere standing around in their tight trousers and side-arms, so I expected them to arrest the miscreants. Then I saw that it was a police Lamborghini that was making the racket, fucking show-off.

There were also some Carabiniere on horses letting people take selfies with them. I guess that would terrify any local Mafiosa thinking of selling cocaine amongst the floral displays.

Horse police for chasing down litter-bugs with sabres

The cathedral is very beautiful, and looks like it was built yesterday. Thats because quite a bit of it was built recently. The dome collapsed in 1996 due to unremidied structural weaknesses after an earthquake in 1990. Having seen how they build their houses in Siracusa, I’m not surprised.

Anyway it is very lovely now, and worth a visit. Inside it is relatively plain compared to other Catholic cathedrals, but the ceiling paintings are very good. I’m always at a loss to describe paintings, my vocabulary for that stuff is very limited, and i guess that’s why I never became an art critic.

Magnolia interior, it was on offer in Wickes

Noto has many many places to buy gelato, and today I had a piccolo-sized cone with chocolate and pistachio scoops. In fact I still have some tasty remnants in my beard I can enjoy for the rest of the evening.

The return bus to Siracusa was quicker than the outgoing and I slept for a while. The seats are designed for small people, and I am not. So I dozed bolt-upright with my head lolling about like a puppet with a broken head string.

We bought beers and went to our roof terrace to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and watch the swifts zipping about over the rooftops.

Julie is busy choosing a restaurant for dinner tonight, we didn’t eat out last night because we were full of salty snacks. I am, of course writing this wonderful blog for your entertainment.

Sicily 2024 – Neapolis Archeological Park

Sicily 2024 – Ortigia

Sunday 19 May

Julie woke me at 3am with a cup of tea. I now know how John Hamphries felt every day for about 30 years getting up for the Today programme.Bloody awful.

However it was MY BIRTHDAY so it was a very special day for little old me.

We drove up to Luton airport and arrived at 4.30. I say we, but actually Julie drove and I commented on all the middle lane hoggers on the M25, the annoying twats.

We had all the usual EasyJet experience which is too dull to relate, and arrived in Catania, the second city of Sicily.

Usually the first day of a holiday is sub-optimal. Where’s the bus stop at the airport? Which bus do we get to reach Siracusa? Don’t let those bastards get our seats! Then stuck on a crappy bus for over an hour looking at industrial suburbs before arriving in Siracusa.

But then you arrive and the actual holiday begins, woo hoo!

You gotta take the rough with the smooth, so there was a big thunderstorm on our way to the flat, and we had to invest in umbrellas that we will probably not use again.

The flat is on the 4th floor of an old building in Ortigia, which is Siracusa old town. It’s where Archimedes lived and was killed by a Roman soldier. Mathematical joke – what is Archimedes favourite food: Apple 3.141

Geddit!!!??

Ortigia is about 1000m long and 500m wide, a small peninsula that was the heart of ancient Syracuse. Sicily belonged to the Greeks and Carthaginians before it became Roman territory. The Duomo (cathedral) was a Greek and Roman temple, and incorporates Doric columns in its walls.

The Duomo with very impressive Baroque facade

I appreciated all the ancient beauty for several glorious minutes before being magnetically drawn into a gelateria. Since it was my birthday I had a big ice-cream, three big scoops plopped on top of each other. The gelato was geologically unstable, and the different strata soon slid around, and it nearly cascaded into my lap. But I skillfully re-established equilibrium with the tiny plastic spoon and my slobbery lips, before I had a gelato avalanche.

Ortigia reminds me of Valetta in scale and the baroque architecture that dominates the city after the 1693 earthquake. Where the rendering has fallen off some buildings you can see that they are built of rubble, bricks and mortar in a very haphazard fashion which would give a modern building inspector apoplexy. But they have stood for over 300 years, so I guess that construction method works.

On the sea front is the Fountain of Arethusa, a freshwater spring which has payrus growing in it. Arethusa is the patron nymph of Siracusa, and according to legend this is where she emerged from the underworld. I was looking out for her but she didn’t show up. Nymphs are very unreliable.

Arethusa’s Fountain, but she didnt show up

On the promenade we saw a cafe serving Aperol Spritz to happy looking people. So we joined them and also partook of the happiness. I sucked on my orange straw and consumed several small baskets of salty deep fried ultra processed food. Tim Spector would be horrified, but fuck it, its my birthday. By the way, the local Messina beer is very average, I prefer Lidl Perlenbacher. I do have sophisticated tastes.

Aproral Spritz, and abundance of UPF and dissappointing beer

Ortigia is very small and walkable. It is touristy, but it is not overwhelmed at the moment. Go there dear reader and you too will become as happy as I am.

As I type I’m on the terrace of our flat 5 stories up looking at terracotta roofs with swifts flying around in great haste. Being sixty eight does have some compensations.

Sicily 2024 – Noto

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