Great shop windows from our travels

Some of the shop window displays from our travels..

Luqidation por Jubliation was in Spain, also the Justeat.com sign with all the jamon
 the others are from .......Italy of course!  The last pic is one of a creative approach .....a ute Paros style, just connect your trailor to your rotary hoe and off you go....2miles per hour

Venice

Venice is fantastic. I love the fact that you have to get everywhere by foot or boat.....no cars or crazy scooter drivers. The public water buses can get you everwhere and its fascinating taking different routes. We took one route out round the back of the port to get to San Marco and it was incredible to see the industry involved in getting products, produce......everything in to Venice by boat, barge etc. Even the police boats whizzing along the canals with their blue lights flashing look perfect.  Wandering the back canals and getting lost is all part of it.

Paros

Having a great time in Paros. We purposefully chose a 'quiet' island to visit. After the hustle and bustle of Rome this is paradise. We are staying in Pension Sofia which is 5mins walk to town, beach, port etc but set in gorgeous gardens with olive trees, gazebos and hammocks......if the beach is not your thing you can chill out in the garden with a good book. Its a great spot, so much so we are staying an extra night before Naxos. Paros has a small town, lots of wee coves and beaches and its super relaxing. Today we hired 50cc scooters and explored the island. It was fantastic fun, though we must have looked a bit daggy on the scooters. We found a perfect cove, aqua blue crystal clear water, a pictur postcard church on on end of the bay and a wee marina at the other end. Noone there but us, jumped off the scooters, into togs and jumped in.......glorious!

Athens

Arrived at Athens airport 23.45 and got the local bus into town. As we stepped off the bus to try and find our hotel a man asked us where we were going, then crossed the square with us and showed us the way. This has been our experience of Greece so far, everyone super friendly, helpful and will go out of the way to help you.  We walked up to the Acropolis in the late afternoon and it was spectacular. All over Athens there are these big dogs just laying about on the marble flagstones asleep, they are everywhere. One was flopped down in front of the guard house at Parliament buildings. They get hot, stop and lay down and everyone works around them, saw one on the road, another in the Swatch shop door way, everyone went around them......mind you they are big dogs.  Nipped out to Piraeus and organised ferry tickets to Paros for some R&R.  Weather still hot, hot hot.....musnt grumble.

Escape from Rome to a garden in Tivoli

A very hot day in Rome so jumped on the metro and local bus to Tivoli to visit the famous water gardens Villa d'Este. It was a fabulous day, the house and gardens are spectacular, the best example of 16th century house and garden design in the renaissance style. Got some great ideas for our next garden.

Rome

Have walked all over Rome the last few days. Its loud, busy, noisey and full of tourists as you would expect but the monuments, museums and national treasures are breath taking. We were walking down a back street and came to a four way intersection which had four Bernini fountains, one on each corner...'quartro fontana via'...incredible. I love the fountains in the piazza's, the gelato is too good on a hot day and St Peter's and the Collosseum and Forum amazing feats of engineering and design and the fact they are still standing today after all this time.....its ......incredible. No wonder Rome is so full of tourists. Have noticed a much increased presence of Carbinari around from when I was last here...in the train and metro stations.....all the major sites...I'm sure still a lot of sucessful pick pockets and the street traders selling knock off designer gear are down the back lanes doing good business. Another hot day in Rome, off to explore....some pics of Rome.

We were in the Cinque Terre

Had a great couple of days in the Cinque Terre region. Gorgeous blue waters, more boats parked in the streets than cars, great coastal walks and amazing fresh seafood. Really relaxing place. The area suffered a major flood October 25 last year and they are working hard to repair all the damage. Half of the coastal path is closed due to landslides, so you take a boat for that bit and its beautiful.  Left Monterossa this morning on a 6.20 train to Pisa, then Florence and Rome. Some pics from Cinque Terre and then off to explore Rome

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