I have been on holiday on the Italian Riviera and, all week, I have been trying to share some of my experiences in these blogs. Mostly, as I confessed, I planned to have a lazy relaxing time lying on the…
I’ve been writing about my recent holiday on the Italian Riviera this week in these blogs so if you have been following them you will know that I ‘ve just spent a fortnight in the small seaside town of Santa…
Even though I have been lucky enough to have spent most of the last weeks abroad on holiday, first in Sicily and just recently the USA, I have been on a determined bid to get back into my martial arts…
I was taken to visit the small and atmospheric town of Lambertville in New Jersey last week by friends who had told me that it was an American equivalent of the small arty town of Lewes in England where I…
It was a lovely clear Sicilian morning when I made the perverse decision to take a trip up Mount Etna. I began to wonder why as the coach zig-zagged up the narrow road through the lava-strewn lower levels of this 3323m (10,902.2…
Having Viking blood in your veins can be a disadvantage when travelling in hot countries. Over a thousand years ago, judging by some of the names on my family tree, Vikings married some of my Hebridean relations and left me…
I decided to go to Sicily for my holidays this year for a number of reasons. The sun, obviously, the sea too but there were other reasons. I can no longer imagine not going to Italy at least once a…
When I woke up the other weekend, I had forgotten that I was in Venice but the view from my hotel room soon reminded me. On my trip round Switzerland and Italy, I had come to Venice for the weekend…
This was the view from my bedroom window when I awoke at around 5.00 one morning whilst staying in the luxurious appartment of my obsessively hospitable relations Franz and Mathilde in a small town near Zurich in Switzerland. The Zurichsee,…
I shall be going to Florence in less than a week and I am truly excited about it. I stayed in the peerless Italian city of Florence in January 2008 – it was my first visit even though I had…