Last day in Pisa, and Italy, and the Ryanair Adventure

Up the leaning tower of Pisa to view the hazy city, a crazy pose in front of the Leaning Tower – a must, apparently after watching everyone else do so - visiting the cathedral, a walk around the Pisa's Cathedral Square and it is time to depart or the Galileo Galilei Airport.

 Uh oh, what a scene – why are the xray machines not working?  Why are there crowds standing around not moving? Delays?  Cancellations ?? Fog???  We never saw any clouds – just distant haze….  Old radar?  Over cautious pilots?  We spoke to many interesting people during our long wait – and heard about lives, families, work etc and the inconvenience.  Very late in the evening we were all informed that there would be no more flights and that there were stretchers upstairs. Really??? Sure enough, a large room was crammed with them, each stretcher accompanied with a thick orange plastic wrapped blanket.  This was not good enough!  Wait, our flight is being called – a bus to a hotel?  That’s better!   After travelling for an hour, at 2.30am we arrived at a Novotel Hotel at an airport north of Florence.  At this striking but very old hotel, we were quickly registered and departed to our warm room of 2 single beds with one small pillow each and a very stained, cigarette butted carpet, for 4 hours sleep before breakfast and an hour’s trip back to the Pisa Airport.  London, here we come 18 hours later – at last!!!!

Monaco - boating paradise in the sun

We travelled by rail from Nice to Monaco. We emerged from the railway station, which is modern, marble paved and set in the middle of the mountain into sunshine, warmth, to a scene crowded with wall to wall boats on the blue waters and wall to wall hotels and apartments piled up against the mountains. After strolling along the waterfront admiring all the yachts we moved on to inspect the Monaco Yacht Club's Racing Mark Laying boat. Instead of using anchors to secure the marks on the ocean floor, we noted that concrete blocks on the end of twine are used. Presumably the twine is cut and the blocks remain on the ocean floor! I wonder what the archeologists in the year 5000 will make of these when researching it for clues of human activities in the year 2009! After retiring to the very modern, classy Monaco Yacht Club for refreshments, we walked to the top of the old town and visited the Aquarium. Built by Prince Albert of Monaco, a passionate ocean and wildlife exporer in the late 1800's, the building hosts many acquariums of unusual and endangered fish and sealife. While inspecting the exhbition, and finding out about the research techniques carried out by Prince Albert and his team, one wonders if these practices would be acceptable today. However the sealife exhibits talk a lot about conservation, preservation and of the aquarium's most successful breeding programme for overseas aquariums. If you ever venture to this neck of the woods, the Aquarium is well worth a visit.

Out into the sunshine again we strolled, and relaxed at one of the cafes near the palace, where royalty still live, to enjoy Monaco's award winning beer. Then, somewhat reluctantly, we wended our way to the beautiful Monaco railway station back to Nice.

Oh, that's right - it is Saturday! Time to watch the New Zealand All Blacks play the French!! And to enjoy the conviviality of the Hotel bar where there is a wide screen TV!

And then, tomorrow, to sunny, exciting Cannes....... uh oh - don't like the look of the clouds - surely that cannot be correct????

Christmas holiday in the Snow

As our plane travelled down below the clouds to land at the St Petersburg Airport, we gazed out at a city and country scene covered with a white blanket of snow. Chris' dream of having a white Chrismas has come true!

But what will being in a white wintery world really be like? All we have done so far is walk for 30 seconds from a warm airport to a very warm hotel, and back, so far!


And that is what it has been, over the three days in St Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, Russia. Sometimes our bedroom is too hot for our layers of thermals, winter garments and jackets. Then we go outside, all togged up and think - yes we do have enough on. Then we get into a warm car, museum, shop or restaurant, and we are roasting again!

It's lovely being in St Petersburg at this time of year. It is almost surreal, walking along the streets, with the sidewalks covered in snow, and soft snowflakes twirling out of the sky on your hair, face and clothes. And in the twilight, of which there is plenty, gazing at the beautiful street Xmas decorations.


As a result of their past opression, Russians love celebrating anything today. So the Xmas decorations in the streets were erected in December and will be up intil the orthodox Christmas on January 7. Each year the decorations are improved upon, and swapped from area to area so everyone sees something different. This year 74 artificial Xmas trees were decorated and erected around the city. 20 of these were over 18 meters high and 33 were more than 20 metres high. The largest and only real tree (which apparantly took over 100 years to grow) was erected, as per tradition in the Palace Square.

So when people travel to St Petersburg in the future may expect to find an extremely awesome Christmas display, not only from the trees, but on the buildings, over the streets and in the shops. Even the trees and buildings, decorated by nature with their coating of snow, give a dramatic look to the Christmas scene.

We are not sure what we will do to celebrate Xmas day, as the emphasis for party celebrations seems to be on New Year's Eve. As the shops and museums will be open all day on Christmas Day, we will probably just go cruise around the city. But we don't mind - it was worth all the travelling just to enjoy the Xmas season....