My view on Italy - by Elizabeth

My view on Italy - by Elizabeth
We all enjoy a gelati in Greve in Chianti

Me walking up the hill behind our place in Greve in Chiani - walking to Montefiorelle

Another beautiful view
My experiences in Italy - by Elizabeth

Today we are in Italy. Yesterday we went to Lucca. We hired some bikes, two gear bikes for William and I, and tandem bikes for mum and dad to have Xavier and James on the back of them. We road on Lucca's wall. The wall is famous for the trees that grow on it and how wide it is. It was fun. We stopped at a park on the way around the wall. It had a swing, 2 slides, a climbing frame, a wizzy dizzy and monkey bars. Then we went to the Piazza in the centre of Lucca. It had very nice gelati. We had some. I did a report on the Roman ampitheatre that we were in - it is now the place where the piazza is.
Italy is wonderful. I love it. It feels like home although it is very different. They take alot of time and care with their food and it tastes better than home. The fruit and vegies are yummy. The strawberries are more light and the broccoli is more bright and tastier.
The people are kind but when it comes to the la
nguage it is a little wierd. It isn't hard though once you have learnt it though.
Right now I am sitting on our beautiful verandah in Greve in Chianti. I am listening to the birds swooping and chirping. We have a river right beside our house and I have named all the cats that sit on the banks of the river. The girl black and white one is Angie, the boy black and white one is Spike, the white one with the stripey tail is Earl, the white one is Vinnie, the black one is Midnight and the grey one is Bambie. Sometimes the ducks go along the river too.
From where I am sitting right now I see the beautiful mountains rushing between my eyes, the beautiful houses, all rectangular and all different colours, the River Greve scurrying through the arch and my beautiful mum sitting right in front of me.
Tonight we had some spagetti that was nice, but we could have had some more spagetti. We also had an entree of salami, tomatoes, bread sticks and olives, and some oil to dip the bread in.
Tonight dad and I skipped down to the shops and got a kinda surprise. It had chocoloate on one side and a toy on the other side - a little bit different to the ones in Australia. We bought one for William and one for me.
This is our balcony at our place in Greve in Chianti
I really miss everyone at home and I wish that you could all be over here too.
Elizabeth

Arriving in Italy

We had heard a number of horror stories of how Ryan Air manages to cut costs. The fact that we paid 1 pound each for our flishts from London to Pisa, Italy meant that we were going to be amazed to see how they were going to make money on us. As is turns out they were fantastic and a breath of fresh of fresh air. After we boarded this 12 year old kid in a pilots uniform and entered the cockpit area. Gab and I felt a little old looking at our junjior pilot.Ryan Air sold food on the flight such as cup-a-soups that we purchased. They would give you a cup and come round with a kettle and fill it with hot water for you. After the food extravaganxa was finished (it was 7am by this stage), the flight attendant who must have been all of 17 then started selling scratchies. At least then we had the answer as to how they were going to making money on the Gordon's. We had heard that the Italians were a bit pushy when it came to queues so we were determined to show how Australians could hold up there end. As it turned out the Gordons were a dead last getting out of customs and our 3 pieces of luggage were looking pretty lonely as we arrived at the baggiage collection area. We picked up our hire 'bus' and everyone clambered on board. We took off for the hour and a half drive from Pisa with Gab and Scott displaying the usual level of calmness despite the fact that we were driving on the wrong side of the road, in a small bus full of nigly children who had been up since 3.15am. We had precise directions to get to our accommodation which worked fine until we got to the town square, which we were meant to drive through, and discovered that it was market day and the square was closed to traffic. Scott dumpted Gab and the kids off to try to find the accommodation whilst he attempted to park the bus. Scott finally parked the bus and returned to Gab and the children who had managed to purchase bread (a bit rock-like), cheese, strawberries and tomatoes by conversing in Italian - well done Gab!Scott was simply amazed that Gab was hiding her fluent Italian language from him after 12 years of marriage!He said - you are full of surprises darling!Xavier needed the toilet and Gab couldn't handle that so Scott took over - well done Scott!Our accommodation is like a scene out of 'Under the Tuscan Sun'. It is almost a clique of almost everything you expect an Italian villa and village to be. Now the fun of conversing with real Italians begins.We insisted on each person learning a sentence or too then trying it out on the locals. William arranged a table for six, Elizabeth asked where the toilets were, Xavier asked for olive oil and Scott asked for tomatoes and ham. Once you successfully test out your Ilatian language Scott took a phot as your record of your achievement. The food here is simply tastier than home - it is superb! We think it is because the raw ingedients are fresher and tastier. The tomatoes for example smell like an dtast like they are from some home grown plot. The capsicums are sweeter than cherries and the broccholi is even liked by William!We went out for one meal to a recommended pasta place and had gnocci with a tomato and basic sauce and Scott had ravioli with a mushroom and truffel sauce - both out of this world. The salad was also beautful. It was all sensational.Our first tour was to a couple of random of towns down south. Scott notices a little sign saying "Etruscan tombs'. This we discovered was a complex of 3000 year old tombs that pre-date Jesus by about 800 years. We found a village nearby that had a great museum with a display of Etruscan artifacts as well as a nifty 14thC tower to climb. We also visited Lucca. Lucca is another walled city that was built at the time Florence and Siena were at war. The fortress walls around Lucca are so thick that they have enormous trees growing out of the top and a huge roadway on which you can hire bikes to easily pedal along. We decided to do this, thinking that James would be happy to sit in a baby seat. How wrong we were. James threw a tantrum and insistied on riding on a tanderm bike with Scott which we eventually gave in to, so hiring 4 bikes (one for William, one for Elizabeth, One for Scott and James and one for Gab and Xavier (tandem bikes)) we headed off on our journey of the wall. After 50m Scott called for a phot stop and Gab went to pull the camera out of her bike basket. It seemed that we had been robbed. Gab sent William back to the bike shop for a look around where he discovered the camera sitting in another bike basket very similar to the bike she was riding. Gab then said she was too stressed for any photo's for the time being.Everyone thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the bike ride, the freedom, the overtaking, the enormous plane trees, the history, the locals. It was almost dream-like in its beauty. After our ride we returned our bikes (16Euro for one hour for all our bikes - not bad) and ventured through the city. We explored the town on foot. Lucca is full of the sort of back streets you would imagine you would find in Rome or in any Italian movie. That is until you hit the central square which is jaw dropping when you walk into as it is a perfect oval shape. It turns out that the central square is actually a roman ampitheatre that was destroyed in 1100AD. The buildings have been rebuild on the foundations of the ampitheatre. We took rest with gelati and coffee. The trick with ordering food at Italian restuarants is to not sit down at the tables. Our whole order was just 7 euro (about 13 dollars). This dispells the myth that Italy is ridiculously expensive!On the way back to Greve in Chianti (our home base) it was pelting rain and Gab displayed amazing naviagation skills where she did not need maps or signs to get us back home. She in fact uses a thing that she has picked up in Italy that she calls "the vibe". We got home in record time and then William and Elizabeth decided they were confident enough to go out on theri own to purchase the supplies for their evening meal. They purchased beautiful fresh spinach ravioli, spicy tomato sauce and freshly grated parmesan, as well as the raw ingredients for a salad. The fact that they had purchased this feast off shopkeepers who could not speak English made Gab and Scott very proud of their achievement.Another day in Italy is upon as and we are very much enjoying this next experience on our trip.

Our farewell to England

As we prepare to leave England we can look back at a very enjoyable, educational and cultural experience, both in terms of seeing a new country and in getting to know our own family better. We have now been travelling for almost four weeks - that's four weeks living in each others pockets. Remarkably we all still like each other and have grown together as a family.

The children are generally playing really well together and stick together on our our excursions around the country.The places we have chosen to visit in England and Scotland, and you can't possibly take in every landmark, have been the Cheshire region, London, York and Edinburgh. All of these places have had so much to teach us and for us to take in.

The Cheshire region, particulary the township of Helsby where we made our first stop, and Chester are both lovely towns. Helsby, small but interesting, particularly with the climbing of the Helsby Hill, and Chester, a largish town with wonderful roman history, great architecture and of course the 'wall' around the city. We used public transport right throughout the region and it was fantastic. Punctual, easy to follow, cheap and gave us an opportunity to sit back and look at the countryside. Scott, Elizabeth and William also took a trip to Liverpool for one day which, although terrible weather hit them, was enjoyable and yet another experience.

Travelling down to London by train was fantastic and took only 2 1/2 hours to travel what would have taken at least 5 in a car ( and no doubt endless fights about directions and keeping the children quiet so we could concentrate). Instead, we could sit back in the train, enjoy the views and even do some work on the laptop as the train have wireless internet access.After we got over the initial shock of navigating through the Undergound for the first time, with 4 children, 3 pieces of hand luggage and 3 suitcases, we found our home with the Fransiscan Nuns just near Victoria Station, a very central part of London. This place was such a solace in such a big city and we did very much enjoy coming home to them each afternoon after days of exploring London. We really enjoyed the walking, the Museum of Natural History, the Rainforest Cafe, The Imperial War Museum, Hyde Park and the Undergound. There is so much more to see in London, but time doesn't allow you to see everything. The children in particular really enjoyed our breakfasts each morning in the dining room of the Nun's residence. Sister Connie would bring us our breakfast, consisting either of bacon and eggs or sausages and eggs, toast and juice. Yummy! Thank-goodness we were doing alot of walking.!

Leaving London from Kings Cross Station we couldn't resist going to visit Platform 9 3/4 to get our fix of Harry Potter land. We then travelled to York, once again on the train.York was a great place to settle for 6 days. The town has a Roman and a Viking History so once again we got to well and truly brush up on our history. It certainly makes it far easier to get the overall 'vibe' of English history when you are walking in it. We visited many places in York, but the highlight would have to be when it snowed - we were all very excited.

Our last stop was Edinburgh in Scotland. A city with an enormous castle towering over it is pretty impressive and we were continually in awe of the presence the castle made in the town. We walked around the city many times, and still didn't manage to see it all in six days. We did however enjoy the afternoon and lunch with some Warrnambool people which was a breath of fresh air.

We then travelled back down to London, to Stanstead, to take the plane to Italy. We stayed just near the airport for 2 nights and Scott was able to catch up with some friends of some friends of ours from Mornington. He really enjoyed his night out and it was great to be taken out and shown around by a local.

We said good-bye to England on a rather chilly Saturday morning at 6.30am, having risen at 3.15am to ensure we didn't miss the plane.

Our journeys around England were very special and will hold many great memories for us all. The children have astounded us with their resilience. They have taken to a new country, different accents, new places and lots of walkiing and new experiences without any major concerns.We no embark on the next part of our adventure - Italy!

Photo's of our day in Edinburgh

A collage of our day in Edinburgh!

Edinburgh - our experience

Last Friday we said good-bye to York and headed on the train to Edinburgh (Scotland). We loved York and found it to be such an interesting city for both adults and children alike. Our favourite places were the Viking Centre, walking the Roman walls and the Red Lion (which became our 'local'. We were able to enjoy 2 roast beef meals with plenty of vegetables, beef and gravy and this fed the 6 of us, all for 12 pounds. We bacame 'regulars' and were able to enjoy the conversation with the barman who welcomed us back a number of times over our 6 days. It was a very old pub built in the 1600's with 5 small rooms and many fireplaces. The lemonade and beer were very enjoyable too.

Unfortunately it was only on the last morning that we discovered an fantastic park now far from where we were staying which I am sure the children would have enjoyed - never mind - there will be many more on our travels.

We had to make the difficult decision of whether to head straight up to Edinburgh or spend the weekend in Scarborough or Whitby (both seaside townships on the English coast north east of York. In the end we decided to head straight to Edinburgh. The weather was pretty dismal and a train trip to the coast would have meant a few extra hours travel to Scotland later in the week. Sorry to our neighbours Albert and Mary as I know they were keen on us visiting 'their' part of England. Maybe we will still get there at some stage on our travels.

Our train trip to Edinburgh was uneventful. It was interesting looking out at the countryside and as we travelled on we even go to to see the sea. It is certainly very relaxing travelling on the train and having someone else be responsible for directions - when we travel to Italy in a few days and hire a car I sense that it may be a little different ( and the stress levels may rise).

Edinburgh is such a wonderful looking city, especially with the castle rising with such beauty right in the middle of the city. What am impressive sight. You can just imagine sitting in the castle and waiting for the enemy try to attack!

Our arrival in Edinburgh at Waverley Station on a coolish afternoon was overshadowed, on my behalf, by a concern that the accommodation I had booked over the internet may not work out. We had an address to go to so all jumped into a taxi (a 5 seater but they were quite happy to take six plus our luggage) and headed there. It was enjoyable looking out at a new city. We arrived at the address and were let out - onto a fairly busy street with lots of shops, built entirely of 4 story high buildings. I think we all thought that the Novotel up the road was looking pretty good.

We were met by an italian fellow who quickly showed us into the building and up a flight of stairs to our apartment. Scott waited downstairs with our luggage ready for a quick get-away.

Much to our suprise the apartment was really just what we wanted. It had 4 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen equipped with all our needs, and a bathroom. We settled in and then went for a walk to pick up some supplies - food!

Our six days in Edinburgh were filled with lots of walking, visits nearly everyday to the local park with the most fantastic playground we have yet seen, called The Meadows and visiting local tourist attractions. We managed to be in Edinburgh on one of the three days of the year when Edinburgh Castle is open free to all visitors. We made the most of this and went along. We spent the money we saved on a great little Italian Restaurant in the Royal Mile called Gordon's Trattoria. We couldn't resist going to this place!

The Royal Mile a road a mile long, built of cobble stones, which links Edinburgh Castle to Hollyrood Castle.

Edinburgh's most famous street is probably Princess Street. Many landmarks are built on the street including Scott's Monument, built in honour of Sir Walter Scott (we didn't quite work out who he actually was), the Art Gallery which is actually made of of two galleries, one with modern works and one with old works including works by Monet, Rubens and Titans. We asked the guard which was the most expensive painting and he pointed to a $100 million (AUS) Titian's painting of some nude women. William thought it was disgusting. I am sure in time to come his opinion will change!

We took a bus out to Ocean Terminal which is where the Britannica is docked, enjoyed a tourist attraction called Camera Obscura, which has lots of optical illusions, a great demonstration of a camera obscura which, through a mirror and a couple of lenses, reflects with amazing clarity the views of outside onto a table. This was great.

We have taken lots of photos of Edinburgh, here are some of them.

One of the highlights of our visit to Edinburgj was our visit to a family who used to live in Warrnambool - Laurie and Brioney Lee. Laurie grew up in Warrnambool and married a girl from Edinburgh about 12 years ago. They now live in Edinburgh with their 2 children Annie and Angus. We really enjoyed our day spent with them and the children very much enjoyed a day playing with other children (and their toys).

We are now headed on the train back down toward London, to Stanstead Airport. We will stay near the airport for Thursday and Friday nights before heading off to Italy early Saturday morning.

Our day at the Jorvik Viking Centre and in York - by Elizabeth

Today we went to the Jorvik Viking Centre. It took quite a while to get there, passing through the city wall (photo left) that was around York. We walked to the Viking Centre. When we got there there was a little bit of a queue. We lined up. This was the first time we had had to line up on our trip.

We eventually got into the entrance foyer and had a chat to the lady who served us about what other things they had on offer besides the Viking Centre. We got tickets for the Viking Centre and an Archeological Dig which we will do on Thursday. We went down some

stairs. On the walls they had these sections of walls that showed different periods in time, from Roman times till now, with Medieval times in between. At the bottom we waited in a line again to go into the time machine. While we were in the line there we saw framed pictures on the walls. One of them had Prince Charles on a ladder climbing up. I guess was that was him getting out of a hole. We went to the toilet whilst waiting, but when we got out we had missed the doors to go into the time machine so had to wait again. When we finally got in there the mad professor introduced himself and they had a screen which showed two people in modern times and we watched them travel back in time, getting older clothes on each time. The background changes too. They were still in the same place but the years were going back. The seats were shaking too. They went back to the year 925AD.

When we went out of the time machine there was a passage. We walked through it then we were met by a lady dressed as a lady from Viking times. (photo on right)

There was a machine that had seats in it, a bit like a one row train and we hoppedin it. It could fit all six of us in two rows - three in each. I sat in the back row with Mum and William, Dad was in the front with James and Xavier. Then it started moving. It went round and showed us life sized models and other things of life in Medieval York. There were speakers in each of our seat which gave us a commentary of the display. I chose the kids one. It went round. A girl was speaking to me on the headphones. It was very interesting. I wouldn't have liked to lived in these times because I would miss the modern way things work. Also, I wouldn't have liked to live there because they wore bear-skins and I think these would be a little bit itchy. They even showed a man on a toilet.

When we left the ride there was a man there who was wearing clothes like a Viking would. I had a photo taken with him. Here it is:

I thought the Viking Centre was very interesting and I would like to go on the ride through it again.

When we left the Centre we had some lunch which we purchased from Marks and Spencers. I had a cheese and tomato roll and a drink. It was very yummy.

We went for a walk around the city, passing alot of shops and lots of walls. We took a few

photos. Here they are:

Then we found the York Library. I really wanted to go in because then I would get some new books to read. We went in and found the childrens section. I sat in this big comfy chair thing with cushions and I read a good book called the Red Hot Chilli. Here is a photo of me in the library.

We all read for a while and then dad promised that we would come again another day, as long as we left straight away. We left straight away.

We left and walked to a shop called GAP. Mum wanted to get some new trousers for dad because dad had only brought one pair of trousers with him. Dad got some nice brown trousers.

Then dad took James and Xavier home while William, Mum and I got something for tea. Xavier wanted to come too but it was too cold and Xavier needed to get into the warmth of our house.

I had a good day.

A day in Liverpool

Liverpool, home of the Beatles, the Titanic and our next door neighbours in Mornington, Ted and Lillian. Being a short ride from Helsby, we had to visit. That the short ride turned out to be a 3 hour return trip in horrible weather just added to the adventure.

Gab, James and Xavier decided to have a lay day in Helsby so it was just the 'A team' of William, Elizabeth and Dad who struck out in freezing cold weather. We arrived at the Liverpool Bus Termimus to pelting rain. We asked the bus driver where the main tourist area was and he pointed to the docks 400m away. We realised we could either spend a dry day in the bus terminus or make a run for it.

We finally got to the docks. We three drowned rats went to the museum attendant and jokingly asked for the hair dryers. He kindly pointed us to a bank of hand-dryers which we hogged for 20 minutes. Then it was off to explore the Maritmime Museum of Liverpool. There was a hall full of the most amazing ship models we are likely to see in our lives.

The highlight was a 30 foot model of the Titanic (left) which had it's name plate removed after a mid-Atlantic shipping accident.

The next highlight was the 4th floor that was actually a museum of slavery. Liverpool turns out to be one of the biggest slave ports in the world and the city is now only acknowledging its heritage. The museum concentrated on many of the ghoulish aspects of the slave trade, but also highlighted the cultures of the African tribes from where the slaves were taken.

Liver building (left)

We had a special mission from our neighbour Ted to go to the top of the Liver Building and check out the giant Liver birds on top of the building. We battled our way there to the entrance lobby

where we were met by the building attendant. We explained that we had travelled from Australia with a goal of getting up close and personal to the Liver Birds. The guard was very impressed that we had come so far and then explained that there was no chance of us getting any further than the lobby. Elizabeth and William even tried their patented sad faces, but to no avail. We should have brought James!

It was then off to the Liverpool world museum to see what they had to offer. Elizabeth decided she could no longer walk and would only travel by bus. William insisted on walking, so we had a 3 minute stale-mate whilst we all looked at each other. In the end we caught the bus!

As I relucantly opened my wallet to pay for another bus fare - William worked out that it was the same bus company we had come to Liverpool on, and as we had an all day pass, we didn't have to pay again.

The Liverpool World Museum was very disappointing other than one of the original rockets (left) they used at Woomera which we took a photo of for our friend Paul who was a Woomera boy. We got back on the bus and went home, in the rain.

Elizabeth was in charge of the bus tickets which we had to pull out about 8 times throughout the day. She handled this task brilliantly.

We arrived back home to a beautiful hot meal and lots of kisses and hugs after our big adventure.