December 2009
3 posts
“More fun than a theme park!”
– Eamon, after our first time fishing. We caught about 6 in half an hour, all of them thrown back.
October 2008
34 posts
Daniel's Guide to Art
’that’s boring’, ‘this is boring’, ‘I wanta get outta here’
’ooooooo’, ‘interesting’
’willy… broken willy… leaf willy… no willy…big willy’
A few interesting holiday stats
1600 Photos. Family members, I’d be setting aside 6 hours now.
1 bee sting
40 other insect bites
132 gelati (and this is a low estimate)
1 badly sprained finger (scooter accident)
15 visits to the Panthenon
5 euro, thrown into the Trevi
77 bridges the pram was carried over in Venice
35 times Rob has read ‘Mr Bounce’, the only kids book Daniel didn’t lose.
...
Five Italian Mysteries
Why can’t you buy a plain old loaf of bread here?
Why are all the young Roman priests (belinda’s word) hot? Aren’t ugly people attracted to religion anymore?
Where have all the stylish people gone? 13 years ago it was all black and sharp, now it’s all Gen Y sloth.
Just how early is too early for gelati?
Just what do the Carabinieri do exactly?
Hmmmm.
Pompeii in a Day
Long bus trip from Rome. Yay for iPods.
The cast of dodgy “tour guides” and ripoff merchants circling the fresh meat by the entry gates made the Colosseum look like … oh, I don’t know, something Canadian.
Inside, 89 stunningly well preserved thermopolia but not a single place to buy a snack or a drink. Oh, and you can’t pop out and return on your original ticket. So...
Our Eating Out Tips
Belinda’s holiday plan was to come to Italy, sit and eat, so eat we did! After many spectacular feasts and a few bitter disappointments we have made ourselves the following rules we would like to share;
1 never eat in a restaurant in a famous piazza or, in fact, near anything famous. If the prices don’t get you the pigeons will.
2 never eat anywhere where they greet you with...
Where Did the Line Go?
When we were planning our trip to Rome we were frequently reminded of the horror that is the queue to the Vatican Museum…hours spent baking in the sun or simply giving up and walking away. We’re not sure how it happened but sometime along the way our children had been whipped up into a Sistine Seeing frenzy. So today we launched our attack. We packed snacks, water, games, books and...
Otto Euro My A***
In Rome there appears to be two prices for everything. One is what you pay if you speak Italian and the other is what they will try and flog to the bewildered tourist. During the last month in Italy we have been trying to improve our language skills by;
talking to the owners of the various places we have stayed in maybe a little bit longer than is polite and
watching way too many Italian game...
When in Rome...
Firstly a bit of a boast by Belinda, she managed to get us all to our apartment by conversing with our Taxi driver who could only speak, wait for it, Indian! No seriously the Italian lessons may just have paid for themselves.
Our first day in Rome has been spent cruising with the kids to some fabulous ancient landmarks such as The Disney Store, Mc Donalds, The Metro escalators (both ways!) and...
5 things we expect to collapse like the...
The stroller
Eamon’s scooter
My arches
The Australian dollar. (Oh, wait, that happened already).
The Italian Gelati Industry as we stop pouring in cash
Leaving Lucca
So tomorrow we leave Lucca for Rome. In a way, it will feel like the holiday is already over and we’re back to the hard work of Being Tourists. Less than 2 weeks before I’m back at work. Eek!
Lucca has been an ideal base for the sort of holiday we chose to have: it’s tourist-friendly without being too tourist-trappy, big enough that you don’t feel like you’ve seen it...
Cinque Terre
The sun was shining, the train tickets booked (rob spoke English this time), the snacks packed so off we went to walk the Cinque Terre along with 5000 other middle aged retirees in either white shorts, white shoes, white legs or white hair. And whilst our fellow travellers had all sensibly researched the walking tracks, we decided to tackle them blind with two preschoolers and a stroller!
As it...
Italian Telly
Many a night in Lucca is spent in front of the Telly where we have discovered a shared love of the following programmes:
The wheel of fortune (La ruota della fortuna). The aim of this show is not to guess the phrases but to work out within 30mins if the female letter-spinner is wearing underwear. A selection of ‘upskirt’ camera angles is provided to assist you with your quest.
Who...
Lucca
We finally arrived at our apartment in the middle of Lucca. Always a scary prospect to book a place on the internet but our apartment is perfect. There are a couple of faults like not all the lights work, the shower leaks and there isn’t enough power to use the washing machine and dishwasher at the same time but who cares, we’re in Tuscany baby!!
We are slowly exploring our new home...
And now for Italy!
Ci siamo! Our first stop was Venice and despite being the most amazing city ever created the constant throng of tourists does get you down…thank goodness we didn’t visit during the summer. The kids however loved it; the gelati, the canals, chasing the pigeons, the boat rides, did we mentioned the gelati? Rob bought the boys matching gondolier T-shirts and they were subsequently...
We'll Always Have (sore feet from) Paris
From Dublin, to Charles De Gaulle airport, to a ratty French suburban train, to change trains in the Metro, another couple of stops, and then emerge blinking in the middle of Montparnasse … OMG, it’s Paris!
I managed my first transaction entirely in French at the airport; sadly, that involved purchasing the wrong ticket at 3 times the price. So clutching our billets de 1 jour, we...
September 2008
6 posts
The Irish Bit
Once the wedding was over we had some free time to explore Dublin and its surrounds. Our kids soon discovered the delights of riding up top on, as Daniel calls it, the “double-necker” bus. We managed one day to get out of the city to the Wicklow mountains where the boys once again spent many happy hours throwing rocks at stuff. We also travelled to Kilkenny home of the Kilkenny Castle...
"The Talk of the Village"
Apparently, a bridal party full of Australians stopping at the Ballypatrick pub on the way to the wedding doesn’t happen often. Ballypatrick is the village in Tipperary at the bottom of the hill below the church in Kilcash. As the limo carrying the bridal party swung around the corner to head up the hill, the girls realised two things: firstly, that they were 10 minutes early and in danger...
We Made It!
So the plane trip was a bit less traumatic than we’d feared. A Bob The Builder jigsaw puzzle was the saviour, as it kept Daniel occupied for half an hour at a time at several critical points in proceedings. Nonetheless, we wouldn’t recommend flying two preschoolers to Ireland as a relaxing way to spend a day and a half.
Right now we’re in Clonmel, the night before the wedding....
August 2008
3 posts
WatchNothing to do with this holiday; just trying out vimeo with tumblr.
1 tag
Foreword
Hi,
On September 10th we leave Melbourne for 7 weeks to explore the delights of Europe with two preschoolers. If you would like to follow our descent into insanity then look here for reasonably spaced travel updates and “we’re here and you’re not” smugness.
Cheers,
Belinda Rob Eamon and Daniel.