Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 April 2006 16:48:01
In the last ten days we have:
- Been to three capital cities
- Spent a very large amount of time in queues (see below)
- Spent almost as much time trogging round looking for left luggage offices in large European train stations
- Spent far more time than that on trains, though that was more pleasant than the queues or the left luggage offices.
- Seen the Sistine Chapel, which should be a deeply religious experience, but was somewhat spoiled by the very claustrophobic route into it, and the multiple illegal flash cameras going off in the very crowded space
- Seen some rather lovely modern art at the Vatican, in a beautifully frescoed set of apartments, which was much more appealing than the Sistine Chapel
- Seen the Coliseum (something that old, and that large, just sitting there!)
- Seen the Palatine Hill, the Fora, and lots of bits of Roman marble just lying about the street... anyone could walk off with them!
- Didn't see Titus or Lucius. Swizz.
- Eaten far too many ice creams, plates of pasta, and cornetti, the latter mainly at Il Gambero (it actually means The Crayfish, but the picture looked like a prawn), a café round the corner from our hotel. Oh, and I forgot the hot cross buns and the Easter eggs.
- Been told about 500,000,000 times by The Spouse™ that our new suitcase is Too Big. Maybe so, but it fit lots of my clothes in... but then I didn't have to carry it.
Read over the last couple of weeks, mainly in queues:
Bergdorf Blondes, by Plum Sykes. Slightly fluffy on the surface, but in reality a pretty clever takeoff of airhead fashionstas, a la Gentlemen prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, one of my favourite books.
La Bella Vita, by Vida Adamoli. A really nice account of a small Southern Italian community's transition into the 20th century (in about 1970). Very visual - rather like reading Cinema Paradiso.
Ripe for the Picking by Annie Hawes - on the face of it, a similar account of a small Italian village, but this time in the 21st century, and with a more positive view of modernisation.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I'm not sure it would encourage me to read DVC, but it was quite ripping.