It is Thursday and Shell has had a tough week. There is no need to go over details, we have all had one of those weeks where there is an accumulation of events and decisions that make you question where you re, why you are there, and how someone else’s decisions can ruin a week….
Commitment
“I don’t have a drinking problem ‘Cept when I can’t get a drink.” Tom Waits We have decided to take a month off drinking. This plan lasted a week and is probably why there has been no posts since we returned from Italy. There was nothing to say. The category for our day to day…
Bibi Graetz
The last time we were in Chianti we bumped into Gianpoalo Motta. He showed us around his winery and gave us a look at the soil samples he had just done for his new vineyard. In the heart of Chianti Classico, here is a guy who does not care about DOCG and that famous rooster….
Departures – Italy
A shocking night of sleep. Possibly the noisiest apartment I have had the displeasure of staying. Complimentary breakfast around the corner at cafe Aroma is equally unimpressive. Naples is doing itself no favours convincing me it deserves its popularity. Then again, Naples doesn’t care what I think about it. Airport. Home. The end. Sometimes simplicity…
The Train to Napoli
The cold is having one last attempt to pull me down. We head to Wine Bar De’ Penitenzieri for a coffee and breakfast. We saw some panini and focaccia two days ago that would make a perfect breakfast. we are too early, the delivery does not arrive for another hour. We oder some coffee and…
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
We skip breakfast and walk to Trastevere. We would walk through this suburb on the way to hospital when Shell needed surgery. It became an almost daily walk at one point. Trastevere is quiter than the area surrounding the Vatican. It is a little dirtier, a little darker. It is a place that was once…
Walking the Eternal City
It is foolish to think a place will be how you remember it. Places, like people, change. When we were last in Rome, around two years ago, we had a regular place for coffee. Every morning we went there, ordered the same breakfast and the same coffee. “You cannot step into the same river twice”…
The Sacro Bosco
Fair warning, this post will be picture heavy. Clear blue skies as the sun breaks the mountains. A piercing blue that seems impossibly blue. It is a special sunrise that pictures can’t do justice. Today we head to Rome. There is an element of luxury in having a car. Sometimes it is hard to justify…
Christmas in Tuscany
Watching the sun come up over the Tuscan hills from the balcony of our Montepulciano apartment on Christmas Day. It sounds like a bad romance novel, but here we are. Merry Christmas. Last night was the best night sleep I have had in a long while. The antioxidants must have kicked in, because I am…