Genoa and Portofino [30th September – 2nd October 2019] We arrived close to midnight in Genoa, having phoned ahead to our hotel. They asked us to check in down the road at their 5* sister hotel, so we had two nights in a fabulous room in the, appropriately ocean liner-themed, Grand Hotel Savoia. We didn’t have time to explore Genoa, because we wanted to be handily situated for the train station, to go to Santa Read more…
Ragusa, Sicily [28th – 30th September 2019] Our last train journey of the trip took us to Ragusa, climbing higher through the Sicilian hills to the scene of many an episode of Inspector Montalbano. When we arrived at the typically overgrown station, we had to actually cross the train tracks, which was a little disconcerting. Fiona took her suitcase over, then came back to help me avoid a bad lift for my back. Unfortunately, she Read more…
[23rd -28th September 2019] Our AirBnB host, Marcello, met us at the train station and drove us along to the island of Ortigia, which is the oldest part of the city of Syracusa. As we neared our apartment, the streets got narrower and crumblier. We walked the final hundred metres and noted that he made contact with, and introduced us to, a number of local guys in the street. This, we discovered, was because the Read more…
[21st – 23rd September 2019] We knew that the day of travelling between Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands to Taormina in Sicily would likely be the most difficult, as it involved a golf cart to the port on Stromboli, a hydrofoil to Milazzo (though we shaved two hours off that bit by getting a direct ferry), a bus to Milazzo train station, a train to Messina, change trains to Taormina, and a taxi from the Read more…
[17th – 21st September 2019] When approaching an island which is pretty much just a live volcano, with some houses and a few hotels around its base, safety is understandably prominent in one’s thoughts. So it was gratifying to board the hydrofoil from Lipari, and immediately be invited to view the safety presentation on the video screen at the front of the vessel. For the entire trip, the words “Geen Signaal” – no signal, in Read more…
[10th – 17th September 2019] Lipari has made us feel like island hoppers again – albeit 60+ island hoppers! The largest of the Aeolian Islands has a wonderfully chilled and laid-back feel, especially in the evening, reminiscent of Greek Islands we visited 30 odd years ago. No package tours, certainly no UK package tours, seem to come to Lipari, and the folk visiting the island generally seem to be people who like to travel the Read more…
Last Year, we had a Blog Zero because of events prior to us even reaching our first port of call – Oporto. This year I thought “Well there’ll be no need for a Blog Zero, because we’ll be really organised and all the preliminaries will go smoothly this time.” The problems actually started two weekends before we were due to leave on Retirement Trip Number Two. I was sitting at home on the Friday evening, Read more…
[8th – 10th September 2019] Catania was originally just meant be be a one night stopover en route to the Aeolian Islands, but the British Airways pilots’ strike led to us leaving a day early, so we had a full day in Catania as a bonus. Because of the way we booked the airport hotel, as a result of the extra night, we had two different classes of room reserved, which the Reception staff happily Read more…
Sol del Este, Menorca [7th-22nd October] It’s not often that arriving in Menorca seems almost like coming closer to home, but after four weeks of travelling in Spain and Portugal, visiting lots of new places, and a re-visiting a few old favourites, it did seem a little like a stepping stone to home. Arriving by ferry from Palma was a new experience, though it did mean a very early morning start. However, a modest cabin, Read more…
Palma de Mallorca [5th-7th October] As with Sevilla, Palma was somewhere we’d both visited before, but never together. Our stay was short, as it was mainly designed to facilitate us arriving in Mahon by ferry, which we’d never done before, though we had often watched Mediterranea ferries, as well as cruise boats, glide past the garden wall in La Gardenia. Whilst Sevilla was thronged with Japanese tourists, Palma was awash with Germans and British. Our Read more…