Florence

Florence

So next we went to Florence, we caught the train there and found our hostel; archirossi
We then went for a wonder and to find some food!! Foodwise, we found a little street side restaurant; I had seafood rissoto and Rosie had spaghetti with a wild boar sauce. They were both so good.

So after a sleep in our 9 bed dorm we went on the free tour that the hostel offered. It was a 2 hour tour taking us round the best bits of Florence and explaining it. It was really interesting and was really enjoyable too. We went across the ponte vecchio bridge and over to the pitti palace vis and ice cream parlour! In the afternoon, we walked up to the michael angelo piazza, which gave us great views out over the city. We made our way back to the pitti palace and had a look in the museum and around the gardens. The gardens are huge, and a great place to visit if you have a spare few hours, or want somewhere to read a book in the shade. We headed over to the Duomo. The Doumo in Florence is huge, you turn around a corner and it literally takes your breath away. The intricacy of the carvings on the outside is amazing. The inside is equally impressive but in a subtler way, and seems much smaller than the outside. You can also climb up the dome for a small price, it is like climbing a small hill, up a steep winding staircase, which emerges on the inside of the dome where you can clearly see the paintings on the dome, it then takes you up between the outer and inner shells of the dome until you are brought out at the top. The views are incredible, the only 'modern' building in site is the station, apart from that it is just terraced roofs and Tuscan hills in the distance.

We made our way back to the hostel for a quick shower and went to find some more fabulous Italian food. We found a rustic looking restaurant with enthusiastic and welcoming waiters and decided to share and spicy sausage and spinach pizza and bacon, tomato, onion and egg spaghetti. It was the best food we had eaten on the trip.

Verona

Last week my sister and i went to Verona, Florence and Rome over a week long period, it was lovely to have a week of hot and sunny weather!

We started in Verona and got there at about 11 and went straight to the hostel. We got up at about 8 for a simple breakfast of jam and a roll and left the hostel to explore Verona.
We 1st went into the central piazza, Piazza Bra and went to the information centre and got a map. Seeing as we were in Verona we had to go to Juliet's balcony. We arrived in the courtyard where hundreds of people had written on the walls notes to lovers.
We went into the house, where they had some of the clothes used in the original film and some of the quotes from the play, and of course, the balcony.

There is also a postbox where you can post letters to Juliet and get a reply! It is quite an odd concept really, all these people coming to see the balcony and the tomb (which we went to next) to see the remains of someone who didn't exist. But the story of Romeo & Juliet lends itself to so many people on different levels, i understand why they, we all go there.

After our visit to the tomb we grabbed some lunch from a vender and walked across the Ponte Scaligero.

It is a great bridge with steps up to the top ramparts and a good view along the river. We walked along the other side of the river and crossed over to see the Duomo (cathedral) which has an unusual red and white layered brickwork on the outside. The inside is huge and it has 3 organs! It also has 2 smaller chapels in the back and a baptistry. We then walked up to Castel san Pietro, where there is a great view of Verona.

We headed back to the hostel for a quick shower and back out for dinner and the Opera!

We headed into the Piazza Bra and had a lovely dried beef and rocket pizza with a bottle of wine :)

We headed to the Arena and found some nice stone seats to watch Carmen. The opera was amazing, 4 hours of amazing singing and music. The opera was all in spanish so we got a programme which translated it and made it much more enjoyable as we could understand it.

At about 1.30, we wondered home under the moon and over the bridges and collapsed into our beds.

Next stop-Florence!

North-western Scotland days 4-6

Day 4 was beach day. There is a fantastic beach called Guinard bay, about 1 hours drive from Ullapool. The sun was shining when we got there, so we got the fire going for the BBQ, and walked up the headland to find some cliffs to jump off. This year we discovered some new cliffs which were great, lots of different heights  into clean deep water. The sea was warmer than it had been in previous years which meant that we could stay in the sea for longer which was so much fun. After a BBQ lunch we played rounder and had beach olympics, consisting of 50m sprint, relay, shotput, long jump and wheel barrow race. It was the beast day at that beach we have had, and there have been a lot. The weather definitly helped and the company was fantastic.

The weather on our 5th day promised to be as good as it had been all week so went went for another walk. A small party consisting of myself, my sister and my dad went off to tackle 3 of the Fannichs which are munros and the rest of our party went up Seana Bhraigh, which is another munro that can be walked to from the house. Our walk was great, well the 1st munro was hard work, as we walked stright up the face of it due to the lack of a path, but the 2nd and 3rd munro were on a lovely undulating ridge with great views either sides and a lovely walk down the valley to end it. The scenery, again was amazing, so wild and quiet and everyone we met (bar a wierd party of 3) were lovely.

We got back about half an hour before the others and had a supper of beef stew and sticky toffee pudding, topping off a great day all round.

The last day; We had a lie in, which was very nice and after a lazy breakfast we headed off to Loch Achall and went trout fishing. However the sun was too bright and warm so after catching only 5 trout in a morning, we went to Ullapool for fish and chips and off for a swim by a near-by lighthouse. We then sadly said goodbye to the James' and headed back for a finishing up dinner and last game of pool and table tennis.

then on day 7, we packed up and left the valley for the last time this year :( But we will be back next year for another week of food, walking, beaching, fishing and fun and laughs.

North-western Scotland days 1-3

So, last week we had our family holiday up in Scotland, near Ullapool. To get a scale of how far north it is, it's about 6-7 hours driving north of Carlisle!

So we loaded the landrover up and headed north at about 10 on saturday. We got there at about 5 and met the James family who were staying with us that week who are family friends and Joanna and Freddie Graham-Campbell and Mark Forster. Freddie and Mark are friends of Tobys from school and Joanna is Freddie's mum and a friend of my mum and dads.

The first day was a simple day fishing on Loch Damph and the Clar lochs and teaching the James' how to fish. Everyone caught at least one trout (except me :( ) and we went home to roast chicken.

On the 2nd day we went for a walk up a mountain called Cul Mor, which is about 800m and was a great 4-5 hour walk and fairly easy. We parked opposite Knockan crag (a geological site) and walked up a good path, the path kinda ran out but it was easy to pick a way up to the summit by following the shoulder up, whilst the 'kids' went for the "north face" option and went straight up the steepest face which involved a nice bit of scrambling. Once up on the top we had great views of the surrounding landscape. This area of Scotland is known of Assynt, and the mountains just rise up out of the land like great monsters and it is so impressive. I think a lot of people would be surprised by the landscape up there and how quiet ad beautiful it is. It is awe inspiring. We didn't stay too long at the top as the wind had dropped and the midges had come out! If you have not encountered midges then you are lucky! They are horrible little creatures. Similar to mosquitoes, but much smaller and worse as they swarm around you and bite everything in site. So we made our way onto the next top and down the mountain. On the way down it started raining, but it wasn't long to the car and then it stopped. On the way back down the valley it started raining again, which, surprisingly we were pleased about! It meant that the rivers would rise, stir the fish up and improve our chance of catching them.

Thanks to the rain the previous day, we went fishing up on the Rappach today which is one of the most remote salmon rivers in Scotland. It is either 1.5 hours walk across bogland in wellies to the top of it or and hour in the landrover on a rough track and a 20 minute walk to the bottom of it. We took the walking option. The day started off couldy with little wind (bad for midges) but ended up warm and sunny. It was a lovely days fishing in amazing scenery, we saw fish and had some bites, but non were pulled out of the river unfortunately. We got back to the house at about 7 and so didn't end up eating till about 10 as we were having roast beef, but it was worth it :)