RITORNATA!

Hi, fans - Simi here! I know you must all have been missing me much more than you have my mummy so I'm taking this opportunity to use the pawboard while she is nursing her 'flu.

I had a fine time at Mr Enzo's kennels but yesterday I knew I was coming home when he gave me an extra beauty treatment. [Mummy hasn't got the monopoly on facial treatments, you know!] Then he brought me back here and, of course, the first thing I did was check that my three beds were still intact and undisturbed - mummy read me "Goldilocks" when I was a puppy and I never forgot that story - that's my plastic bed in the bedroom, my chaise longue in the sitting room and mummy's bed, which really belongs to me! Then I found my toys and threw them around for mummy to fetch before I decided it was time to give her a kissie. After that I settled on our nice, soft bed and I wasn't moving - oh, no!

She's been buying books again, I see - so many that there's hardly room for a dog to sit down - and she told me how she'd seen my old mate Toby dog over there on that colder island where we used to live. Hi, Toby! She's as mad as ever, isn't she?

Must go now as it's "walkies" time; I have to train her back into our routine, you see. A dog is so busy these days!

Thanks to all the guest bloggers who kept our dog - I mean blog - going and who have made my mummy happy.

A presto,

Love,

Simi X

GRAZIE MILLE

Hello and grazie mille to all my lovely guest bloggers. The standard of the writing is so high and the subject matter so interesting that I can see I will have a lot to live up to!

Please forgive my lack of posting and blog visiting tonight: I am full of 'flu or la febbre or both and am aching all over. Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Meanwhile, someone else will be along to say buona sera in a moment...

Guamka

I must say thank you to Welshcakes for an invitation to guest post while she is away; I feel privileged, not to mention relieved that I have finally found time to do so just before she gets back. She has asked for posts themed loosely about travel or life abroad, so I hope it is not too much of a stretch for me to return to what was meant to be a series in another place about my adopted country. I mentioned that Russia had many stereotypes attached to it, despite Churchill's famous phrase about enigmas, riddles and the rest, which I hoped to try and unpick a little. The series was curtailed by, er, a trip to Russia, but now seems like a good opportunity to restart it.

One such stereotype revolves excess: no-one was really surprised to see Boris Nikolaevich conducting orchestras, now, were they? If we're talking about travel, have you thought about spending your next vacation in Chechnya? The Caucasus undeniably has some spectacular scenery, but you don't necessarily have to risk bullets to see it. One of the things that doubtless swung the 2014 Winter Olympics Sochi's way was the fact that the mountains run right down to the Black Sea. For those who still think that Putin's Russia has moved away from Soviet ideals, someone close to me was forced to stay at work until 2 in the morning "to support the bid". To be fair, she was allowed to quit, afterwards.

Over the summer, I was invited to Guamka, home to a famous gorge. The gorge itself is about 3km long, but its sides are up to 400m high. As we had driven south-west from Krasnodar, we came to a town called Apsheronsk, and noticed a narrow gauge railway running parallel to the main-line. You can read a railway enthusiasts' account of the line here (you may find the .pdf more easily laid out, if you can bear the download time and the risk of your system hanging. Get a proper operating system to help avoid the latter!) In fact, the line continues up the gorge, alongside the river. Our train-spotter is laconic:

Later, in thousands years, people hollowed this long ledge in the cliff, on which they laid steel rails and ran trains.

Well, that's strictly accurate, but I can't help feeling that the fact the line was laid by the manual labour of camp inmates is more than a little relevant. When we were there, the temperature was 40 degrees; it was an uncomfortable stroll until we reached the shade. My imagination falters to think what it must have been like to be breaking rocks in that heat. 40 plus in Krasnodarskii Krai, or 40 minus with Ivan Denisovich somewhere in Siberia. Russia has not been prone to treat its ordinary people well. Why was the line built at all? Past the gorge was a forest of oak trees some 700 or 800 years old, with height and girth to match - the previous evening our host Zhenya had described it as a kind of primeval, legendary, even magical place. The local Bolsheviks were delighted at this resource of timber, and determined to exploit it in the building of Communism. The whole exercise proved incredibly wasteful of human life and natural wealth - nobody can remember now where the wood from these unique trees actually went.

When not taken to such excess, this tendency to throw people back on their own resources is refreshing to one used to the increasingly nanny-ish fussing in Western countries. Zhenya casually remarked that we may prefer to walk on the side of the track closest to the cliff-face. That way, we were less likely to be struck by the rocks that occasionally come away from the gorge sides, and plummet down. In direct contrast to Hull, this is no empty threat, but there were no offical warning signs, just occasional mute memorial plaques.

In St. Petersburg, at the posher end of Nevskii Prospekt, there remains a sign from the time of the German blockade, saying "Citizens! During artillery bombardments, this side of the street is more dangerous". I always felt that this was an odd way of phrasing the danger: imagine you were on the other side of the street, caught sight of the sign, and crossed over to get a closer look. In Guamka, you don't even get this hint as to the trajectory of incoming projectiles.

If you can manage to avoid falling boulders, however, the gorge today belies its destructive past; it is a beautiful and tranquil spot. Twelve sips from a particular waterfall that flows down the valley side are reputed to prolong life by twelve years - I took my dozen. Zhenya asserts that, no matter how much vodka vanished on the prveious evening, you can always make it to the end of the gorge and back, and feel uplifted for doing so. Again, I can vouch for this. Approximately halfway along is a little building now given over to the sale of beer, ice-cream, and that sweet peach "nectar" which is so inexplicably popular in Russia. Yet again, we approach mythic status, for, apparently, the restorative properties of the canyon meant it was one of several locations dotted around the former Soviet Union chosen for Yuri Gagarin to recuperate in after his historic flight, and this building was put up specially for him. He never came. Of course, the conspiracy theorists would have you believe he was not the first man in space, he was merely the first one to return. Given what I have already described in this piece, not to mention what else you know about the Soviet Union, is that so very hard to believe?

I name this Ship...

Final guest post from Ian (shades of) Grey

It seems to be part of the human condition that we want to leave a lasting memory, preferably a positive one. (There is a well known joke about a Welshman with the punchline "I sh*g ONE sheep...")

One Country where this was particularly obvious was Canada, a great place that I spent a couple of long stints working/training in during the mid eighties. There was a tendency to name things after people there- Toronto Airport was Lester B Pearson Airport, Belleville in Ontario (where I spent most of my time) was named after a Lady Arabella Gore and the town even had a multi-purpose venue called the Ben Bleecker Auditorium. Now naming airports and the like after elder statesmen is fairly common (JFK, Charles De Gaulle, et al) but I was rather bemused to see a multi-story car park in Kingston, Ontario named after someone. (I can't tell which one it is now, as there are several of them with the word memorial in, one of which is actually next to somewhere called memorial park). So, who was Ben Bleecker? Lester B Pearson? Lady Arabella Gore? Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. If I lived there I might show some interest, but just naming something after someone isn't always a big enough hook to be interesting.

I must admit that if I died and went to heaven, I wouldn't quite know what to make of it if Peter at the Pearly Gates said "In your favour- you have a car park named after you in Morley. Now about all those spiders you pulled the legs off..."

Sometimes things get named after people or businesses due to patronage. The Leeds Grand Theatre Auditorium is now known as The Yorkshire Bank Auditorium but to me that sounds a little crass. What if it had been called The Betty's Tea Rooms Auditorium? The Bargain Madness Auditorium? The Milletts Auditorium? (Millets are a UK chain that sell outdoor clothes & camping gear, not renowned for fashion).

Some names are posthumous and well deserved, such as the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. For his own reasons, Tom Paine from The Last Ditch named his various second life transportation after Blogpower Lady Bloggers. From memory, there is a speedboat Ruthie, an Airship Liz and a huge Zeppelin known as the Air Liner Limoncello, currently in use as a floating Art Gallery. He still has a Mercedes without a name (I suggest Betsy) and he has a huge spaceship as well, complete with Holodeck. I don't know what he calls that but no doubt someone will tell me.

(Tom, if you buy yourself a Blimp, I wouldn't be flattered if you called it Shades!)

Normal programming will be resumed tomorrow, we apologise for any inconvienience...

La Villa Romana del Casale, vicino a Piazza Armerina, Sicilia

Today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, La Villa Romana del Casale, situated 5 km outside the town of Piazza Armerina in central Sicily, is visited annually by more than half a million people. What draws these tourists there are the more than forty rooms with 12,500 square feet of mosaic pavement, the best collection of Roman mosaics in existence today.

A mosaic from the Corridor of the Great Hunt

I was fortunate enough to visit this wonderful spot in 2000, as a side trip from my stay in Taormina. A group of about fifteen of us took a tour arranged by the language school where I was studying and we had an excellent Italian guide, with the tour being in Italian of course. It seems that so many of the guides I have had on trips to Italy have been architects. I don't know if there is an over supply of architects in Italy and they cannot find work in their field, but they certainly make splendid guides.

Catwalks are used to traverse the mosaics and you can see the overhead
protective cover. Our excellent architect guide is in the blue shirt.

The villa, which was the house of a large surrounding estate, was constructed over an older villa around 320 AD. While there is much controversy about who the owner was, he was certainly a man of wealth and power. From the mosaics we can see that he had connections in Africa, he loved hunting as well as music and poetry and that he was probably a pagan. The villa was thought to be destroyed by invaders about 150 years later although some buildings continued to be used until the twelfth century when there was a fire. The site was abandoned and finally the whole was covered by mud landslides. It is this fact that enabled the mosaics to survive and be so well preserved today.

Another part of the Great Hunt mosaic

At the end of the nineteenth century preliminary excavations were made of the site but most of the work was done during three periods in the twentieth century. The major excavations were done between 1950-60, when a cover was built over the whole to protect the mosaics.

The furnaces where wood was burned to heat the water both
for the baths and the heating system of the villa itself

The extensive mosaics of the villa were probably done in the early fourth century by North African artists, for the materials are considered African in origin. A very detailed account of the mosaics is given here where the workmanship is discussed as well as the mosaics of each room. Of course when we talk about a room, we are basically talking about the floor because most of the walls, although there, are damaged, however some frescoes and wall paintings and niches for statues still exist.

A different style of mosaic, with a central "erotic" image, in the
antechamber to the main bedroom in the private quarters

Visitors to the villa walk on catwalks built on the old walls which you can see in my photo. It is not easy to photograph the mosaics since you stand high above them. In addition they look rather dull because they are open to the air and covered in dust, although in fact when cleaned they have good colour on the whole.

Of course the most widely known of the mosaics is the Bikini Girls Mosaic which I posted about previously here. It is situated in the Sala delle Dieci Ragazze, The Room of the 10 Girls. But another mosaic floor, in the Ambulacro della Grande Caccia, The Corridor of the Great Hunt, measuring 60m or 197 ft in length by 5 m or 16ft in width, is surely more splendid. The mosaics depicted there are among the most impressive from the ancient world, showing the hunting and capture of wild animals and their transportation to Rome for use in the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. I'm afraid my scanned photos do not do justice to this amazing place. Click to enlarge for an improvement.

I would consider my visit to this villa one of the highlights of my stay in Sicily and recommend it highly should you go there. As the Italians say, Vale la pena. It's worth the trouble.

I would like to thank Welshcakes Limoncello for inviting me to guest post on her site and to share some of my experiences of Sicily with her readers.

This is crossposted at Sicily Scene and Nobody Important.

Spring in Adelaide means Pelargoniums

Pelargoniums in our Garden Early Morning after the Rain.

One of the early markers of Spring in Adelaide is the sudden arrival of Pelargonium blooms. They are everywhere, gardens, parks and roadsides in a variety of colours and forms. We have them in our garden.

Pelargoniums are cousins of the Geranium and are very robust, particularly given our hot and dry climate. All or ours were grown from branches that I snapped off established plants. We have a wide variety, but I like the lilac and pink ones. They even have some scented varieties, which you just have to walk past to smell.

Some background from Wikipedia.

The first species of Pelargonium known to be cultivated was Pelargonium triste, a native of South Africa. It was probably brought to the botanical garden in Leiden before 1600 on ships which stopped at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1631, the English gardener John Tradescant the elder bought seeds from Rene Morin in Paris and introduced the plant to England. The name Pelargonium was introduced by Johannes Burman in 1738, from Greek πελαργός pelargos = "stork", because part of the flower looked like a stork's beak.

Other than grown for their beauty, species of Pelargonium such as P. graveolens are important in the perfume industry and are cultivated and distilled for its scent. Although scented Pelargonium exist which have smells of citrus, mint, or various fruits, the varieties with rose scents are most commercially important. Pelargonium distillates and absolutes, commonly known as "scented geranium oil" are sometimes used to supplement or adulterate expensive rose oils.

That said, they are lovely for the short time that they flower.

Cross Posted at Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe

My Morocco

our time in Fez

Click on the photographs to see the album.

Our neighborhood, and my little house

The Wedding in Fez

So good they named it twice

Thank you to Welshcakes for the invitation to guest-post on her blog while she is in Wales. I'd been thinking about what to write about when I suddenly realised that she'll back in Sicily tomorrow ... whoops. So here it is.

The day before Husband and I were to fly to New York Daughter phoned me.
‘Um … have you heard the news today?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Oh, yes,’ I sighed.
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t have done.’
‘Oh well, it can’t be helped.’
‘No, and it’s not likely to happen on two days running.’
‘What’s not?’
‘Another plane to New York crashing.’
‘WHAT?!!’
‘I thought you said you’d heard that Concorde had crashed on take-off?’
‘No, I meant I’d heard that Central Park was closed because of a mosquito outbreak.’

I hadn’t flown for over twenty years and with each successive year I’d become more and more nervous. The next day wasn’t the best day to be in Heathrow. Every newspaper carried a photo of Concorde exploding. Then when we finally boarded we were left sitting on the runway for two hours; the captain kept telling us, ‘There is a problem with the engine.’ Encouraging to know they were sorting it out on ground.

The main reason for our visit – and the reason why I’d persuaded myself to get on a plane – was for me to finish interviewing the ex-NY cop whose autobiography I was ghost-writing. The publishers wanted the manuscript by August and by June I still didn’t have all the material I needed. So there we were in New York City on some of the cloudiest, most humid days of the year.

We queued to go up the Empire State but when we were within seeing distance of the ticket office, they announced that the clouds had come back and there wasn’t any point going up if your main reason was to see the view. I suppose if you were going to jump or propose it wouldn’t matter but we were there for the view. We never got to see it.

While I spent two days locked up in a hotel interviewing Mikey, my cop, Husband, got to go up the World Trade Centre, see Grand Central Station and various other sights that he told me about.

What did I think of New York?

Well, everything is just so tall.

I know I should have expected it – and I did – but I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed. I spent most of the time wandering round with my mouth open. I’d breathe, ‘That is so tall,’ then round the next corner there’d be an even taller building. It is truly awesome.

I’d like to go back some day.

Because of Blogger's strange handling of spacing I'll tell you here what everything is and hope you can work out what is what.

Top photo: view over south Manhattan from the World Trade Centre.

Next left: Twin Towers in the mist. Right: looking down from the glass floor.

Next: tall building.

Next left: St Patrick's Cathedral. Centre: Empire State Building in the mist and a brief glimpse of Macy's department store. Right: Chrysler Building.

Of Horses for Courses and Roman Green Salads

... and cultural misunderstandings in restaurants.

We (me and the boss) had a week in Rome last year, and as part of that we "did the Romans" - you know: viaducts, Colosseum, water towers, Temple of Jupiter, Pantheon. No Roman Rabbits , however.

This painting is the Pantheon by Panini .

In our case, we always go and look for local restaurants. In this case we found one, but we fell foul of our own assumptions, and ordered what we thought was a side-salad.

In Rome, however, a salad seems to be a separate course. And it arrived just after we had finished our main course.

A green salad: a large bowl (of the size you might use to casserole a rabbit) full of lettuce, with about half a dozen tomatoes chopped into segments.

I am banned by the boss from including the picture of her expression viewed across the salad bowl, but I will say that it took us the best part of 20 minutes to polish it off.

As a reminder of Romans closer to home, recently I have visited the remains of a Temple of Mithras at Brocolita built by legionaries near Hadrian's Wall.

You can walk from the road across one of the bleakest, coldest, windiest and most erosive places in Northern Europe (why do you think the Romans left), and someone has dug up engraved altar stones that have been buried for almost 2000 years, and exposed the carved design to all that weather - go and see it before it is destroyed.

And there was me thinking they were out to preserve our history.

This slightly exasperated Guest Post was by Matt Wardman, who also lives at Poliblog Perspective.

Tags: brocolita, blogpower, welshcakes, sicily-scene, temple of mithras, legionary, hadrian's wall, emperor hadrian

Alcohol - Live Better, Live Longer

Abigail Zuger, of the New York Times gave some advice in 2003 [pre-blogging days and unattributable] which I plan to wholeheartedly accept, irrespective:

A study published in May in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed that alcohol raises the blood levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol. Moderate drinking can raise the levels more than 10 per cent. Heavy drinking raises them even higher.

By comparison, running a few kilometres a week increases HDL a fraction of that, while the B vitamin niacin, probably the most effective medication for raising HDL levels, has to be taken at high doses with many side effects for similar results. The statin low-cholesterol drugs, which work by reducing LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, seldom raise HDL levels substantially.

Half the heart benefits of moderate drinking stem directly from the HDL gain. Alcohol also makes the blood flow a little more freely, by decreasing blood proteins that promote clotting, and increasing those that prevent clotting. Like low-dose aspirin, which also helps prevent heart attacks, alcohol keeps the tiny blood cells called platelets from adhering to one another and forming damaging clots.

Alcohol may also help the heart by preventing diabetes, a risk factor for heart disease. Moderate drinkers are, on average, a little thinner than non-drinkers, and less likely to develop the diabetes associated with obesity and insulin resistance.

Besides alcohol, red wine contains more than 200 natural chemicals, mostly derived from grape skins and seeds. Many are antioxidants. The antioxidant activity in a glass of red wine equals that in seven glasses of orange juice or 20 of apple juice, one researcher estimates.

Antioxidants are widely thought to have many good effects, such as increasing tissue blood flow and protecting cells from oxidative injury much as rust-proofing protects a car.

Last December, researchers in London announced in the journal Nature that alcohol-free extracts of red wines kept blood vessel cells from producing endothelin-1, a chemical that constricts blood vessels. That may mean that red wine enhances the blood flow to organs such as the heart and brain, above what might be expected from its alcohol content.

Sounds great to me. Here's ta lookin' at ya, kid!

Crossposted at Nourishing Obscurity

Happiness Finding Welshcakes

You may not have noticed this new area in the sidebar here on Sicily Scene, but today Welshcakes had arranged to have lunch with Liz of Finding Life Hard? and Shirl at H, H & H. Shirl, the clever techie lady has made a special blog to report on this event so if you click on the button in the sidebar, similar to the above, you can read and see all about that very special lunch.

I think there are quite a few of us who would have liked to be there along with them but reading about it at Happiness Finding Welshcakes will be nearly as good. Almost. Not quite. Too bad, so sad. For us, but not them.

So do click on the button and go visit.

From Cyberspace to reality

Another guest post by (shades of) Grey

Welshcakes has met up with two other bloggers in Wales this afternoon, an event so significant that it even has its own blog here!.

Meeting up is a strange experience and I have three cyberspace scenarios to share.

The first one was actually a Ham Radio meet up when I lived in Maidenhead in the mid 80s. Out of the blue, someone who I knew slightly on the air asked to meet up in a Pub with his Fiance'. I was rather suspicious of this but it actually turned out to be perfectly benign. His motive was to convince his future Wife that Amateur Radio people weren't all sad anoraks and he thought that I sounded the most normal one of the bunch. It was a calculated risk on his part as I might have turned up wearing a Parka and carrying a Thermos. All I can recall of the evening now was that his future Wife was very nice and that he worked for British Rail in catering management. (He assured me that BR sandwiches were fresher than M&S ones).

The second meet-up was ten years ago, a Coronation Street trip to Granada TV Studios, organised by the online USENET fan club, R.A.T.U.C.S. (which stood for rec.arts.tv.uk.coronation.street). This was an entertaining afternoon and an opportunity to put lots of names to faces, particularly Mike Plowman who used to post a screen-grab review of each show that had a cult following, particularly by some of the Granada TV writers. (Background here, photo below, I'm in the back row to the right in front of Graham, the Guy with the glasses who is a Corrie Guru. Karen is to my left, she is the Fan, not me).


The third meet-up was with a number of Disney obsessives at Disneyland, triggered by rec.arts.disney.parks, another USENET meet of RADPers. This was a more diverse bunch but we still had an interesting time and we met a couple of legendary Disney onliners, particularly Al Lutz.

So what are these events like? Never entirely as expected. People are generally shorter or older in real life than the photo personas suggest. A common interest helps but I've met a couple of people this way that I'd hate to work with or wouldn't dream of socialising with.

I'd like to meet up with lots of Bloggers that I read regularly, both in and out of Blogpower. Sadly, for many of them, it is unlikely, even in second life.

A highlight from Paris

A final guest post by Andrew Allison.

As I mentioned in my previous post on Paris, I have given many of my 'guided tours' around the city. Depending on how much time we have, they can be very whistle stop indeed. Thankfully Becky and I had three full days in which to explore the delights.

There is however one place that will stay in our minds forever, and that is the Eiffel Tower. Before this visit the I could take or leave it. I've been up it a few times and the queues are always long no matter what time of day you go. Becky - quite naturally - wanted to go to the top, so we queued for well over an hour just to pay to get in. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I - put simply - hate queuing. She had to keep me in good spirits, I can tell you!

By the time we got to the top, glorious sunlight had disappeared and replaced by a sunset. Becky gripped on to me for dear life in the final lift from the second to the third floor, however the view is worth it. When we came back down, we stopped off on the first floor and had a beer and whilst drinking we noticed there was - what we presumed to be - a fantastic light show illuminating the tower. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it. That was at 11.00pm.

Thankfully at midnight the light show started again and you can see from the picture what a sight it was. It rounded off a perfect day and made me realise - if I didn't need reminding - what a fantastic city this is, full of surprises that brings out the big kid in all of us.

Top Ten Places to Kiss

With Welshcakes on the move away from her beloved Sicily and with all of us missing her dearly, especially me, it's clearly time to get down to the real issue of the moment - where is the best place to kiss? Here is a collection of tips picked up many years ago:

1. On any beach, during a full moon, by a bonfire

Imagine the waves washing up onto the sand as golden flames and silver moonlight illuminate the face of someone very special. With so many beautiful beaches around the world, it's easy to find your perfect setting for this scene. You might try the famous Seven Mile Beach in Negril, Jamaica, with its seemingly endless white sand, warm turquoise water, and rhythmic beats of reggae wafting on the breeze.

2. At any airport, meeting your lover, getting off a plane

As anyone knows who has been separated from a partner for a long time, airport kisses are especially ardent. You can't help letting the sparks fly with that first kiss upon reunion, right in front of all the other travelers. Although no one would suggest that airports themselves are romantic, they do set the stage for some of life's most dramatic moments. Savor kisses here; they are the passionate punctuations of the comings and goings of love

3. In an elevator, with nobody else inside

The glass elevator at the famous Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco whisks you up and down its 24 floors. Share a special moment as you soar above the city's steep hills, Victorian houses, glittering office buildings, and arching bridges. San Francisco provides a romantic backdrop for every activity--especially kissing.

4. Floating in the 80-degree waters of the South Pacific

You and your lover cling gently to one another as the glimmering blue water of the Pacific calmly rocks you. Here in paradise, you have all the time in the world. Reenact our number-five smooch on Bora Bora, in the shallow, brilliantly-colored lagoon that surrounds the island.. A ring of islets and coral reefs around the lagoon ensures smooth water, and the beaches are made of snowy white sand. Fascinating sights like ancient temples and colorful villages might prove tempting enough to get you out of the water. Then again, maybe not. Book a flight to Papeete, Tahiti, the capital of French Polynesia. From Papeete, you'll take an enchanting boat ride to Bora Bora.

5. In a boat off the Isle of Capri in Italy

Get ready for a kiss as deep as the azure water of the famed Blue Grotto off the Italian island of Capri. Only very small boats, holding two or three people, can fit through the narrow opening of the cave. However, once you pass through the entrance, you will be astounded. Sunshine slants into the wide cavern, reflecting the iridescent blue of the water onto the walls and ceiling and turning the chamber into a magical place where light and water merge. There's plenty to do in Capri during your stay. Explore ancient churches, 19th-century houses, and the rest of the lovely coastline. Book your flight to Naples. You'll take a hydrofoil or a ferry from there to Capri.

6: At Niagara Falls, enveloped by the mist

Echoing with the enthusiasm and wonder of new love, these awe-inspiring falls have been a favorite destination for newlyweds since the 1800s, when Napoleon's brother Jerome Bonaparte reputedly spent his honeymoon there. The beauty of the water pouring over the 170-foot drop, the mist swirling up to envelope observers, and the surrounding forests and picnic areas make Niagara Falls a wonderful spot for lovers. The atmosphere of Niagara Falls has been soaking up romance for decades. If you have not experienced this landmark of love, you should consider visiting Niagara Falls for a vacation on your next anniversary. Be sure to take the legendary Maid of the Mist boat tour; helicopter tours are also available. Choose a romantic B&B or small hotel on the Canadian side of the Falls.

7: In Venice, riding through the canals on a gondola

Your boat carries you past magnificent palazzi, thousand-year-old churches, and inviting courtyards as you're lost in admiration. Ah, Venice--a city for lovers. And what better place to lock lips than on its renowned canals? Venice is worthy of a visit for much more than its gondola rides. With a rich history stretching back to the 400s, distinctive architecture, and fabulous art, this city beckons both the sophisticated traveler and the dreamy lover of beauty. A word to the wise: gondola rides are fairly expensive (usually around US$40). It's a good idea to negotiate a definite length and price for the ride, or you may be shocked at both when it's over. Extras such as serenading are often available upon request. Book your flight to glorious Venice.

8: In Central Park during a snowfall, New York City

Above you, two rows of elms arch upwards and form a cathedral ceiling, through which the snow slowly falls. The dark limbs above The Literary Walk in New York City's Central Park are lined with white--and the city, for a moment, is pristine. You squeeze each other's gloved hands and hug to share your warmth. The air may be cold, but your lips stay warm. Wander north to the grand Bethesda Fountain, featuring the sculpture "Angel of the Waters" as a backdrop for embraces. Though it will not be flowing in winter, it is still well worth the walk. Nearby, Strawberry Fields draws nostalgic Beatles fans to pay their respects to John Lennon, to whom this section of the park is dedicated. To add the finishing touch to your winter city stay, find a cozy B&B or hotel hidden in an intriguing corner of uptown Manhattan.

9: In Paris at the Louvre, surrounded by the most glorious art

Walking slowly through the labyrinthine halls of this great museum, you pause before Antonio Canova's sculpture of Eros and Psyche. Eros, the messenger of love we know as Cupid, holds Psyche tenderly and revives her after she's been lulled by a sleeping potion. Their embrace is paused in marble forever, inches from a sweet kiss. Life emulates art as you reach toward your mate and draw close together. This kiss is a work of art. Of course, Paris's many sights will beguile you for as long as you're willing to spend--Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Pantheon, the cafes along the River Seine, and the jazz clubs are but a scant list of its most famous attractions. And many of them are also great places for romance.

10: Anywhere else

If you’re in the mood to kiss, any place is the right place for you.

Photo Hunt ---- Curvy

PhotoHunt

CURVY

Since I'm guest posting occasionally during this week for Welshcakes Limoncello I have decided to cross post my Photo Hunt picture here as well as there. Confused? She lives in Sicily so it is only fair that I should post on her site something with a Sicilian connection .

So may I present the CURVY ladies depicted in mosaic at La Villa Romana del Casale, near Piazza Armerina in central Sicily, around 330 AD. I visited this amazing place in 2000 and took this photo. It's scanned from a print, and I apologize for the quality. Click to make it a little better. While depicting young women exercising in a gymnasium it is commonly known as the Bikini Girls mosaic.


As you can see her blog is called Sicily Scene and she talks about her life there and her move from Wales several years ago.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE

Crossposted at Sicily Scene and Nobody Important

Paris - the city of romance

Another guest post from Andrew Allison.

I must say I am enjoying doing some guest blogging, although I have been very busy across at my blog. There has been so much happening in the news of late and if you know who calls a you know what, I know I will be very busy both on the blog and out campaigning for the next few weeks, however I am going on holiday in a couple of weeks. The three of us will be visiting friends in Scotland. If anyone would like to do some guest blogging for me, please get in touch. The more the merrier.

My favourite city in the world is undoubtedly Paris. I love the place. Every time I set foot on Parisian soil I get a feeling of well being. I feel at home. My most relaxing holidays have been in Paris and I could easily be a tour guide there; in fact I have given many guided tours to family and friends.

Not long after Becky and I got together I asked her if she would like to come on holiday with me to Paris. She had never been before and eagerly accepted the invitation. A few weeks later we were sitting in a local pub and she said she wanted a ring on her finger. We both knew Paris would be the location.

Getting the ring wasn’t as big of a problem as I had initially thought. I went to a jeweller in Beverley and was ably assisted by a member of staff. She thought my taste was good and then showed it off to another customer who immediately said, ‘I do!’ I knew I was on to a winner.

Finding the right location to propose was quite difficult. I had initially thought of the Eiffel Tower, but the restaurants there would have been crowded and I was looking for a more intimate location. I searched on the internet for a good Michelin starred restaurant and eventually found an Italian near to the hotel. Trying to get through on the telephone proved impossible and no-one was replying to my e-mails. I was back to square one. So, when we arrived in Paris I still had to find somewhere. Thankfully the hotel owner managed to get in touch with this restaurant and reserved a table for dinner. Everything was now in place. All I had to do was not fluff my lines.

The location was perfect and the service was second to none. I can get used to having my wine poured out for me every evening. The waiting staff would rush over to our table if they saw reaching for the wine bottle. We ate veal, followed by a crème brulée. At the end of the meal I went across to the bar and ordered a bottle of champagne and told the head waiter I was about to propose. His reaction was, ‘What champagne would you like?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know. I am not an aficionado on champagne.’ He asked me if the champagne we had in the aperitifs was okay. I said it was, so I chose that one. Not very scientific, but as long as it is dry champagne I am not really bothered. I went back to the table and started to get down on one knee. ‘Rebecca’, I said nervously, ‘will you do me the honour of becoming my wife.’ Becky replied, ‘You started to say that before you knelt down. You’ll have to ask again.’ What a thing to do to man. So I asked again and thankfully the answer was, ‘Of course I will.’ Just after that the champagne arrived and we could celebrate.

We eventually rolled back to the hotel and made some phone calls. I had done it and everything had gone as I had wanted it to. The evening will stay in our minds forever. I had always said that if I ever ask someone to marry me it will be in Paris; the most romantic city in the world. More of our holiday tomorrow.

Homesick

This is another guest post from Ian (Shades of) Grey

One of the downsides of moving (and travelling) abroad is in missing home. Sometimes it is just a mild yearning because you know that you are missing an event with friends. Other times it can be a wave of self doubt. Why am I here? Was it a mistake? If I hadn't have come here what would I be doing instead?

My first attack of the latter was when I left home to go and work/study in Coventry, back in the mid 70s. As a City it was much less vibrant than Newcastle and the Pubs seemed a lot less relaxed. My first awareness of this was in seeing all of the buses roar out of the Pool Meadow Bus Station at exactly 10:30 (Pubs closed at 10:30 as well in those days) and finding out there wasn't an all night bus service. My real first yearning for home was unexpected and also Bus related: I was walking through the City Centre towards Broadgate (home of the Lady Godiva statue) and saw the destination board through the trees. It said Wyken but I misread it as Byker. I suddenly felt very alone, sad and disappointed. This was entirely unexpected as Byker is not a part of Newcastle to yearn for, having a reputation for Pubs where you chalked up your name on the dartboard for the next fight. (I have mentioned the Byker Raby before on my own Blog). I realised quickly that the reacton was causal, my sub-conscious shouting up that there was too much change and seeking solace in familiarity.

Despite spending a year in Norway, I never felt homesick there at all. This was because I was on a "six home flights a year contract" so I was never more than a couple of months from some R&R and could juggle the dates and flights to suit. There were times when I was bored of course and going to the Pub involved some serious Wonga at £2.50 a half Litre when it was less than a Pound back home (& not a short measure either).

I followed this with a year in Saudi Arabia and realised very quickly that this was a bad move. The role was a bit of a non-job with lots of make-work and the terms & conditions were unilaterally degraded during the year. I verbally resigned within about six weeks of starting but my Boss managed to persuade me to stick it out which I did but essentially as an economic mercenary. The TV was much better there (the oil company had its own TV channel) but it was heavily censored, as were the films in the camp cinema. I saw "10" with most of the racy bits cut out (kissing couples did the Saudi two step, where they approached and then backed away again). I recall going to see the Blues Brothers, seeing a Nun in the credits and wondering what happened to her in the movie as she had been completely snipped out. This contract was based on two weeks off every four months or so and it gave me (and everyone else) plenty of anticipation time to the forthcoming holiday. (Lots of my workmates just went to Bangkok rather then back to North America). (You can read more views of my Saudi year on my blogif the whimsy takes you).

Another time when homesickness kicked in was a trip to Doha for a week which stretched out to a month when I was held to moral ransom whilst specialists tried to fix a peculiar software problem over a dial-in link during the early hours. I got to be really friendly with my "kidnapper", which is common for hostage victims!

Sometimes homesickness is for a time as well as a place. I am still very fond of Coventry but for the memory of my friends there, not the architecture which was rather lacking. (What survived the Blitz was subsequently blighted by the Planners).

Now, approaching middle age, I find that I can get homesick just spending a couple of nights away from home. Not that I am necessarily missing anything other than that warm comfort of being totally at ease with the family. But having been an only child and having married late in life, the joy, trust and acceptance of simply belonging is still quietly delightful.

P.S. I didn't realise that my last post here was only yesterday!

in the Maghreb

Thank you Welshcakes for inviting me to guest blog for your fans in your absence.

I’m telling you up front on these posts of mine there will be not photographs of gorgeous cuisine, or yummy recipes. So you shall have to await the wonderful Welshcakes’ return for such as that.

A bit to the south and further west of Sicily is Morocco, my home at present. Now is the BEST time of year! The rain has come, the temperature has dropped, and the skies are a brilliant blue with mountains of fluffy white clouds. From now until June it will be a combination of the best of Spring and Fall. When the rains come, everything comes up green, the flowers bloom, the birds get chubby, the cool breezes blow off the Atlantic, and I begin to WALK. The Moroccans have already put on their heavier jackets and shoes, while I’m still in my sandals and skirts. The summer fruits have disappeared from the streets and the premier crop of dates are out. The Berbers have come to town with their wares, and many of the year’s best festivals are ahead.

This morning in the medina I saw the Berber rug merchants have come to town with their new wares. They were spreading the rugs down the middle of the roads of the medina to show off the colors and weaves. Many of the hannouts are splashing on a new coat of paint, in preparation for the increased number of tourists to come I imagine. It is the time of year when the dates are at their best. The big Date Festival is this month. I treated myself to a half-kg. of the “king’s dates” this morning to break my Ramadan fast tonight. Dates are considered the holy food, and I’m right on board with that. This magnificent festival is held annually in the Erfoud area where nearly a million date palms grow. They grow a wide range of types of dates. The majestic palm-trees, waving lazily in the warm breeze provide shade and a livelihood. The peasants who cultivate them rely on them for almost everything. The festival last for three days, and the region’s tribes and innkeepers come together, where they share tea and society. On the last day there is a camel race. I’m rather sad I will be out of the country during the festival, but I’m celebrating by eating as many dates as I can.

Fabulous Fjords

This is a Guest post from Ian (Shades of) Grey

Signora Welshcakes expressed a desire for some guest blogposts to be about living in foreign places. Whilst I’ve lived in Morley, Yorkshire for a long time now, I have had stints abroad in my youth. So, happy to oblige, I'll recount some memories of living in Stavanger, Norway, a quarter of a century ago. (They are about things rather than people).

Going there was my first experience of flying and only my second trip abroad, having previously nipped over to a Belgian Beer Festival on an organised coach trip with an overnight stopover in Tourcoing, near Lille. Norway is visually stunning and the water and mountain join in long deep finger ravines with what Douglas Adams's character Slartibartfast called "those lovely crinkly bits".

First impressions were of cleanliness. The people looked fresh faced, the office environment was designed to high standards, the buildings were in good repair and the streets well swept. This was my first culture shock as it was the antithesis of my previous home, Coventry in the West Midlands. English is widely spoken by most Norwegians so the language barriers were not too high.

Being an oil town, Stavanger had a large ex-pat community so advice was readily available on anything by asking around. My Employer sorted out an apartment and the various facilities so I didn’t have to struggle with officialdom other then registering as an alien with the local Police (a formality that took no more than five minutes).

Little things stick in your mind about minor details. Why are the light switches upside down? (Up for on! Perfectly sensible really, that’s how you would arrange a slider dimmer control). Why is the house lovely and warm mid winter with tiny 400W heaters? (Because it is well insulated, unlike my room in the Coventry shared house that needed a Calor Gas heater on full blast all evening). Why does everyone leave their outside lights on at night? (Hydro Electric power is uncharged below a certain level) Why is there a meter like a petrol gauge in the kitchen under the light switch? (It is a maximum demand meter so stay out of the red and it is free). Why are the car tyres so noisy? (They are snow tyres with metal studs). Why is the beer so expensive? (Lutheran Socialism).

My flat was a few miles out of town and I had a choice of taking the bus or the train (although I had a car available when the Boss was on R&R). The first time I went for the train, I very nearly couldn’t find the station as it was just a simple single platform up a narrow leafy lane. The only furnishings were a sign with the station name (Vaulen) and a bull-horn type speaker screwed to a tree. I found out what the speaker was for one morning when five minutes after the train should have arrived it crackled to life to tell us that the train was cancelled. I didn’t have enough Norsk to fully understand it, although I heard Toget (the train) and ikke (not). The collective groan and subsequent departure of the other passengers made it obvious however!

It seemed that every corner had a video hire shop and I was soon to realise why; There was only one TV station and it wasn’t very good. This isn’t just the view of an ex-pat, but most of the Norwegians I met at the time! The TV highlights of my week were #4077 Mash and Soap! Which were on every week. Being subtitled, it helped me understand Norsk a little better, indeed I can still remember that Soap! in Norsk was translated to something similar to Forviklingal. (Although soap you wash your hands with is såpe).

The strangest thing to get used to for me though, was the public telephones. They looked and worked the same as everywhere else, but when you picked it up, you had to wait for dial tone, sometimes for up to 90 seconds. Telephony was heavily oversubscribed in Stavanger and the planners had failed to anticipate the oil boom ten years previously when the main industry was fishing. Consequently there was a shortage of lines and a shortage of resources within the systems. It also opened the way for telephone fraud on a large scale in the business as users could get round the dialling restrictions by just dialling 9 then calling a local number to fool the system; then when dial tone arrived, they could dial any number with impunity. (Dial tone detection was a software feature I worked on in later years for the Scandinavia market).

A trip to Oslo turned up another quirk, the Oslo reverse dial on rotary dial telephones. It started with 9 (where the 1 would be) and counted up to 0 (if I remember it right). Apparently New Zealand was the same, but to have a Capital City different from the rest of the country is very quirky.

Because you couldn’t get a home phone line for love or money, instead you got a radio phone that was the size of a briefcase. If it bleeped, you said your number and they told you what channel to tune to. It was push to talk so you sometimes missed bits of the conversation. If you wanted to make a call, you went on a hailing channel, told the operator your number and they told you what channel to switch to. I had one in the flat for a couple of months when it was prudent for me to be contactable.

When I didn’t have the radio phone, if I wanted to make a call, the nearest phone box was about a mile away and the bottom third of the box had large slats on all four sides so that whilst it kept the rain out it let the wind in. I was told that this was to deter the underclass from sleeping in them…

The lovely open sandwiches (called Smørbrød) seemed very exotic at first but became the norm very quickly and soon became rather predictable after a few weeks in the staff canteen. One thing I did miss was decent bacon, all of the rashers were streaky & rather scrawny. Surprisingly Denmark was just the same, most of their back bacon being exported to us Brits. Most of my shopping was in a supermarket in town called Domus, I name I had never seen before or since, apart from once seeing a Philipino with a Domus Carrier Bag at Dhahran Airport in Saudi Arabia. Why he had one or that I should remember it is a mystery.

Being Male, my clothes washing regime consisted of waiting until all of my clothes had been worn, then putting them through the house washer and drip drying everything on hangars in the bathroom overnight (with the heater on, no charge). I may have had an iron but I found that the hanger treatment meant that I could dispense with that step. I imagine that this was delusional but being an Engineer I had a Permit to look shabby.

One other quirky memory- a Noregian could peel a plate full of prawns for you in no time flat, you just had to demonstrate that you were inept at it.

A postcard from Rome or Why did it have to happen to me?

One Sunday morning in January 2005, I was having a cup of coffee with an aunt and uncle of mine and we were discussing holiday plans. My uncle and I decided Rome would be a good place to visit for a long weekend. We decided to go away for the Easter weekend. When I informed the churchwarden that the organist would not be available to play for Easter Day, a look of horror came over his face. I told him I had played for fifteen Easters on the trot and this next one was not going to be number sixteen. After that he took it remarkably well.

We departed the UK on Good Friday evening and landed at Rome Ciampano airport. Ryanair never take you to main airport, do they? It took almost an hour for our luggage to arrive, so by the time we got out of the airport it was midnight. I wasn’t worried, however, because I had already booked a taxi to the hotel and I had confirmed our booking by e-mail earlier that day. So you can guess what’s coming next! Due to a remarkable piece of serendipity we were transported to the hotel by the original firm I had booked with, not because they came to pick us up – they didn’t seem to know about the reservation – but because the couple they had come to meet didn’t turn up! All’s well that ends well? No, because the fun really started when we arrived at the hotel.

I was told by the night porter that Rome was very popular this time of year with the English. I could have been forgiven for thinking it was Christmas rather than Easter as there was no room in the inn. Oh dear! It’s now gone 1.00am. I was told not to worry as there was room at a better hotel; a four star hotel, and what is more we wouldn’t have to pay for the taxi. He told me that about five times, as if this was going to make me feel better. Arriving at the next hotel, two things struck me. Firstly, there are not too many four star hotels located down a dark alley way. Secondly, I have never seen a four star hotel that hides its light under a bushel and only displays one star outside its front door. I wasn’t in the mood to argue and the taxi had already gone. The night porter in this hotel was friendly, although he didn’t seem to be expecting us. His English was virtually non-existent and my Italian isn’t that much better. It was either charades or shout louder in English. I opted for charades. He did, however, have a room and he was very generous with his whisky measures. I can’t remember what time we eventually went to bed; obvious reasons.

The next day – after sleeping in – we enjoyed the Coliseum and a general potter around the eternal city; pretty uneventful and very pleasing for that. After dinner we went to the taxi rank and got a taxi back to the hotel. Now, I can’t recall the name of the taxi driver; Ferrari perhaps? It was the taxi ride from hell. Cutting everyone up, not stopping at a roundabout and driving down a tramline to take some form of shortcut; and of course he wasn’t doing this strictly within the speed limits. The fare cost 8 euros and I gave him 10 saying, ‘Keep the change. I’m just glad to alive.’

On the Sunday morning I was pick pocketed by an Albanian woman on a metro station. Thankfully – due to my quick thinking and raising the alarm – I managed to retrieve my wallet without anything being taken out. A close shave! I was wondering after that incident if anything more could go wrong and thankfully it didn’t. St Peter’s and the Vatican looked as wonderful as ever and I had to laugh as sunglasses salesmen instantly became umbrella salesman as soon as it rained.

Rome is a beautiful city. Go throw a coin in the Trevi fountain and make a wish. See where the Christians were fed to the lions. See the Roman Catholic HQ, and have coffee in endless cafes in what seem like endless piazzas. I just hope your hotel isn’t full when you get there!