The first three days of this trip included rather too much driving and not so much leisure time. This was partly because of the weather and partly because of our poor planning. But we were to make amends. From our uninspiring overnight stop in the parking lot in Livorno, we headed north to Pisa to see a leaning tower. We stopped at the Lidl supermarket on the way for a small cultural experience and we bought a Pomelo which is a giant citrus fruit and which was imported from China. After lunch in the van we headed off to the tower. Surprising serenity at tourism central Oh the fun that can be had with a leaning tower and a little perspective... We decided to pay to walk to the top of the tower and I have to say that this was money well spent. The leaning tower of Pisa must be one of the most recognisible images in the world but up close it is peacefully serene, set as it is in a complex that includes the Pisa Cathedral and surrounded by the expansive ...
Feb 5th - Sometimes travelling is hard, and I have moaned a bit about how covid has made everything harder. But sometimes it's just pure fun. Not to say that everything about our day out rafting was plain sailing. To begin with we had to get everyone on board (have you ever noticed how many of our idioms come from nautical activities? Ask me sometime about freezing the balls off a brass monkey...). I enjoyed the water as a kid but I never went white water rafting until I was a fully grown person. I can see how it could be intimidating. We found Natexplora who said they ran kids trips and that was enough to sway the doubters. The fact that we ran the same route as the other six adult-only rafts on our trip was fortunately lost in the joy and thrill of the moment. There is a project to divert water from the Maipo through a hydroelectric tunnel. Apparently, this will reduce the flow of Maipo by 90%. We had heard of this scheme, and we saw these signs, although the ...
When we thought about going to France, we already had in mind that we would be able to stay for 3 months. We'd heard that from someone. And of course we Googled to confirm. What we didn't take into account was the Schengen agreement. Schengen is the name of the 1985 treaty that enacted passport-free movement within most of the EU. A common policy was established allowing non-member visitors to stay anywhere within the area for any 90 days of a 180 day period. Having already spent 3 weeks in Spain, we had used up 21 days of our Schengen time before we arrived in France, which would mean we would have to leave Chamonix, and the Schengen area, on December 10th (earlier than our current plan of the 28th). There also go our plans to rent a campervan and drive around Italy in the new year! But, we've done some research and it seems we may have a partial reprieve. A less well-known clause of the agreement allows individual membe...
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