Hallooo!
Since I’ve been staying with my target audience (i.e.
parents) for the past few days, this post is mainly for my online following and
for posterity. I write it from a TGV
bound for Paris from the Cote d’Azur, as befits my idiom these days…
Picking up where we left off… Croatia was a blast, although
it took us two days to finally see Split properly, since we kept going off on
day trips and coming back too tired to move. On the Tuesday we got a coach to
the Plitvice Lakes, prefaced by a lecture from a bluff old tour guide covering
bandits, ties, accordions, Nikola Tesla and a rather sobering recap of the
recent civil war just before we arrived. The Lakes themselves were amazing - very
blue, picturesque and unfortunately closed to swimmers, for obvious reasons -
and many a photo was taken before we were bundled off to a highway restaurant
for one of the best, and fastest, three-course package meals I’ve ever had,
then back home as the air con struggled in vain against the afternoon
sun.
After a quick wander around nighttime Split, we got an early
night ahead of an early-morning catamaran trip to Hvar, where we were packed
into a speedboat and driven around the various surrounding islands. First stop was the Green Cave on Vis,
followed by the Blue Cave which involved swapping boats, ducking as we went through the tiny entrance and marvelling at the natural reflections within (and in my case, recreating
the “Ocean Rain” album cover in my head). Then we were taken to the Stiniva Bay
for a paddle and quickfire GoPro action, followed by a burger in a beautiful
but obscenely expensive cove, then back to Hvar and onwards home to flop about
indiscriminately.
The next day we packed, checked out of our Airbnb, stowed
our bags in the restaurant next door and went wandering round Split, buying bags
of raspberries and cherries at the market, sightseeing in the old town,
checking in to our ferry down by the port, heading to the beach for steins of
Croatian lager, trekking up the clock tower for a hair-raising photoshoot and
eventually clambering aboard the good ship Marko Polo, having
dinner in the company of Zagreb Hells Angels and bedding down in our
surprisingly comfortable overnight cabin.
The next morning we bolted down breakfast and made our way
through Ancona until we found our rental car (sadly no Cinquecento’s were
available, but it did the job) and hit the road, almost immediately having to
swerve to avoid a comically stereotypical Italian car crash. Ended up in Assisi, wandering through the
streets until we reached the Rocco Maggiori for a quick tour, then back down
for some amazing pasta and ice cream (soon to become a running theme) before
heading on to Tuscany and meeting up with our affable Airbnb hosts. Settled in
to the upstairs annex of our Tuscan villa, and on to Siena for a nighttime
stroll and a pizza at Il Pomodorino, overlooking the Duomo, before a terrifying
return trip down darkened roads to crash out.
In the morning we had an amazing breakfast and sampled our
host’s homemade olive oil, before setting off to Siena again for a sweltering
stroll through the main square and churches, a chocolate ice cream that
literally made me go weak in the knees, and more pizza. Then we went on to
Castello di Brolio for a wander round the ramparts and down into the town for a
wine tasting, which led to a wine-buying, which was followed by an amazing
dinner of wild boar tagliatelle and panna cotta at Villa in Sesta as the sun
went down over the vineyards.
After another superlative breakfast we packed up and drove
to Galliano, to meet up with the parents and Carol and Vito in the aftermath of
their exhibition at Pierre and Angelica’s country house, for focaccia, fagiole
and fun all round. Then we went to Florence, dropped the car off
at the airport and checked into our extremely classy Airbnb on Via San Gallo,
ahead of a whistle-stop tour of the town including the Duomo, the Palazzo
Vecchio, the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio (mostly closed by this point) and the
Palazzo Pitti. I wasn’t feeling great by this point but a
pizza in a hidden garden and gallons of pink grapefruit ice cream did the
trick, before we headed back to bed.
The next day we got a but to Fiesole to meet up with the
parents at their old European Institute University stomping ground, have a
quick tour and a canteen lunch in a requisitioned villa, then embarked on a
six-hour journey back to the Cote, stopping at Monaco so Gaby could ogle the
Instagram-ready passers-by and assorted supercars, and Nice for an excellent meal
in the main square.
The next day we lolled around Antibes, visiting the market
and the ramparts before having a dip at La Gravette and a singalong at the flat
with Juliet and Mel; this was followed by a day with a rented electric car,
which we took to Gourdon, the Pont du Loup and Grasse before heading back for a
nap and taking in Juan-les-Pins and Cannes in the evening, including an
eye-wateringly expensive aperitif in the Carlton.
On Thursday I finally got round to doing some work, but
still found time to wander round the Cap, get shuttled to Juan-les-Pins via
scooter and bus for a beachside drink and make an appearance at a picnic on the
beach, before rounding the evening off with crepes and ice cream in the old
town. Today we saw the family off with a lovely lunch, and set off to Paris in
the afternoon for more adventures.My phrase of the week is one of many Italian food-related sayings that featured on the place settings at Il Pomodorino: "Chatting with a travelling companion, the road seems shorter."
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