lovely lucca?

lucca today and it wasn't as pretty as the pictures i'd seen on the television...more fool you for being taken in by clever photography said lou! but the streets were interesting and the church facades amazing. i liked the walls which we walked on at the end of the visit.

then we headed for the hills beyond and ended up in castelnuova. no tourists, no sites you felt you had to go and look at...just a wander then a cup of tea followed by a relaxing drive home via san guiliano terme which is the town nearest our hotel. the mission was to find a good restaurant to eat in this evening. we found two and the one we opted for tonight was great fun with a kids' party in full swing to celebrate the birthday of the owner's daughter!

my mussel and clam 'soup' was a brimming plate of shellfish which took some eating...but i managed! then wild boar stew while lou chewed the bones of a deep fried rabbit...sorry gwen!

ps from the road to lucca you can see the grand buildings of pisa including the tower rising from the flat plain...the leaning tower still looks extremely odd even from that distance!

florence etc....

missed posting on here last night as was feeling a bit aggrieved by the treatment of visitors by the uffizi staff. i got caught in a war of words between the girls who keep your bags and the guy who checks them on the x-ray machine. being honest meant my water bottle (not bothered) and my folding scissors (practically an heirloom!) ended up in the bin! despite that the botticellis were superb and calmed me down no end.

florence itself i didn't find that exciting to wander around but today in siena all that was forgotten. a lovely city and a big surprise to find the palio is like one enormous raked stage. we ate overlooking it and people watched to our hearts delight! then off to the duomo and the museum opposite which has marvelous frescoes.

advice for car drivers: leave your car in the underground car park at the station and take the bus into town. 95 centimes each way for the bus (buy at any tabac shop) and 2 euros for about five hours parking...brilliant!

home by way of san gimignano and on through the glorious tuscan landscape.

leaning

the tower truly leans in quite a remarkable way and is rescued from too much tourist interference by the enormous lawns on all sides that are forbiddden to the hordes and their litter. despite that i managed to buy a cheesy card for the son who likes them plus a magnet for the beer fridge and, of course, a model tower as a souvenir!
the weather was glorious and i probably made him walk too far but the pizza lunch was great and the people watching almost better.
then to the railway station to check out the times for florence 'demain'.
a longish wait for the bus while i dreamed of leaping into the hotel pool which i did on our return.
lou is enjoying a beer in the garden as i write...later? pasta probably.

arrivederci!

all packed and bored!

having said goodbye to friends who had been in the gite we rounded up the remaining cat, ginge, who always disgraces himself in the car despite us leaving him til the last minute. marmalade was already crying in the bedroom where i had imprisoned him. as soon as they see the cat boxes they tend to do a runner!
the trip to the 'pension' needed one stop for a clean up but they were soon exploring their home for the next nine days alongside a very large cat called olivier and a silky tortoiseshell called isobel. we came home by a new route and now know to avoid floirac if in a hurry despite the prettiness of the village.
back home there were figs to be picked and frozen, fridges to be cleaned (yuk!), plants to be moved to where they can catch the rain (wet here please but not in tuscany!) and then the bags to be packed. tonight friends have asked us to dinner so no cooking, result!
bonne route pour demain! :)

pisa

lou & lynne are going on a mini trip to pisa and the surrounding countryside.

icy blasts and icons

reading back i see i didn't write about the kremlin visit on our last full day in moscow. well, we did get there despite the icy wind. next time, thermals! so after breakfast and meeting the agency lady with our train tickets we walked, yet again, down tverskaya ul to the kremlin.

the ticket said we could visit everything and the guide book said we could buy a pass to take photos...wrong! no photos allowed in any of the buildings but ok outside. as for the buildings all but one seemed to be shut at first so i had a bit of a rant...blame the cold seeping into my bones.

calming down it became clear that although two of the most externally impressive buildings were closed for renovation (how that has been the recurring theme of this trip!) we could visit the others.
i bought a guide book from the last cathedral and enjoyed reading back in the warm hotel what i should have looked at. happily i could relate a lot of it to things i remembered.

the smallness of the cathedrals was always a surprise and the richness of the icons never fails to delight the eye although even i had to admit to being all iconed out by the time we finished. how such marvels survived the revolution is a miracle although a lot didn't according to my book. i was amused that a great number of the icons had been brought to moscow 'for safety'. i wonder how many churches and cathedrals are now wanting them back?

the 'household items' listed by lonely planet were opulant in the extreme and being explained, very loudly, to a class of bored children by a woman with a very loud voice. we found ourselves dodging in and out of rooms to avoid her, likewise several other couples with their guides.

the stall with the guide book had russian dolls, much cheaper and better quality than the stalls by the resurrection gate on red square so some of those found their way into the stripy 'eco' bag. that bag is in most of the photos of me during this expedition! usually containing brolly, lonely planet,water bottle, souvenirs, wetwipes......travel light? me? :)

the kremlin is actually on a hill which is apparent when you are in the middle of it, hence the biting wind. there are government buldings too but we only saw a couple of soldiers despite my norwegian ladies swearing they saw putin. personally i think it was one of the 'characters' loitering outside. we could have had our photo taken with 'stalin', 'lenin', 'trotsky', the 'czar'......

leaving the plethora of onion domed buildings and the icy blasts, we quickly marched to the food court in the underground mall for lunch and a warm. next the internet cafe and then i heroically walked back to the english courtyard to return the cloakroom disc thingy that i'd forgotten to hand back (lou insisted!). it was shut! i shoved it under the door and when i got back to gum to meet lou i decided i needed to buy that skirt from monsoon as a reward for my selflessness! :)

then the supermarket to stock up on provisions for the train to berlin...getting to be old hands now...coffee, tea, coffeemate, biscuits, fruit, something yummy for breakfast, something for supper...and vodka of course!

that night it was yet another italian meal. there are two italian restaurants near the hotel, always busy and very good food...is there an authentic russian restaurant anywhere near the hotel pekin? we looked but never found one...and which region's cuisine in this vast country would you choose?

next morning we got up at a disgustingly early hour...5 o'clock...to be ready for the taxi driver...who came on time! :) sadly we were far too early at the station and waited on the forecourt for the train to be announced on the board. finally, when i was numb and very stroppy (no morning tea makes lynne a very unpleasant person!) the train number came up and we gratefully headed for our 'wagon'. even then the male prov. seemed in no hurry to let us on. he was very lucky i was weighed down with my back pack as by then i was ready to murder anyone standing between me and the samovar!
the train pulled out through the gloomy dawn and i suddenly realised i was looking at lowry-esque figures slouching along on suburban station platforms. was this what lowry saw in the industrial murk around him and so invented his signature style of drawing people?

we passed through very snowy landscape for most of the day and took the inevitable photos through the grubby windows. i had a strong sense that something very special was coming to an end and was very glad i had scribbled notes at randon times of the day throughout the whole trip which i would enjoy reading later...
and i have! :)

uniforms

i mentioned in one of my missives that the chinese out of uniform are a friendly and cheerful people. in uniform they seem to be something else! it slowly dawned on me that there were an awful lot of uniforms on the chinese streets, more even than moscow, and particularly in beijing, where we noticed an inordinate number of 'uniforms' sporting 'beijing security' badges. the uniforms always carried a lot of badges, buttons, braid, belts and boots! strange in a land where mao is always pictured in his simple peasant dress.

it wasn't long before i began to categorise them into comic, job's worth and, scarily, sinister.

comic
at most traffic junctions despite an extremely efficient set of lights; those for cars, those for bikes, those for pedestrians and a count down system so you know if you should scuttle across rather than stroll, there were often policemen as well.
at one particular crossing in xi'an we observed with glee four policemen 'changing guard'. the two on duty were in rain capes; one on a plinth making arm signals and half turns like an automaton and the other standing around at his feet. the two taking over arrived at the plinth and there was snapping to attention and sharp salutes all round. then the action went all sloppy as they debated who was going to have the rain capes! there was a bit of a stand off and then the capes were handed over. all this time the traffic continued to flow quite easily without any help from the 'uniforms'. up on the plinth the new officer on duty went into stiff armed action, now equipped for the weather! :)

job's worth
also at the junctions as if you didn't already have enough information to guide you across the road safely there were 'traffic assistants'; fetchingly dressed in mustard shellsuits in shanghai and blue pyjamas in beijing, topped off with soft baseball caps. whistles, batons or flags, in combination or all three at once completed the look. they used the batons to keep back the pedestrians and the whistle to warn wouldbe offenders not to move prematurely!
i stumbled off the kerb in shanghai and was treated to the full works. fixed irate stare, whistle blown in a continuous shriek and the baton pointed, straight armed, into my face. i was sorely tempted to knock it away but didn't. it stops being comic and/or annoying and becomes intimidating.

like the policemen in tian'anmen square. macy, our guide, said many more were on duty 'for safety' during the holiday week, i felt it was more for hassling.
as you enter the square proper from the pedestrian crossings one side of the gap in the metal crush barriers is 'guarded' by a soldier in green on his dais under a green parasol and the other by a policeman in blue on his dais under a blue parasol. i'm making an assumption about the soldier's identity, the policeman not requiring one as his parasol was labelled 'police'!
as we crossed into the gap i had to sidestep as a second policeman stopped a woman in front of me. she went to open her bag. for id i suppose? but why? she carried no large bag or bundle so couldn't have been a hawker. a grey haired elderly lady, probably a tourist like me, but chinese.
a while later we used the subway to leave the square. sensibly it had been roped off to keep the flow of pedestrians separate. very wise when the space was as crowded as it had been on the holiday monday but this was four in the afternoon and the place was virtually deserted. even so an elderly couple walking the 'wrong way' were pounced on by an unsmiling youth in uniform. you want to say 'oh, per..lease!' but you don't, you just put your head down and keep walking...in the right direction. shades of '1984' went through my head!

sinister
my sensitivity has been heightened to all this by an unpleasant incident as we left xi'an. we had been collected by grace and our driver, mr wang, to be taken to the station. mr wang pulled into the parking area and as we all got out four uniformed guys all converged on the car. they barked at him and took his keys. we tried to get our luggage from the locked boot and grace remonstrated...ineffectually. she was only a young girl. after polite requests from lou and some shoving and pushing of mr wang by the four uniforms, the boot was opened by the biggest one. we grabbed our stuff, not easy as it was cumbersome, and headed across the staion forecourt with grace. scarily two of the guys followed us, one questioning grace, the other lou. lou said it seemed to be about whether mr wang was a taxi. lou said 'no, our car driver' and kept walking! grace delivered us to the waiting room and hurried back. she seemed to think they were not police. taxi rank 'assistants'? station guards? horrible, whatever they were!
i felt thoroughly shaken by it. sorry for mr wang and grace but helpless to assist in any way and just wanted to get on the train and leave xi'an behind...which is what we did an hour later to my great relief!
but what of mr wang? he came from the town by the hot springs and was married with a two year old son. he didn't seem a criminal, just bored by his driving job at times. a mystery, the outcome of which we shall never know.
i think it was this incident that began my sense of homesickness for the peace and relative security of gagnac...that and its wide open green spaces!

a happier footnote to xi'an
as we waited for the train in xi'an that horrible eveing we were all deafened by the female announcer who spoke only in chinese.(although there was an announcement board in english that we could see). a young couple with a child sitting alongside were soon giggling with us as we all jumped at each new onslaught from the tannoy above our heads. eventually the wife asked me where we were going and on finding out we were getting the same train she said she would make sure we didn't get left behind!
see? out of uniform, cheerful and friendly! :)