Italy 3rd and 4th July 2010 (Turin)

Saturday 3rd July

I woke up at 3.30 a.m. feeling completely hideous and left the house at 4.15, managing only a cup of tea and some juice. At Manc airport at 5.00. I checked in my bags but because the flight was with Flybe for BA, I was subject to their carriage rules which did not allow my small suitcase to come in the cabin with me “because the flight is very full”, so I had to pay extra to take my bag in the hold both ways. Grrr. Straight into a long queue for coffee and a yoghurt and granola pot in Costa. I went through into departures buying some Ibuprofen for Liz and some CK for me. There was no electronic notice about the gate but suddenly the tannoy said it was the last call. Seeing as how there hadn’t been any call this was not quite true. I had a double seat all to myself and stretched out. The plane was late leaving which made me late into Milan. Then thanks to the evil lying Flybe attendant, not content with fleecing me for my bag, she sent it off into lost luggage land. This was the biggest of my several “lost and found” events of the holiday. This was the bag with all my clothes in it, not the bag with all my mountain kit in it. All I had was what I stood up in, short sleeve shirt, jeans, sweatshirt (it was chilly that early in the morning), big thick walking socks and very big Alpine walking boots! It was pretty hot in Milan – high 20s. The airport staff were very helpful and gave me claim forms and said the bag would most likely appear the next day.
Time was marching on and although my plans had given me lots of time for lunch at Milan airport, I now had no time for any refreshments or comfort break before catching my bus to Turin so just had to leap on very hungry and just a bit stressed. The bus was fine, it took about 2 hours to get to Turin, crossing a dull, flat, rotting industrial region. My first impression of Turin was dirty and rough looking. The bus dropped me off at Corso Vittorio Emanuele which is a very long road cutting Turin from East to West. I hopped in a taxi and got to my hotel – the Art Olympic, by this time I was very hot. The hotel was in a quite nice residential area, at least it didn’t feel scary unlike some of the places the bus went through. I whacked the air con up high and went shopping in the supermarket – Bennet just across the road. I bought bread, ham, tomatoes, a small pack of butter, beer and water. Also a toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel (hotels was very pongy) and a shirt, shorts and pants! I took these back and stuffed myself. Then I had a shower, washed out the clothes I’d travelled in and fell asleep.
The hotel reception sold me a Turin card for €20, this gave me free travel and free entry to museums and attractions.
Woke up a bit better so got the 72 bus into city centre. Turin buses don’t give you any information so you either have to fathom the rotten free map from the hotel or guess where you are. Not like my public transport Mecca – Geneva! I got off a bit early at Porta Susa and then walked to Piazza Castello in search of a non existent gay cafe. Instead I found a science exhibition going on in the square. Lots of great statues.
Time for another meal so I located a small resto on a side street. I ordered salad and a 3 stagione pizza with ham, artichokes and mushrooms – it was enormous so I ate the filling and left most of the base. All washed down with a big glass of beer. I missed my bus so walked up to Porta Susa and caught the next one back. I rang Mel for Annie’s phone number as I’d entered it incorrectly into my phone. I rang her and we agreed to meet the next day. This was nice as I was feeling a bit rubbish without my suitcase especially as I’d packed my nice clothes for my holiday and didn’t want to lose them.
At this point I was too hot and didn’t really like Turin much. I hadn’t slowed my pace to theirs so was still racing around.
I saw a very old man putting a sheet on the pavement and preparing for bed.
Also a tally of 4 people with their arms in slings!

Royal Palace of Turin
Palazzo Madama
Palazzo Madama




Sunday 4th July
I got up about 7.30 and had my first shower. Breakfast was ok but not startlingly delicious – cereal and yoghurt, bread and butter. There was meat and cheese but it looked sweaty and there was a fly on the croissants so I didn’t go with any of those things. The coffee was out of a self service machine and was vile. Whilst getting ready to go out, the phone rang and it was reception to say that my bag had arrived – hooray. I went and collected it straight away. The zip which holds the whole suitcase together had been totally mangled by a conveyor and once I’d opened it up, it basically fell to bits, being only held in one piece by a plastic tag. I photographed it extensively for my insurance claim. Luckily there is a luggage shop across the street so I would be able to get a bag on Monday.
I managed to get a much better map of Turin from reception and headed off on the 72 back into town. Specifically to go to the museum of the Risorgimento (to see if there was any mention of Evasio Radice, my great great grandfather and a prominent figure) but the blasted place was shut for what looked like a major refurb. so no dice there. This was quite annoying as I’d looked it up before leaving and the web site had not and still does not mention the closure.
Determined to get some use out of my Turin card I headed next to the Alpine Museum, this was up a hill called Monte dei Cappucini. I looked in the church briefly as you were not allowed to go very far in. Had my home made sandwich lunch in the shade next to the church and then went into the museum where I spent a very happy couple of hours. There is a great vista from this little hill across a very long section of the Alps. You can really see what an enormous and majestic obstacle they are. 
I went back down and met up with Annie and Caroline just near the bridge, very nice to see them and we went for a drink by the river Po and caught up a bit.
We decided to go up the Mole Antonelliana tower, this ex synagogue also houses a film museum but we didn’t really have time to look at this. The lift is glass and is very small compared with the tower. It goes right up the middle and it goes up for a minute. This felt like a long time to be dangling in the middle of nothing and I can’t say I enjoyed the ride up. At the top the view across the city is great and you can see how huge Turin is. The descent was not so bad, better the devil you know. The city is laid out very well and there are just lots of enormous squares with huge public buildings in them and always a big statue of a bigwig – Vittorio Emanuele or Carlo Alberto etc. etc. There is also a lot of graffiti on the important buildings which is really depressing. They need to adopt a zero tolerance attitude and do some heavy policing about this and the endless crap on the streets, and so do we.
I went back to my hotel on the bus accompanied by I think a Romany accordion player with his one eyed wife. He seemed to be playing in a deliberately irritating way, eventually a big Italian mama got him to give up his seat for her as she waved her OAP card at him. This was really quite a bizarre incident and reminded me of that really annoying book about accordions by Annie Proulx! This however is a link to the best ever accordion playing by the sadly missed Danny Federici, I think this is the last time he played with the E Street Band.
Another shower and then more or less straight back out to meet A and C. They were in a hotel near the Porta Nuova station (biggest station in the city), however none of the buses went there! I got off at Porta Susa with the intention of hopping on the metro to get to Porta Nuova, however big signs in the metro saying to get the no.1 bus about which the bus stops had no information. As Porta Nuova was on Corso Vittorio Emanuele I asked the next bus driver if he went there, he said yes. What he didn’t say was that he didn’t stop so we whizzed past it and then of course the bus didn’t stop for ages. This gave me a hot 20 min fast walking detour to get to A and C. I passed the most enormous monument ever of Vittorio Emanuele, an absolute whopper!
We went to a small resto on a side street. I had jumbo spaghetti with sausage and mixed salad and beer and water. Not bad, more hefty portions. A and C walked some of the way to the bus stop with me. We had planned to check out the gay scene but we were all knackered and none of the locations we’d got listed showed up for real.
On my way to the bus stop I passed through Piazza Carlo Alberto which was very fine. The science expo was holding an outdoor public interview with some scientists on a big stage with big screens like a rock concert. Loads of people were listening to this.
As I got back to the hotel it rained a bit which was lovely. I had yet another shower.
Only 2 arms in slings today.

Alpine Museum
Mole Antonelliana


Museum of the Risorgimento
Piazza Carlo Alberto
Museum of the Risorgimento
























































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Chris and Jak’s Lakeland Adventure Monday 170510





Both woke quite early after a somewhat better sleep with the window open but perhaps not open enough as I had been pretty hot again. Bloody hell, middle age seems to mean not sleeping and increasingly losing my senses, that’s in the plural.
Breakfast time again. We picked up the usual cereals and juices etc. and then both asked for food that wasn’t exactly what was on the menu. C for bacon and me for ham and poached egg. We were both half way through eating our cereal when the hot food arrived and got plonked down so we had to finish off the cereal holding the bowls up. I don’t know why we didn’t protest and send the hot stuff back, really we should have done but I was so surprised it didn’t occur to me! It was nice but not massive in the portion department by any means. We picked up some flapjack to take with us just in case we felt a terrible urge to eat at any point.
Chris went off to use the pool and associated facilities again and I had another lovely shower and then went down to try out the Wii machine. I played some tennis very badly, no change there although I could see how it might possibly make me better at it. Good fun and confirmed that I don’t need to buy one! It said I had a fitness age of 80 which was mildly disconcerting.
Then we packed up and checked out, and whizzed into Keswick. Parked up by the lake and had a not very strong coffee in an old fashioned lakeside cafe. Then off for a tour of the lake by boat. This was lovely, weather was great. Back to the town for lunch, funny how quickly one gets hungry. Went into Bar 26, this was a very fortuitous move, nice cafe, nice food, nice loo! C had soup and a baguette and I had a lamb and mint burger, very tasty and nicely presented. Also good strong coffee.
It was time to hit the shops, and although it felt like we went in every outdoor shop in the town the best one seemed to be George Fisher. And thus passed several happy hours until we were shopped out and it really was time to go home.
We set off but only got to Tebay services where we just had to check out the opportunities for more spending. Got back to Tod by 7.00 and I was home before 8.00. A really great weekend with lots done and good weather all through. Thanks Chris.

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Chris and Jak’s Lakeland Adventure Sunday 160510

Ennerdale Water





C and I both had a rotten night, too hot, too thirsty but I couldn’t face trying to locate my water bladder which was in my rucksack in the box under the bunk. Then our companions decided to rise early and took all their stuff out of the room and got dressed in the passage. They were doing the C2C and had masses of stuff to carry, huge cameras, books, make up. All I can say is they must be very strong. As they’d properly managed to wake us up by being so considerate we had a chat with them and they seemed a bit more friendly.

Two of the German men were in the room next door to us with the ok crim and the sick crim (self inflicted I suspect given the amount of beer he was drinking). The Germans had to have an extension cable going into the room for their breathing apparatus – they were also doing the C2C but with a Sherpa Van to carry their kit. The 2 women had moved the safety sign which had been put up so that people wouldn’t trip over the cable and helpfully propped it against the door into which the wire went. Sometimes I really do think some people have no sense at all.
C and I both felt very tired so we packed up and went down to breakfast at 7.30. I had muesli and yoghurt and we both had some cooked food, my veggie option not so good, in fact it had that old soapy taste of dried soup from the 70s. Also scrambled egg which I hadn’t asked for and which reminds me far too much of vomit. More toast, no marg for me, just couldn’t face it. We picked up some very nice flapjack and our packed lunches and headed out. The YH is convenient for getting food prepared but the quality is pants for the price. Also they say all their food is locally sourced, organic, fair trade but they are tied in to one supplier so this is bollocks. I’m now starting to think I don’t really want to stay in a YH again as I don’t sleep and the food quality is only ok. The packed lunch was ok but nothing to write home about. I checked out to see if we could camp at Black Sail for when we do our assault on Pillar but this is apparently not an option, so we’ll just have to carry our curries! Which were delicious in comparison with the YH!
We set off to circuit Ennerdale Water via the south side. This was a lovely walk and everyone else was coming the other way. Some people we saw twice. It looked like it might rain at one point but then it got really warm.
We stopped to eat our squashed sandwiches at the end of the lake near some swans. Then we trotted back around to Bowness Knot and the car.
A bit more pfaffing and moving of items from A to B and back again and it was time to head off to Bassenthwaite. We’d been out of mobile contact since Saturday morning when I’d very briefly got a signal but we still had to drive quite a way before a flurry of texts came whizzing in. It wasn’t very far to get to Bassenthwaite and the Castle Inn.
We checked in, sorted a table for dinner and then went up to our room, no our suite! I had forgotten we’d upgraded to a suite. Totally fab having an extra room. The bathroom was great, huge shower which I quickly took avail of. Then straight off for a swim, jacuzzi, steam room and sauna. Chris ordered a bucket of ice and we put the champagne in and had a little aperitif while getting ready for dinner.
Dinner was nice, quite plain but good that you could really taste the food. Chris had something fishy and I had unidentified vegetable soup. C went for sea bass and me for lamb shank. We washed it down with some large glasses of Sauvignon. Both selected creme brulee for dessert. A small child came to look at us so I put my napkin and did the “how much for the little girl?” bit from the Blues Brothers. After all that we just had to polish off the champagne and then both so knackered it was time for bed.

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And finally …. Mont Blanc

Big mountain from hotel window

Tuesday 8th September Day 1

Somewhat frustrating pre-flight irritations after being ready for days in advance! First of all a traffic jam at Yeadon, then my pre-paid car park entry wouldn’t let me in and lastly had to pay extra for my luggage. And all of this meant I missed my airport coffee!
Met up with Ann and we had a smooth, easy flight. Jet2, being budget, make you pay for refreshments so I was glad of my home made sandwich.
On arrival in Geneva, we were met by Mel plus Annie and Caroline. Straight off to Chamonix with me navigating Mel out of the airport and onto the right motorway, fairly straightforward, just followed the signs to France!
After an hour or so, we got to our hotel, La Chaumiere and met up with Liz who had been out for a run. Warming up for the big one! Lovely to see her (and Mel of course!) again.
Ann and I got a nice room with a balcony looking straight up at Mont Blanc. I whizzed into the town and bought a couple of pairs of cheap but warm trousers as had managed not to bring the right ones, grrr! I brought quite a lot of things I didn’t need at all but the trousers were the only thing I really missed. Still the $5 (keyboard needs a Euro symbol) ones did very well and now I’ve repaired them, I’ve passed them on!
On returning to the hotel, we met the guides for the trip, Pierrot Fiorucci who works in the Mercantour with Mel and Liz, and Stephane Benoist, who hails from Nice, and about whom, more later.
We ate a 3 course dinner which was very good.

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Koenigstein Sunday July 5th 2009

After not sleeping very well (a lot of traffic noise because of being on the corner for J), we went for breakfast. A nice array, muesli, yoghurt, salamis, hams, cheeses, jams, nice fresh bread, not very nice coffee, possibly with chicory in it. J had a boiled egg.

We asked the lovely breakfast frau, possibly the one on the right in the picture of Cafe H about how to get to the Grosser Feldberg. Actually weirdly none of the people in the pictures on their website or the dog look like anyone that we met.
She gave us the bus number so we went to the train station to get the bus. The bus turned up with a very nice bus driver (Chris’). We climbed up in the bus to the top of the mountain (hill) as it’s only 878 metres where there was the annual town sports rally taking place as well as a biker convention. Despite all this, it was all very calm, there were a couple of cafes and kiosks, so we went to get a coffee.
On the short way, Chris picked up an old geezer who was taking a photo of a car. As well as the challenging language situation he had also had a stroke and so it was amazing that we were able to communicate at all. I kept trying to drag C away from him but this was very difficult so struck was she. Finally got away and into the cafe only to have him come and sit at the next table. At this point we gave in. Anyway his granddaughter lives somewhere in England and is very intelligent. The Americans taught him his English after the war, he was born in 1933. Actually he was quite a nice old man but most of the chat had to be done at high volume so guess we all entertained the cafe customers.
After some small purchases, we set off to walk the so called 7 km back to Koenigstein with the map which took a lot of working out so we just followed the signs and then just the general direction (down).
We had our substantial packed lunch, ate up some of the bits from the previous days extreme hunger rations, ate our new rolls and cheese and ham and tomatoes.
The walk through the forest was lovely, very quiet, a man passed by on a horse, the odd walker. We crossed the big road going up to the top and then came across a cafe/pub so had to investigate. It was next to a campsite and seemed to be part of an old Nature Movement. C had a beer and I had an espresso. Lovely.
At this point I finally managed to work out where we were on the map, better late than never. We walked back into Koenigstein and the Cafe H. Had a nice quiet couple of hours, I had a nap.
Then refreshed, went into town and after some photo opportunities went to what we thought was a real German restaurant that we’d picked out the night before, only to discover it had a Greek theme to the cooking. We sat outside and C had a lamb kebab and I had a lamb steak with cottage cheese in the middle of it. Not a good choice and mainly because I couldn’t remember what Schafkaese was. More beers.
Wandered back, stopping at a bar for a cocktail (C) and a big whisky (me).

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