Relais Degli Scalzi Ancona

... country or towards the north. Seems as though as soon as we passed the 5000km mark we haven’t gone anywhere except from ferry ports to train stations. I really want to see and explore, but I feel I’m fighting a losing battle. If we do head out, we’re just going to be miserable and not enjoy ourselves. What’s the point in that?

So I’m officially in mourning now. We’ve missed so much that I wanted to ...

... br>My biggest pet peeve within this rant is what I find inside many of these churches. A store. Now, it has been a while for me but aren't there passages in the bible depicting that to be a big no no? Didn't Jesus come to Jerusalem to pray only to find it full of people selling their wares, didn't Jesus become so ticked off (rightously or not) that he yelled at people for what they have done to his fathers house and he ...

Arrived early in the morning and it took us forever to get off the boat. No kind of organisation at all and then we had to queue for an age to go thru customs in the van, but then we were on our way. I was driving and got my first taste of Italian traffic... oh my god. It was crazy and we werent really sure where we were going and neither was Harriet our GPS. I love how everyone just pulls out wherever they ...

... itself was clean and the beds seemed comfy and the air conditioning worked a little too well! After a tour we headed back to the cabin, Dan had a lie down, I read my book- and finished it :( We got up just after dinner was open...around 6.30pm ish. The self service was simple but seemed okay. I got chicken and chips with mushroom gravvy over everything.. Dan had a version of Parmagiana and chips. So all in all not particularly healthy but edible ...

Off to the beach today, that is pretty much all there is to do in Ancona. Beautiful day though. 30min bus ride to get to the beach. The water was amazing, bright blue with white pebbles.

Got a little burnt! Everyone at the beach was so tanned!!!! even the babies!!!

... the lengthy waits in various roasting hot areas of the port. First we waited for the boat to arrive, then we waited for the vehicles to disembark, and finally we waited for our turn to board. The biggest problem seemed to be hold-ups getting the on-board traffic out of the town. However, the wait was made easier by a friendly and good-value fast food bar which provided us with fizzy pop (both), beer (Paul) and ice cream (me). I was also ...

... felt good to be back in Italy - things were familiar AND we could read the signs etc. - no more Greek symbols in the alphabet!! In Ancona we walked to the train station - quite a distance from the ship terminal, grabbed a bite to eat and then hopped the train for Ravenna, Italy.

... trains in Italy seem so much better than the ones in England from my experience, and so much cheaper: it was over 3 hours to get from Rome to Ancona yet the ticket only cost €23, bargain. Also, the seat I had was really large, loads of leg room. The scenery was ok out of the window, it seemed to get greener the further north we went. Near the stop before Ancona there was a strip of beach, with loads of volley ball courts and ...

... Grand Canal and tourists and unique magic, a city of canals and no cars. We'd visited Venice before, in the mid-70s, but I think it will always strike me with a sense of wonder, no matter how many times I see it. To get to our small hotel, where we had a reservation for a top-floor room with a terrace and narrow view of the Grand Canal, we negotiated with a water taxi pilot to take us the back way -- not down the Grand Canal, crowded with ...

... duly switched on for me, and do whatever I had to do (which nobody understood). The general feeling was that, whatever it was I was up to, it would probably take about ten minutes.

Warning ! The next section may prove to be very uninteresting for those people who, like myself, regard computers as tools and only know things about them on a 'need to know' basis. It may provide a lesson for anyone remotely interested in undertaking an in ill-conceived venture such as mine or may ...