Lazy

I haven't forgot to blog anything, just never seem to have any time. More on that later. Will try to do it this evening?

BTW. Thanks Matt for the comments. It's nice to see someone is reading this. Send my regards to the lovely people at work!

Scorchio

This blog entry brought to you by caffeine, pizza and sun.

What have we done since my last entry? I can't believe a week has gone past. All this relaxing and eating sure takes a lot of time up.

We visited Pisa to do the usual sights. The tower being the most bizarre and amazing building I've seen. To be 17m off vertical and still standing is testament to the engineering efforts keeping it up-right. To walk up inside is really quote peculiar; as you walk up, on one side of the building you almost feel like you're walking down, even though you are most certainly going up. It's strange to see the grooves worn into the steps move from side to side as the building tilts. The Duomo from the outside looks like a giant humbug and inside is something else. You may not be into religious paintings or architecture, but there truly is some amazing art and craftsmanship that has gone into this building.

We decided to go on a long walk on Friday: 10 miles to be exact, starting early to avoid the midday sun, walking through hills and woodland with views back towards San Gimignano and over hidden valleys. Most of the walk was fantastic until we hit the last quarter. The walking book described the final descend as on a path lined with a mossy stone wall that peters out onto a hunters track, hopefully emerging onto a way-marked path leading to a broad path back to the road. Yeah right. Any walking book that describes a path that 'hopefully' emerges somewhere probably is masking something. Our problem was loggers had destroyed the path and removed the way-marked trees, now part of some designer table of kitchen. Trying to follow the map on a compass bearing failed miserably and we ended up in a vine grove at the bottom of the hill. While never really being lost (we could see San Gim and the main road) it would probably double the length of the walk to follow the road back. We decided to walk up the hill further along as we'd have to cross the original way-marked path at some point. Thankfully it did, after walking up 500m the wifey spotted what looked like one of the few remaining way-marked trees and a path disappearing into the woods. Relieved we followed it and found ourselves on the map. Thinking it was all easy walking from now on was rather taken back to find a fence cutting our path off, declaring the path closed. Closed?! Given the alternatives I decided there was only one course of action. We were going over, and be damned. Recalling all my ninja training we made it over (with some decorum and grace I might add) we walked straight into a work site on a farm. Not quite sure how anyone would react to our presence we decided on a filmsy but accurate cover-story: 'We're lost'?, hoping they wouldn't spot the glaring hole in that we'd climbed the fence. While we gingerly walked past where they were digging, thankfully masked by a tree line we made it to the other side undetected and quickly climbed the other fence.

While certainly not an epic a 10 mile walk turned into a 12-13 miler, through the midday sun and across some major 80% inclines. I must be getting old as I was in bed by 9.30 and slept through...

Woke up next morning feeling rather achy but otherwise ok but realized I desperately need a hair-cut. This should be interesting. We're off to Siena again tomorrow so I'll pluck up the courage to go get it done. Could be interesting what I end up with! What could possibly go wrong?

Mukki milk and Siena

Buying milk here has me regressing to childhood. The milk is made by a company called Mukki, and the milk is unsurprisingly called Mukki Milk. Childish it maybe but I grew up on a diet of Carry On films, so I putting most of the blame on them. I really upset the wife when I get to the Mukki Yogouts, and I break out into a Frankie Howerd impression.

The internet excelled itself the other day, behaving nearly like a normal connection. However, it didn't last dropping to between 1.7KB/s - 3.3KB/s which is painfully slow, considering a normal 56K modem usually will peak at 4-5KBs. I tried Skype out at that speed and it actually worked, although when I tried a test call it was rather Dalek-like.

Visited Siena today which we both very much enjoyed. I actually like it more than Florence which is bustling city. Siena is much more relaxed and the Campo is fantastic. Hopefully we will go back and explore some more, even if it's to sit in the Campo, drink coffee and eat gelato.

Tomorrow off to Pisa to see the Campanile (leaning tower) and exploring the city. After visiting all these cities there's a very real risk of culture overload - I've never seen so much art and historical architecture.

Doppia zero sette

Italian TV is doing a rerun of the 007 films, or doppia zero sette if you want to be correct in Italian. I found it very entertaining to watch 'The man with the golden gun' with an Italian speaking Roger Moore. It added a certain glamour although I'm not too sure how the one liners translated.

The weather has finally broken and we have had breakfast on our terrace. To celebrate we decided to go for a walk to Bagni di Mammalia and into the Tuscan countryside. We've no idea what is at Bagni di Mammalia (Bagni means baths so we thinking something Roman-like) but it's local. Only drawback is our map of the area has the key printed over the last quarter of the walk. Not that we need worry for as long as we walk North we'll hit the main road - we just don't know where. Our first attempt at this walk, a few days ago, ended in disaster as a very large storm broke over our head about 3 kms in. Fantastic to watch the lightening but was soaked by the time we got back to the car.

The walk took us 4 hours in total covering some 12kms (and 300m descend/ascent), walking through Olive groves and past deserted farm houses, and was good fun if a little hot at times. During our walk we passed a small factory (which is literally in the middle of no-where and accessed by a very small track). One of the lorry drivers stopped for us and told us to beware of vipers in the long grass - we were wearing shorts at the time. Not something you'd get in the UK - that's a lorry driver with a caring nature. BTW there were no baths.

Il tempo bruto

The weather has turned out to be a real mixed bag. I'm writing this as gale force winds rattle our apartment. We've prepared for a potential power cut, 'cause if it goes dark around here it gets really dark and the only company you'll have are the wild boar - and they don't usually carry matches (mental note: try not to think about how remote this place is and pyromanical wild boar). I've not seen any yet but heard snorting noises coming from the surrounding woods of a night.

Have spent the last few days exploring San Giminano and Volterra and having a fantastic time. Both towns are perched on the top of hills, although Volterra wins hands-down in this respect. The drive up is a test of nerve especially if you're not used to driving on the wrong side of the road and negotiating multiple switch-backs. If one wanted to describe a typical Italian town both San Gim and Volterra would do: tall buildings, narrow alleys (and yes the locals drive down them. I have the photos), small shops and resturants tucked away and more history than is legal.

Talking of history we went back to Volterra today to visit the two museums we missed. Had lunch at Volterra today and tried a Medieviale Menu. We've been to Italy many times but I still find navigating Italian menus a trying time. The food however is always fantastic, even if todays was a little odd.

Have officially declared getting a 3G connection as 'magic'. It positive it can't be the Mac as I can get a connection - it just takes a random number of (usually > 4) connection attempts before it will work. Once connected the only thing that seems to work reliably is publishing this blog! Tried getting the weather this evening for Florence and it took around half hour to get any pages downloaded. To add insult to injure, my email at home has gone down, probably due to our Virgin connection dropping out for no apparent reason (have I mentioned yet I loath Virgin). I think it's killed the OpenVPN connection I maintain from my home server to my internet server.

The one piece of technology not to have let me down so far (apart from TomTom) is my iTouch. One app in particular has been indispensable and that's the Collins English/Italian dictionary. Having an interactive dictionary that also gives you example sentences has saved us many times to date. It will even conjugate the verbs for you. However, it can't help me speaking Italian in a south-london accent, 'dowaa carfay larrtay' - not exactly the film star accent I was looking for.

Busted email

For anyone reading this blog and have sent me email then I won't be able to pick it up. It looks like the VPN connection between my home server and internet server has died and I can only reestablish this from home. Which could be difficult from Italy. For the time being use my alternate email until I can work out what to do. The only viable option is to get my Father-in-law to restart the server by cycling the power (I'm not sure I'm upto explaining how to restart a BSD box). The only problem then is if the entire server doesn't come back up.... not that it'll make a difference to us here. Mmmm... perhaps some wine and sleep on it a little longer?!

Toscana and Deer

Finally, we have an Internet connection; I'm not sure how but the 3G dongle now works. It appears to be something to do with the ppp negotiation but I haven't quite worked out what, although it's definitely something to do with the initial IP negotiation. The modem always connects and establishes a UMTS connection successfully - sometimes we get an IP sometimes not. I've changed the number; the default in the script is *99***1#, but there are 4 other variations so I've changed it to *99# and it appears more reliable but I'm not convinced. I'll just have to learn some patience.

Once working there is something rather satisfying sitting on our patio on the top of a Tuscan hill reading our email. It may be temperamental and slow but it works. You would have thought having used the Internet and technology for the last 20 years I'd take it all for granted, but it still brings a smile to my face. Possibly more out of surprise the damn stuff works in the first place!

We arrived in Tuscany after a short (4 hour) drive from Sutri in mixed weather. So far the weather reports on the news, delivered by what appears to be a Colonel in the Italian air-force, are accurate. Our apartment is well appointed and has fantastic views over Volterra. The weather has since deteriorated and is blustery and raining intermittently, not that we really care. Some R&R is most welcome given the Wifey has gone done with a stinking cold. Somehow, we don't appear to ready to go out until lunch time! After breakfast and talking about the day ahead somehow it's nearly lunchtime and time to consider what to eat for lunch. Talking about food we've tried to eat typically Italian food but the other evening had fish fingers and chips for tea - how terribly British.

Exploring the local area it appears to be (or has been) used for hunting. Found a rickety shack hidden in the undergrowth that was obviously used for shelter and heat. The piles of old shotgun cartridges pretty much sealed our opinion. We've not seen any wild boar yet but have seen deer roaming across fields. On a walk yesterday while walking down an old track I disturbed a deer who ran out no more than 5m in front of me.

We've started to loose track of time and it's only because the laptop is telling me it's Wed that I know what day of the week it is. Fantastic.