wheresphil

Florence to Pisa to London

Saturday 21 October 2023 – London.

Our last day in Florence and our last day in Italy, for this trip at least. I’m very keen on coming back as this has been a fantastic break and I’ve loved exploring Pisa and Florence. In some ways it was good we awoke to the forecasted heavy rain. I suspect if it had been gloriously sunny leaving would have been so much harder.

With a downpour going on outside and an evening flight back to London we took the morning slow; a lie in, followed by a big slow breakfast in the hotel, before checking out as close to tossing out time as possible. Departing the hotel fortunately coincided with a break in the rain. I loved the hotel, it was comfy and stylish and served lovely wine at a very nice price and the staff were lovely, I can see why Clive Myrie stayed here when filming in Florence. We chose to walk to the station as it was only 20 minutes away and we didn’t want a repeat of the bus related drama we had when we arrived. We made it to the station in time to get coffee and and a short wait for a train back to Pisa.

We had some loose good weather plans for the day, but they were immediately scrapped when we arrived in Pisa as it was absolutely hammering down, possibly the heaviest rain I’ve experienced in years. We had chosen to come back to Pisa earlier than needed as there is a left luggage office at the station, what we weren’t expecting was a 30 minute queue, luckily with seven rainy hours to kill we weren’t in any rush.

As we’d only been here a few days ago we knew there was a burger restaurant opposite the Keith Haring mural and that both the restaurant and mural were only 100 yards or so from the station. We waited in the very crowded station concourse for the worst of the downpour to stop before making a dash through a sadly washed out food and wine festival to get inside the restaurant before the rain came again.

We managed to draw out eating, what was a very nice burger, and drinking a glass of wine long enough for the heavy clouds to pass and some clear sky to appear. We were a bit damp, but so were most of the other customers who had also made a wet dash to the front door.

We walked across the River Arno and into the old town and walked around listlessly for while. We’re not good with killing time when we know there is a flight or an important train journey coming up; though there weren’t earlier flights with BA to book so it was what it was.

The rain appeared again, not so heavily this time, but we had had enough by then, so we crossed back across the river and walked up the main shopping street. This time I found a shop that sold corduroy trousers I liked, that actually fitted and weren’t way outside my budget. I bought a pair (and unlike some other holiday purchases I still like them now, almost two months later).

After killing a bit more time over a glass of wine in a small bar we collected our bags from left luggage and caught the tram to the airport. We were mega early, but once checked in settled for a couple of large slabs of pizza and more wine in the extremely over-crowded departure lounge. I was fortunate to spot a couple leaving one of the bar tables and manage to grab it before anyone else, so we actually had somewhere to sit, though stupidly I left my coat on the seat when we left to get on the plane. It did give me an excuse to buy a new one a few weeks later.

It was an absolutely lovely holiday. I know I always say this and I always fall in love with every town we stay in, but Florence is something special. If only I could do this all the time!

Florence, day two

Friday 20 October 2023 – Florence.

After the big day of walking and sightseeing yesterday it was a relief to be able to take it easy today. Without any time restricted bookings ahead we took a leisurely and enjoyable breakfast on the balcony of the hotel. It’s a nice to place to relax but the weather hasn’t really allowed us to make proper use of it before now. The ticket for the Uffizi yesterday also gave us access to Boboli Gardens and Palazzo Pitti, both nearby and on our side of the River Arno. We set out for our morning mission to visit them both once our breakfast had settled.

We really enjoyed the gardens, they are huge, though appear to be suffering in parts from the very dry weather. I imagine maintaining such a vast, and popular site is not easy in these times of uncertain weather. We entered from what possibly is considered the back entrance, though it had a great view up the central path leading up a hill which overlooked the river and central Florence, with views similar to those yesterday from Piazza Michelangelo.

There were a few statues scattered around the gardens, and I particularly liked the one that looks like two blokes doing the ‘holding up the Leaning Tower’ pose we saw so much of earlier in the week.

We had arrived at the gardens not too long after opening and it was very quiet, though as time passed and we got closer to the Pitti Palace the number of visitors grew.

There is a grotto in the gardens I wanted to see, though I was a little disappointed when I found it. Though it turns out there are two grottos and I had found the smaller one, the ‘Grotta di Madama, rather than the more impressive Grotta di Buontalenti. Both were built late in the 16 Century. Madama is presumed to reference Maria Maddalena the wife of Cosimo Medici who the gardens were originally designed for.

Purchased in 1550, the Palace was chosen by Cosimo Medici as the new Grand Ducal residence, and it soon became the new symbol of the Medici’s power over Tuscany. It also housed the Court of other two dynasties: the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (which succeeded the Medici from 1737) and the Kings of Italy from the House of Savoy, who inhabited it from 1865. Nonetheless the palace still bears the name of its first owner, the Florentine banker Luca Pitti that in the mid-1400s started its construction. It’s a fabulous huge building containing five different art museums. It was my favourite of the galleries in Florence, perhaps because I had no expectations compared to what I had for the others.

The art was secondary to the interior decoration, the walls and ceilings are just beautifully painted, admittedly extremely excessive and over the top, but glorious still.

For such a huge patron of the arts there are few works that feature Cosimo, and here he is looking quite imperious.

We found an exhibition in the Russian Art gallery with these giant stiletto shoes made entirely from pots and pot lids by the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, they looked amazing and were a highlight of all the galleries we visited.

We left the Pitti Palace and stopped for a pasta lunch in one of the squares on the way back to our hotel. I love outside eating, glass of wine and some pasta. I could do this every day. This was definitely a tourist priced trattoria, but the food was very nice. Walking back to the hotel I found a few more of the shrines I’ve been enjoying over the past couple of days.

After an afternoon rest we went back across the River Arno to Florence’s centre in search of the buchetta del vino, the wine wall, we passed yesterday. It is top of my list of things to do in Florence. We found it easily enough but annoyingly it didn’t appear open.

It was too early to eat so we wandered about the centre of Florence for a while, pretty randomly will say, finally stumbling on a few streets with shops that weren’t global brands. I was looking for corduroy trousers, though I didn’t find any that fitted that I liked. There are some very well dressed men in Florence, I would guess most of those were local, us tourists are way more casual! Completely by accident we found an open wine wall, yay! We had to queue for a few minutes and received our glasses of wine just as the heavens opened and it poured. We joined some of the other wine window guests standing in a small private car park out of the rain. It was very nice, proper stemmed glass as well, none of the plastic cups you would get in England.

Naturally we didn’t have umbrellas today. Once the worst of the downpour had passed we started the walk toward the hotel.

Crossing the Arno again I spotted a small murmation of, I guess swifts, over one of the other bridges and we stopped to watch them as they flitted back and forth across the bridge. Our dinner was taken in a small local restaurant as the rain was coming down quite heavily and we didn’t want to go to far. It was our first non-vegetarian meal in Florence and I had fish which was really nice. Annoyingly the rain would remain for most of tomorrow, our last day in Italy.

Another fabulous day I love Florence!

Florence, day one

Thursday 19 October 2023 – Florence.

It continued to rain overnight but we were fortunate during the day and I rarely needed to use the umbrella I borrowed from the hotel after stupidly leaving mine at home. It was a really busy day with pre-booked tickets to two of the big attractions; the Accademia and Uffizi Galleries. Our entry time for the Accademia was at 9:15 so we had a hurried continental style breakfast in the hotel; cold meats, cheese, pastries and bread etc, all washed down with a good cup of coffee, or three. I liked it.

It rained enough on the 30 minute walk to find the ticket office to need the umbrella and get some rain on the cobbles, yay!

High on my list of minor things to see or do in Florence was to find a buchetta del vino, or wine window and I was surprised to find one as we walked to the ticket office. It was too early in the day for it to be open so we made a note of the location with the intention of going back later.

We walked past the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore when we took a slight mis-turn, and wow! What an amazing building. We didn’t have tickets for this and it has been left on the list of things to do when we come back to Florence, which is something I want to do.

The Accademia was impressive! I guess its main reason for being a huge tourist attraction is it has the original Michelangelo David statue; and boom! it’s pretty much the first thing you see once you get through the front door. The statue is impressive, it’s much bigger than I expected, and yes the hands are weirdly large, but it is a beautiful thing and I was surprised about how few people were in the room. I expected it to be packed. Like the experience in Pisa, not overcrowding a venue because you can, makes visiting attractions much more pleasant.

The Accadamia is big; there is lots of renaissance art; there are spectacular pieces by loads of well known artists, but it’s not a period I really like. I mean the art is amazing, beautiful and it’s so good to be able to be up close to it, but I wasn’t wowed by it. I liked this work of Michelangelo’s that was in a series of statues that he had started but never finished before leaving Florence to Rome in 1534.

There were a lot tour bus tourists and it was interesting watching them file in and out of the gallery without going up to the first floor with its large collection of religious works from before the renaissance. I quite like some of the work from this period; it’s quite ‘simple’ and almost cartoony in a way. I was reading a book about the Medici before and while we were away and it noted that Cosimo Medici was torn between the strict Catholicism of 14^th century Italy and Humanism, and during his time as the head of the Medici family and their vast investment in art religious that human figures started to appear more natural and less ‘cartoony’.

After leaving the Accademia we wandered around in many different circles, walking up streets and lanes as they took our fancy. This is what I like most about holidaying. We stopped for coffee outside a church with a memorial to Dante.

There are a lot of what I’m calling shrines in Florence and they are very well cared for and I absolutely love these early forms of street art.

The Porta del Paradiso aka the Gates of Paradise, are found on the back of the baptistery, opposite the cathedral and they are stunning, though the original gates are in a museum. Created by the goldsmith and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti between 1425 and 1452 the gates are stunning with beautiful motifs of scenes from the bible.

The weather was still in pour favour so walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo on the far side of the River Arno.

It was a steep, short walk up this magnificent viewing point over Florence and a copy of the Michelangelo’s David Statue.

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We could see very dark clouds looming over the far side of the city so decided to head back down and get back to the centre before the rain returned; and for the pre-booked visit to the famous Uffizi Gallery.

The gallery is amazing, again, not too crowded but enough people to give a buzz.

The building is beautiful, with lovely ceilings, walls and everything surrounding the treasured works of art in the gallery, including a couple of lovely Botticelli works from the late 15 century.

We took a slow stroll back to the hotel after the Uffizi. Walking the streets is such a joy; the cobbles, the narrow alleys between tall buildings, the small number of cars, the random pieces of art, so many things that make strolling an obvious first choice. We took a rest for a while before heading out early in the evening for dinner in another excellent vegetarian restaurant ; L’OV Osteria.

It was another lovely day. I’m really enjoying our Italian stay!

Pisa to Florence

Wednesday 18 October 2023 – Florence.

As anticipated the rain came in the early hours and was still with us when we got up. With no early attractions booked and a checkout at 10:00 there was no need to move fast. We had breakfast at the same café as yesterday, and we had the same breakfast, though unlike yesterday the place was packed. I guess no-one was rushing out into the weather. We were very pleased we had the opportunity to climb the Leaning Tower yesterday when it was sunny. I discovered this morning that I’d left my umbrella at home. I realised I hadn’t packed in the middle of the night the night before we left but had completely forgotten I’d had that thought by the time I got up. At least I’d remember to pack a rain coat, or two.

After breakfast we packed and then took a rapid walk, sheltering where possible, to Pisa Station to get a train to Florence. We were lucky and got most of the way to the station between heavy showers, though the last 100 yard dash was in a sudden downpour.

We’ve taken the approach of dealing with today one action a time rather than trying to book and plan things ahead, so we arrived at the station with no stress about getting pre-paid tickets and finding a specific train. As expected it was all very easy and there were plenty of working ticket machines and they were simple to use. Train travel in Italy (like all of Europe) is significantly cheaper and easier than the UK. It poured with rain all the way to Florence, but I didn’t care.

I was kinda of expecting the view from the train to be all beautiful Tuscan villages and green rolling hills layered in vines and fruit and olive trees. For the first quarter of the journey we seemed to be passing industrial estates, (yeah, yeah). It was not as scenic as expected. There wasn’t a lot of interesting things to see but I enjoyed gazing out the window anyway.

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The journey to Florence took an hour and it was still raining when we arrived. We had planned to get a bus from the station to the hotel we had booked so joined the queue for the bus ticket machine. It was slow, then got slower and more and more people crowded around trying to help those in front to get tickets; it turned it had basically stopped working. We both downloaded the bus company app to our phones and I managed to get a reliable enough connection to pay for two tickets. Annoyingly the tickets didn’t arrive in the app, grrr. I tried again with a different card and the same happened. Double grrr, though the language actually used was a lot more ‘colourful’ shall we say. I wasn’t a happy bunny. We thought sod it, lets take a cab, but the cab queue was absolutely huge; apparently there was a big football related event at the Fiorentina stadium out of town and all the cabs were taken up ferrying big wigs out there. Eleanor managed to actually buy two tickets for the bus on her phone so we joined the bus queue.

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There was a sign board telling when buses were coming though it was as useless as the app. I got grumpy standing in the rain and when the bus arrived after 30 minutes t was packed; though we managed to squeeze on and our stop was only four away from the station on the far side of the River Arno, so it wasn’t terrible.

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The hotel Ad Astra was a two minute walk from the bus stop and I suspect they don’t get too many guests who arrive by bus carrying a wet backpack, though they were very welcoming! It’s a lovely place, our room was gorgeous and the staff are fabulous. the hotel backs onto the largest private garden in Florence, though the garden isn’t accessible by guests. It almost had a country villa feel to it. The presenter Clive Myrie stayed and filmed here when he made his recent BBC series on Italy,

After unpacking we had a glass of wine in a shelter on the hotel deck and unwound after the morning; writing notes, reading and gazing out over the very peaceful garden.. We had an early evening table booked in a vegetarian restaurant in a book shop so didn’t do much in the late afternoon before leaving for a slow walk to dinner.

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I’d loved Pisa and its lanes and old buildings, the slight smell of damp and sewers, its age and history, but it has nothing on Florence. Florence is just amazing and by the end I never wanted to leave. The Ad Astra is located on the southern side of the River Arno, the opposite side to the centre, in the Oltrarno district. It’s a nice area, old of course, less busy than the centre, but there are still nice places for coffee, wine and food. It is my sort of place and I would stay in Oltrarno again for sure. Like Pisa, Florence felt like a safe place to walk and get lost in, there always seemed to be others out walking the streets and at no time did I feel we were unsafe, it is a tourist town after all. Like Pisa there were few cars moving on the roads outside of the various rush hours and this made walking around almost a joy. There are still lots of motor scooters and cyclists, though in general they were polite and not intimidating.

We reached the Arno as the sun was dropping below the horizon, sadly not a night for a sunset over the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s most well known and loveliest bridge.

We passed Plazzio Uffizi, which we will visit tomorrow, one of the many places I’m super excited about visiting over the next few days. The Uffizi Gallery is one of the major tourist attractions and we have pre-booked tickets for tomorrow afternoon.

Dinner at Libreria Brac was delicious, I wasn’t expecting to find excellent vegetarian or vegan food here as Tuscany is quite a meaty region. It was busy so must be doing something’s right. We had vin santo for desert and OMG! I’ve not had this before and can’t believe I’ve missed it for the 61 years I’ve been on earth. Vin santo (holy wine) is a luscious thick and very sweet, dessert wine, it comes with a small plate of cantuccini, a typical Italian hard biscuit, that you dunk into the wine and let it soak a bit before munching the biscuit. Lovely. I had it every night and it will be a Christmas treat this year.

With very full bellies it was a slow meander back to the hotel. There is always one more narrow street to take a photo of.

This bust is in the entrance to our hotel. The building has been owned by the same family for a very long time and I wonder if this was an ancestor?

I was loving Florence!

Pisa

Tuesday 17 October 2023 – Pisa.

I was surprised, and pleased, to wake up under a clear blue sky. It was unexpected as the forecast had shown rain for most of the week. The B and B room came with a voucher for a coffee, pastry and a glass of juice breakfast in a café around the corner. The café was very modern and could have been anywhere in the world, though it was the only really modern place we entered on the trip. I liked it and the coffee was superb; as was most of the coffee we had in Italy. Coffee is important, as is red wine, and I had lots good wine too; just not for breakfast.

Our first, and only appointment, of the day was a 9:15 visit to the Leaning Tower. We’d booked online for an early visit to get in before the rush. It was still busy, but not as busy as it was later in the day. We arrived early so took a walk around the site, popping outside the ancient city walls to look at the souvenir stalls (Messi, Neymar and Mbappe shirts. None of whom played football in Italy, let alone Florence). Eleanor was looking for a dayglo David statue, though she didn’t find one here.

I’m glad we got into the queue to enter the tower early as we were advised that bags were not allowed inside, and that free baggage storage was nearby. I should quickly note that the organisation at the big attractions we went to in both Pisa and Florence was utterly superb. Walking into the base of the tower I was surprised to see it was completely hollow, with just a stairwell winding round the empty core. What was very weird, though on reflection it should’ve been expected, is the floor slopes inside. It felt really odd walking into a building that sloped downhill.

Construction of this most famous of towers began in the twelfth century from a design by the architect Diotisalvi (possibly as there are contentions about the original architect) and it started to tilt almost immediately due to the soft ground it is built on.

The bell tower was added in 1372 to finish off the build. By the time remedial works starts in 1990 it was leaning at a precarious 5.5 degrees. It is now stable at 3.97 degrees, though it looks worse. There are seven bells in the tower, one for each musical note. The largest bell was installed in 1655.

Though free standing, it was built as the bell tower for the cathedral nearby, the construction of which started in 1064. It also tilts, but only slightly. The cathedral, tower, baptistery and the monumental cemetery make up the Piazza dei Miracoli, a UNESCO world heritage site, and it is all rather lovely. I wanted to visit the baptistery as it’s supposed to have the most magnificent interior of all the monuments, but it was closed in this off-season for renovation work.

There are 251 steps to the top of the tower and one bi-directional staircase. Visitor numbers are, as you would expect, restricted, so it wasn’t too busy, though passing those coming down as we headed up was tight in some spaces. There were some conveniently placed ‘viewing’ stops on the way up; puff, puff…

The view from the top was, as you’d imagine, wonderful. We were lucky with the day as the rest of the week was rainy or cloudy or both. We got the view. It was a little un-nerving standing outside at the top, when you leave the stairs you come out on to a fairly level platform, but as you walk round and get to the section where the tower is tilting down its slightly unpleasant. A narrow marble step, tilting down and eight storeys up. Not my thing. It was nice going back down to the ground. It was fantastic going up though; it’s a marvellous construction and should be on everyone’s to do list.

Back at ground level the tour bus tourists had arrived in force; there were thousands, and this is off-season. I wanted to mock the dozens of folk striking the various Instagramable ‘holding up the tower’ poses, but it was somewhat endearing, though I’m way too cool to do it myself, obviously.

After the rush of the tower and the exquisite view the cathedral was a little ‘meh’, maybe I’ve been in too many. I mean it’s huge and beautiful and the art is stupendous, but I’ve seen it all before; there was some repair work going on as well so scaffold all over the place and I guess that broke that special ambiance of sacred places. At least they didn’t have builders radio going.

The doors of the cathedral are fabulous, with intricate bronze carvings from 1602 in panels on all the doors. I particularly loved this panel where centuries of visitors have been rubbing the naked bum…

After collecting our bags from the baggage office and stopping for coffee and a snack at a nearby tourist joint (expensive) we took to the streets of old town Pisa and wandered randomly for a few hours. I very much enjoyed it.

We crossed the River Arno, which also flows through Florence, we will cross it a few times there as well, and took in an avantgarde exhibition in Palazzo Blu which was really interesting. other than the tower there was one other thing we both wanted to see in Pisa and that was Keith Haring’s Tuttomonda mural. Painted in 1989 it was one of the artist’s final works. It’s huge and rather beautiful and we return here on our final day.

We meandered back towards the B and B, ducking in and out of narrow cobbled streets as the fancy took us. I immensely enjoyed the walking in both Pisa and Florence; there are cars, just not many, and away from the main roads people mainly walk in the street. It’s the way it’s always been and will continue to be as more and more young folk (and some of the not so young) choose to not rely on a car to get around. I also enjoy walking down narrow lanes surrounded by 4 or 5 storey residential buildings; these places feel lived in with a sense of community and I always want to live in one. Though I know the ‘sense of community’ is likely just as much as a fantasy as my dream of a perfect local pub that only really exists on the telly; at least in England anyway. I particularly like the religious images on the walls, the small shrines, and the paintings with a donation slot on the side of churches. This is all so not-England, or New Zealand.

We stopped for lunch (gnocchi for me and a duck bolognaise for Eleanor) and a glass of wine or two in a café on a small square surrounded by young folk from the nearby university. It was entirely pleasant and energising, though we did go back to the B n B for a brief rest after eating. The B n B is just off another, larger square, through a small road arch with the most remarkable and faded painted ceiling that I know nothing about, and don’t want to. It looks very old and the fact it is just there in the street with cars and bikes and pedestrians passing through, or stopping for a smoke and shelter from the rain, is just lovely.

The building our room in has a small shrine on it.

Our final tourist activity was to head back to the Piazza del Miracoli (or Piazza del Duomo depending on who you read) to visit the Camposanto, the memorial cemetery. Construction started in 1277 to house the growing number of graves that were scattered around the cathedral grounds.

The frescoes that cover every wall were finally finished 200 years later. It was my favourite building in Pisa and I’m very glad we decided to visit. The frescoes are amazing and in hindsight I wish I’d spent more time looking at them. Work continues to restore the site and it seems to be being done very sensitively, the work done on the frescoes for instance looks almost as dated as the originals.

My favourite was the depiction of the torment of sinners in hell. It reminded me of similar works I saw in SE Asia and I love that no matter the religion there is always eternal damnation for those who transgress the, often arbitrary and confusing, rules.

The site houses numerous statues and memorials of wealthy and famous Pisans from the past, including Finobachi, the father of mathematics as we now know it. With Michelangelo, Galileo, De Vinci and others Tuscany was well endowed with visionaries.

There are a number of plague death victims here too. The plague didn’t really care who you were or how much money you had when it visited.

We wandered the streets again, stopping for a magnificent gelato before heading out for the evening. We hoped to find a bar to watch England host Italy in an international football match, but we didn’t have any luck so watched it on the TV in the room. We were exhausted and it was only day one, but man it was a good day. I really could holiday forever.

I will give a hard recommend for Pisa, and if you read this and want to visit, stay overnight and walk to the tower, it’s magnificent and comparatively peaceful; then book your tower visit early the following day.

A night in Pisa

Monday 16 October 2023 – Pisa.

I’ve not been to Italy since 1986, sort of. I spent 48 hours on a bus from Bari to London, after getting off a ferry from Athens in 1987, but I don’t recall anything more than getting off the ferry and taking a seat in on the bus. It was a long journey a long time ago. I’ve never been to Pisa, Florence or anywhere else in Tuscany. Weirdly Tuscany and its famous towns haven’t been very high on my ‘must visit’ list until recently, and I lay that positive change squarely at the feet of the actor Stanley Tucci and his fabulous recent BBC series on Italy through the lens of Italian food. Surely, Pisa’s famous leaning tower should have been on my list of wonders of the world/monumental architecture that I must visit, but it wasn’t. That was rather stupid.

Eleanor hasn’t been to Florence or Pisa either so it was the ideal location for a week way, cunningly planned by me to be at the end of the main tourist season, but the week before most schools have their mid-term break. It was so cunning that there were still thousands of people there, but not tens of thousands. I took too many photos and we had too good a time to try and fit things into a single post so this one will just cover the first day, or rather, night we spent in Pisa. I suspect the holiday will take a few days to write up and the photos even longer to edit. I’m happy to say it was a wonderful week away; other than the torrential rain on the last day.

I’ve been finding it difficult to book holidays these last couple of years, I’m wanting to be more eco-friendly and use trains were I can, I’m not worried about the slower journey, but Christ, going anywhere by train from the UK is expensive. Flights have gotten expensive as well, so it took an age to find something that suited our budget and timing, and my desire to never fly Ry*n Air or E*syJ*t again. We flew BA out of Heathrow on a very convenient mid-afternoon flight, arriving in Pisa just after dark. It’s much less stressful travelling later in the day.

We had a lovely room in a B and B a ten minute walk from the tower so set off soon after dropping our bags to get a quick glimpse before the tour we’ve booked for 9:15 tomorrow. We stopped for food and a drink on the way at a small osteria (a local wine bar serving simple food, usually without a menu). They only served one thing, a massive plate of cheese, preserved meat, olives and the local pomodoro, something I’ve never had before; a mix of tomato, garlic, olive oil and bread mashed into a gooey paste and spread on bread. With a glass of local red wine it was a perfect introduction to Tuscan eating.

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After eating we headed off to find the tower, before discovering that my sense of direction was 180 degrees out of whack and we were going the wrong way. We realised this as we arrived at the River Arno, 10 minutes in the wrong direction. The good thing about walking around these ancient towns is no walking is wasted, every narrow, cobbled street is unique to my day to day existence. I felt like I can walk here forever and there will always be something new to see.

I never really recovered my sense of direction after that early blow. However, we did get back on track and eventually hit upon the right path, following a noisy group of ‘jocks’ that really didn’t lift my feelings about Americans overseas, though, admittedly they had better map reading skills than me. We’d just passed the ‘jocks’ along a fairly typical Pisan narrow, gully-like street when we popped out into a square and ‘boom’ there it was, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, gloriously lit and looming imperiously above the buildings surrounding the square. It was a proper OMFG moment. I was unexpectedly and massively excited to see it. It’s magnificent, but not as tall as I expected.

It was only a couple of minutes more to the area around the cathedral and tower. Surprisingly, there were hardly any other people there and we got to wander about and take photos pretty much as we pleased.

We went for a walk around the old town, not getting too misplaced too often now I knew my usually reliable sense of direction wasn’t working. I really like it here, it has a decent vibe and I’m loving the old architecture. At night it had the feel of an ex-European old town somewhere in SE Asia, a little bit crumbly, mouldy and close, and there was a slight smell of sulphur and drain to add to the illusion of being somewhere ancient and barely discovered. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow when we can explore in the daylight.

Aldeburgh

Saturday 14 October 2023 – Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

We’d first booked this overnight stay at The Suffolk Hotel in Aldeburgh for July, it was to be one of Eleanor’s ‘significant birthday’ events. Sadly, we were forced to cancel a few days prior to going due to a train strike. I no longer have a car and a last minute rental was ludicrously expensive so a postponement was the right thing to do at the time. Frustrating, but right. The Suffolk describes itself as a restaurant with rooms rather than a hotel with a restaurant and it was established by George Pell a well known Soho restaurateur. Either way, both the room and the restaurant were fabulous. We had been looking forward to going for the extra three months we were forced to wait after reading some rave reviews in the mainstream press.

We were away from home for slightly over 24 hours and over that time we experienced every type of weather you would expect for this time of year. Heavy rain, high wind, sprinkling showers, high cloud and finally the crystal clear empty deep blue we want to see when we’re on holiday.

Luckily, the heaviest rain fell while we travelled north east from Liverpool St Station towards Ipswich, where we changed to a smaller, slower train to the ancient town of Saxmundham. Unlike the trains we’ve recently taken to the north west these were in good condition, and they even had phone charging points, which seems so critical in these always connected times.

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We took a local bus from Saxmundham to Aldeburgh, sadly the windows were so filthy there was only a limited view. It was hard to work out where we were at times.

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Aldeburgh is a lovely, small coastal town that has not fallen on particularly hard times, it’s popular with the ‘Chelsea set’ and this is clear from the condition of the town centre; it’s a lot cleaner and shinier than St Leonards, as were the people. Like St Leonards’ nearest neighbour, Hastings, Aldeburgh is also a beach launched fishing town; though significantly smaller with only a small number of working fishing boats. There are a lot of fish restaurants here.

After we dropped our bags at the hotel we took a short walk south down the coast. One of my favourite desolate places, and England’s only official desert, Orford Ness, is at the end of the long isthmus; though as an ex-weapons testing site access is not allowed from this end due to the potential of unexploded ordnance. I really wanted to go in there though, and there was nothing physically stopping access.

It was very windy, it howled through the masts of the yachts in the yards of the sailing clubs that ran between the gravel road and the River Alde.

The raised road is all the separates the sea from the river and it has been heavily protected against the constant pounding tide. It won’t be like this for ever and I suspect Aldeburgh and Orford Ness, and many similar places on the Suffolk coast will disappear under the waves before the next generation is gone.

Just before the gate to Orford Ness stands a fabulous example of a Martello Tower. This one has been made into a B n B and featured recently on one of the many property renovation TV shows. The exterior looks amazing and it’s a beautiful, rugged defensive building, from what I recall of the TV show it was beautiful inside. It’s the northern most of a series of towers built along the south eastern coast of England as defensive gun batteries protecting against the very real threat posed by Napoleon. The construction of this tower ended in 1812. The unusual concentric circular design was inspired by a tower on Mortella Point in Corsica that withstood a prolonged barrage by two British Warships in 1796.

Back in town we walked up and down the high street and along the waterfront, stopping for a drink in one of the many pubs. I wished, as I always do, that there were fewer cars parked outside some of the lovely, and often colourful, cottages and houses between the high street and the seafront.

Eleanor went back to the room and I took a stroll around the fishing huts and boats. The beach is a lot tidier than where the fishing fleet of Hastings launch.

We had an early sitting in the hotel’s restaurant, ‘Sur-mer’ and everything about the (admittedly expensive) meal was excellent, the food, the wine we drank, the impeccable service, and the old fashioned I started with. There are no better drinks than a well made old fashioned. It was the first time we’ve been in a restaurant where we’ve felt young. Aldeburgh is definitely a town for older folk and much as I liked it, and much as I’m getting older, I’m not quite ready to be counted with the old people yet.

We only had the one night here, so after breakfast I went for a walk with the camera to see if I could find a few buildings without cars in front of them; I was disappointed. I was also interested in trying to capture some of the harsh light on this now cloudless day but didn’t quite have the success I was after.

We picked up a coffee and sat on the seawall and stared at the sea before getting the bus from Aldeburgh high street back to Saxmundham, then the train back to London for mid-afternoon on Saturday.

It was a lovely night away, though on Monday we are off again….

The brutal buildings of Poplar, East London

Saturday 16 September 2023 – Poplar, London.

I enjoyed the third #brutaldayout photo walk today. I’m familiar with the core of the group, though today twelve set out from the coffee shop outside Blackwall Tube station. There were thirteen in the group for a moment and we either lost someone before we set out or this person accidently joined in as we assembled then realised it was the wrong bunch of people. Either way, it was the largest group we’ve had on a walk. Herding photographers is like herding cats, and we managed to lose two people over the five hours. It was a good group though and there was a lot of chat going on.

Boe and Irony mural outside All Saints DLR station.

Poplar is an area of East London that I don’t know well, though it is home to the first king of brutalist housing, the Balfron Tower and there will be more on Balfron in a later post. Poplar is proper London east end, it’s a working class area with a post-war mix low and high rise estates. It’s a multi-racial suburb and has, in parts, been allowed to rot, though I’m not necessarily saying race was a factor in allowing that decay. There are too few loud voices here nor enough of those willing to risk standing up to push the case for the borough. Poplar is part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and let’s just say the council is not unafraid to make decisions very unpopular with its citizens, though seemingly very popular with developers.

Poplar should be fortunate as it rubs up against the global financial centre of Canary Wharf, whose shiny glass towers stand proudly over, but maybe casting disapproving shadows over its rundown neighbour. You would hope the wealth would roll on down to its immediate neighbour, but, as always, that is not the case. Poplar is being gentrified, and not in a ‘nice’ way. Social housing residents are moved out and those who have bought their home in ex-council properties are ‘encouraged’ to sell. The estates are flattened and ugly new shiny things are built in their place; of course there is the promise that tenants can move back in, or new housing will be built for them nearby, but as we all know this rarely happens. ‘Cost over runs’ or other excuses means the developer can never quite meet their social housing commitments. Councils just roll over and let their expanding tummy get stroked and accept the heartfelt apologies from those poor developers. The worst part is a lot of those shiny new flats are left empty, unsold or with absentee owners, almost taunting those who were dispossessed. More on this with my post regarding Balfron Tower.

Our first visit was Robin Hood Gardens Estate, or what is left of it anyway. The estate was completed in 1972 and comprised two low rise blocks, one seven storey and the other ten, with a large green space between them. It was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson and was their only housing estate to be constructed. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets was the landlord. After a battle to get the estate listed failed developers demolished the seven storey West Block in 2017 and new flats are now under construction.

The East Block is now empty and awaiting the same fate as the West. 213 families lived here, now there are none.

After taking a photo of the scaffold surrounded front door I tried the door handle and remarkably the door wasn’t locked…

All the doors to the ground floor flats were covered in steel, so to be able to access the stairwell was a real surprise. A surprise too much to resist for some of us, so we took a quick foray into the building. Ignoring the ‘no trespassing’ sign. Bad I know. We didn’t go far, up a flight of stairs to the first balcony. All the flats are blocked off and we didn’t do anything other than take a few photos and then exit. It was a cheap, no harm, thrill; and no security or police turned up (phew).

There is a short row of terraced houses at the end of the estate and those are all boarded up ready to be knocked down as well. I wonder what monstrosity will be built on this site and when? All these empty properties and we have a major housing crisis in this country. I shake my head sometimes.

From a small, litter strewn and slowly overgrowing hillock in the gardens we could get a glimpse of our next stop; Balfron Tower in the Brownfields Estate; a 10 minute walk away. My first proper view of Balfron was through this filthy graffiti smeared window. I was quite excited; this is a major work of brutalist architecture in the UK, though maybe not from this angle.

Anyway as I said above, Balfron gets its own post later. The Brownfields Estate also has the much shorter Carradale Tower situated at right angles to Balfron. Unlike Balfron, Carradale is still very much lived in. Though here is a sneak preview of why Balfron so cool.

The entire area around Balfron is fenced off, including the, possibly, excellent play area. We could only see if from afar.

The towers were both built to complement each other and to create ‘communities in the sky’, by the Hungarian design genius (and inspiration for the name for the Bond villain) Erno Goldfinger. They were built between 1965 and 1967 and (thankfully) listed in 1996, else I’m sure someone would have tried to knock them down. Goldfinger lived onsite for a few months on completion and spoke to residents about what did and didn’t work and incorporating their ideas in his next project of similar design, the Trellick Tower, which I walked past back in August last year.

As Carradale is a lived-in block there was some space to wander around the perimeter, while I don’t support taking photos of people in or near their homes, I also think it is important to acknowledge that there are certain buildings that are important works of art and need to be preserved for what they are. One way to do that is to take and share photos.

Glenkerry House sits over the road from Carradale and is also part of the Brownfields Estate. It was designed by the Goldfinger practice to mirror its predecessors opposite. Construction was completed in 1977. It’s supposedly the pinnacle of brutalist design and was the final brutalist tower constructed in London. The building is owned and run by those that live there.

We stopped at the pie and mash shop in Chrisp Street Market for lunch and a short rest, Chrisp Street is the oldest purpose built pedestrian shopping area in the UK. It’s the heart of Poplar and thankfully is yet to be ‘regenerated’, though you can see it’s coming. It was busy. A lot of the flats around the market are empty, including a nearby tower block. The market has a marvellous clock tower, designed in 1951 for the Festival of Britain delays meant it wasn’t finished until the following year.

St Marys and St Josephs Catholic Church was our next stop, a magnificent building, completed in 1952 to replace the original church that was heavily damaged during the Second World War. It definitely has a mosque vibe to its construction and wouldn’t be out of place as a Christian church somewhere in Asia.

This was followed by the equally impressive, for its amazing tower, Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church.

We completed the walk at another post-war church, St Pauls at Bow Common. Built in 1960 it has been voted the best post-war church in Britain. It was certainly different with its pulpit in the centre of the building and the parishioners sat around the minister. I quite like it.

Actually we completed the walk at a pub near Mile End station where we stopped to refresh after a hot afternoon of walking, talking and photographing modernist and brutalist architecture. It was another enjoyable outing and if you’re interested in joining the next one then let me know via a comment, we don’t have a date or a location yet; though it will probably be around Kilburn.

Gent and Brussels.

Saturday 02 September 2023 – Gent/Ghent.

I’ve struggled with getting the time and energy to write this post almost as much as struggled with choosing and editing some of the 173 photos I took. I (we) had a good time in Ghent/Gent and I’m happy with the photos I took as well, but I’m just knackered and have no mental capacity for anything, again. Work has been mentally draining this past month, and I must admit that I’m not loving this new role either. I’ve also been suffering from ‘tennis elbow’ for the past three months and while it’s mostly OK during the day, the way I sleep means I wake in the middle of the night in pain and struggle to drop off again. To add to the night time joy the UK has just come out of an autumnal heatwave with the hottest ever recorded September days. So, yes, I’ve been too tired and grouchy to think about writing, or much of anything else once the day’s work is over. However, posts will back up if I don’t do something, so here is something.

Eleanor had a ‘significant’ birthday in July and good friends of ours very generously treated the four of us to a couple of nights in Ghent, and it was a very nice time too. Eleanor and I have previously visited and I still had an OK layout of the town in my head and there were a couple of places I wanted to see again; and at least one gin bar to return too; though my main objective was to get some frittes/fries as we didn’t eat any last time, and oh lordy they were good!

We arrived late morning on Thursday and after checking into the very modern and art focused Air B n B, we went off to find those magical frittes, and beer. Only one mind, beer that is not, fries. I ate a lot of those.

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We were lucky with the weather, the forecast hadn’t been inspiring before we left London, but we ended up with one nice day and once not so nice. The not so nice day, Friday, meant I got some ‘cobbles in the wet’ photos, which I was happy about, and it also gave us the perfect excuse to visit one of the many bier bars; this one had 366 beers on its menu. We had three. Burp.

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Ghent is one of those towns that is just built for aimless walking; there are a few named tourist things to see, castles and cathedrals, town halls and museums, but equally there are just loads of lovely streets with great examples of old Flemish homes and of course ‘t Dreupelkot, that wonderful quirky old fashioned gin bar.

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I even took photos that had people in them.

We found a list of seven modern buildings to see on the internet, just for something different to look for and managed to find most of them, though most of the finding was by accident. These include the new library (free toilets ), the ‘Modern House’, found in one of the lovely cobbled streets I was photographing, and the Ghent Market Hall.

Though it was the narrow cobbled streets, wet or dry that I was after, and I found plenty of those.

We had a late afternoon Eurostar back to London from Brussels on Saturday so with nowhere to store bags in Ghent we took the 30 minute train ride into Brussels Midi and used the left luggage storage there and went for a walk around Brussels. Our first stop was the Mannekin Pis; it has to be really, its Brussels main tourist attraction.

Last time Eleanor and I were here it was really wet and the square was packed with some event, I can’t remember what, this time it was packed with a beer festival, but at least it wasn’t pouring with rain.

After a waffle snack (mandatory in Belgium) we took a slow walk up to the European Parliament buildings and then took a train back to the station for the journey home.

It was a fabulous few days away and we really appreciated the lovely gift from our good friends xx.

In the Pines

Wednesday 23 August 2023 – Somewhere outside York.

This was the final of the four ‘English regions’ journeys that I’ve made in the past month. I’ve visited the South West, the South East, the North West and now I’m in the North East, though I’m not entirely sure where I am.

I’m attending a three day work training course at the Emergency Planning College. All I know is the facility is outside, and I think to the North, of York. I and 15 colleagues were picked up by a mini-bus from York station on Monday morning and driven 30 minutes into the countryside to the college. It’s not a secret location (anymore, it may have been during and immediately after WW2), but as we aren’t leaving the place till we go home so I never bothered to find it on the map. This is unusual admittedly, but I’ve been busy and still have more away days coming. To be quite honest my anticipation for a holiday in Ghent with friends next week is significantly higher than the anticipation I had for this work trip!

I won’t go into the detail on the learning part of the three days, it wasn’t secret government stuff, but it also wasn’t interesting enough to share. It was ‘work’ interesting and I learned a bit and enjoyed myself, especially the meals and the on-site bar. I ate a lot. The college buildings are part of a vast site, seemingly in the middle of nowhere and are comprised of an modern accommodation block and a lovely old manor house where we ate and a large modern school built out of sight on the back of the house.

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The grounds were used during the last war to train fire wardens, supposedly, and there were a few buildings that were knocked down quite years ago that were used for that training. I found two old bunkers on a walk and guess they were used to store flammable or explosive material, the doors were 4 inches thick. They were the only two buildings left standing amongst the trees. I was (and still am) wondering if they led to secret tunnels under the forest to the manor house.

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At the end of the first day I took a walk into the trees, I didn’t consult the loosely drawn map before I left so just stuck to clear paths; there is quite a section of forest to roam in, though I’m sure you could learn it all in a couple of walks, if you paid attention to the detail. The most serious risk for off-piste roaming would be twisting an ankle in an unseen rabbit hole, there are loads of them.

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It was an enjoyable walk, only 30 minutes, but I was on my own with my thoughts and the pine forest which made up most of the environment, was old and twisted and verging on creepy. I wished I had my big camera as there were some good photo opportunities. I’m not sure I could have walked there in dusk, not that I’m superstitious or anything, it felt a touch Grimm. I followed one path that gradually narrowed down to a bracken blocked dead end and I could see how an unpleasant tale could be developed around the head high ferns if the light was appropriate. I’ve never seen confer trees so twisted and bent before, it adds to the eeriness.

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The undergrowth was dense, there was no straying off the trails and into the trees as I usually do in Epping Forest, unlike Epping nothing much roams here, other than hundreds of rabbits and the occasional deer.

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My favourite photo was the walkway to the accommodation block. I loved the simplicity of the lines and the contrasting colours.

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The course finished mid-Wednesday afternoon and we were bussed to York Station for the journey back to London. The three hours to home seemed to take forever and I was very tired by the time I got in, and it was only 7pm.

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I enjoyed the two nights away, the course was interesting, the food tasty and the in-house bar was cheaper than a London pub; the evenings spent chatting with colleagues I never usually speak to was probably the highlight.