Well who would have thought it? It seems that there is more to see in Pisa than just a poorly built tower. I remember being surprised the last time I was here ten years ago at just how many fine buildings stand alongside the tower. Then we only had an hour here before we were bused off to Florence. This time we had a whole day to kill so it’s just as well that off the well beaten tourist track are a number interesting things to see and do.

The area around the tower was packed with tour groups of all ages and scores of people standing with their hands in the air all hoping to right the towers tilt. We took a few photos and quickly moved on.

We found the botanical gardens to be deserted and a real sanctuary from the busy streets. There were large areas of bamboo – what is it about that plant that always makes a place seem so tranquil? I’m sure that if I planted some at the bottom of my garden I would enter a zen like state when out there.

Lunch was a large plate of spaghetti carbonara. Doesn’t matter how hard you try no one can make it like the Italians and sat in a street cafe eating it was just perfect.

We then walked down to the river which was lined with a fantastic variety of old buildings and back through a piazza in the university quarter again with some fine old buildings.

Then back to reality and to return the hire car at the airport. How anyone found anything in this country before the invention of satnav I have no idea, the road signs are awful to non-existent making finding anything challenging. Fortunately I had Helen acting as copilot and we got there eventually.

So now I am sat typing this in the departure lounge of Pisa airport which looks and feels like any other. The one difference being the Italian relaxed attitude to security made getting in a doddle!

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Our last full day and we chose to spend it in San Gimignano some two hours away by car.

The Italians are, on the whole, awful drivers. Frequently on the phone while driving they drive inches from the back of the car in front before pulling out to over take into oncoming traffic or at a blind corner. They think that they are Alberto Ascari when they are more like Andrea de Cesaris (look him up). I mention this only as background and mitigation for what happened.

We decided to take the “quick” route there which while was via the autostrade it was 30 mins shorter than the direct route. Or at least it should have been had there not been a hold up along the way. Now I detest sitting in traffic on motorways at the best of times but it is particularly irksome when on holiday. I mention this only as background and mitigation for what happened.

After two long hours we finally arrived at San Gimignano only to discover that it was full, or at least all the car parks were and there was no space at the side of the roads either. We drove round a couple of times but we weren’t alone in looking and it was proving impossible to find anywhere. We were suddenly faced with having to turn straight back round and spend another two hours in the car. What happened next is censored but let’s just say that we drove to a nearby town and regrouped over a very frosty and disgusting lunch.

A couple of hours later and suitably chastened we went back to San Gimignano and this time had more luck in finding a parking space. It was good that we did as it is a beautiful place, especially if you like towers.

The journey back we avoided the autostrade and went the back roads. We met countless tractors and Andrea de Cesaris but we didn’t mind. Much.

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A day spent travelling to some of the lesser known places of the region today including Bagni di Lucca & Barga. We had decided to travel slowly and avoid the autostrade but hadn’t bargained on it being up the side of a mountain and on a road which when viewed on a map looked more like my signature. It was fun but edge of the seat stuff through some of the villages.

The highlight of Bagni di Lucca was the Devils bridge and if you look at the pictures you will see why it is named. Given how religious they are in these parts it is amazing that anyone dares to cross it.

In the evening we took the funicular to Montecatini Alto and had a meal in one of the restaurants in the centre. An excellent meal was spoilt somewhat by being ignored by the waiter for long periods. Even with a polite “scusi” he resolutely ignored us. This led us to ignore leaving a tip at the end.

We travelled down by funicular in the dark watching the lights of the town below.

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For some reason we had decided that it would be a good idea to visit Florence today on a hot July Saturday, no other tourist was going to think the same now were they?!

We got to the station in Montecatini Terme about 10 minutes before the train was due to leave giving us plenty of time to purchase a ticket. Unfortunately, this being a Saturday during the height of the tourist season, the ticket office was closed and there were no automatic machines or any indication of where to buy a ticket. Fortunately there was a kindly local who spoke English and directed us to a newsagent just up the road where a surly Italian and his surlier daughter served us. We dashed back to the station with, as it turned out, plenty of time to catch our train. An hour later we were in Florence with just one or two others.

Florence, like Rome, is one of those cities where there is something to see and do around every corner. The colours on the architecture, whites, greens and reds, are just great after the usual sandstones and, above head height, you could believe you were the only one there. After a few hours plodding around looking at the sights we found a side street that looked like it might take us higher and give us a view over the city. Around every corner we told ourselves would be an end to the houses and a clear view, but it was not to be and we found ourselves walking back down to a bar for lunch where we regrouped and consulted the guide books. We had, more by luck than judgement, found ourselves sitting in a bar at the bottom of a climb to the Piazza Michelangelo which offered the height and the views we had been looking for. It also had a bus stop with a bus to take us back down to the station, 2 euros well spent.

We spent the evening on the hotel terrace watching the sun go down over Montecatini Alto.

More pictures from Florence here.

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The locals have taken a real fancy to my legs (and no wonder!) and I am bitten to shreds. I am usually impervious to the little buggers but not the Italian variety it seems. This led to us having to find a pharmacy where a touching mime ensued. The pharmacist took a look at the bites and enquired “before or after?”. I felt that this was pretty obvious.

Busy day today. We spent the morning in Montecatini Terme spa, a beautiful building and grounds just a short walk from our hotel. The waters themselves are supposed to have healing properties and, inevitably, tasted disgusting.

Next we took the car and made our way to Lucca stopping on the way at Pescia. Having parked up In a back street car park we were approached by a man trying to sell odds and sods. I had hoped that my ignorance of the language would suffice but, no, even “street traders” speak English. When I refused to hand over money, which I was assured was to “ensure the safety of my car”, the talk turned vaguely threatening. We walked off with me wondering what the excess was on damage to the hire car.

Lucca was much more rewarding. It has a largely complete wall which is the widest of any city wall I have ever seen. Lucca also has its fair share of towers and this time I was able to go up and get a wonderful view over the city. It was strange, however, not to go up without my tower climbing companion Grant.

Finally, after a quick bite to eat, we made our way to Calci. Not somewhere that is on the normal tourist track but it was where Mat was playing his first concert this evening. It was great to see him and hear him and the rest of the orchestra play. He seems to be having a fantastic time and certainly isn’t missing us, which is how it should be, but he did look pleased to see us.

Tomorrow Mat now goes south and we won’t see him until he returns to the UK. We, meanwhile, will be tackling Florence.

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Day one of our trip to Italy to stalk our younger son who is also visiting the region as part of the Berkshire Maestros Guitar Orchestra. He set off on Tuesday morning by coach. We set off Wednesday morning by plane. We were both supposed to arrive at roughly the same time – 2pm Wednesday. When we caught up with him briefly today at the beautiful hilltop village of Montecatini Alto it transpired that their journey had taken an additional 10 hours caused by three coach break downs and finally a fire that put paid to the coach altogether. They were then stranded on the side of a motorway with their luggage waiting for a new and hopefully more reliable coach. They finally arrived at their hotel at 2am.

This drama seems to have added to the adventure rather than diminished it in any way. Whether the adults accompanying the 60 children feel the same is open to debate!

You can see more pictures of Montecatini Alto here

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Last September Helen and I spent two days driving down the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. Last weekend we found somewhere equally as beautiful and much closer to home – the Causeway Costal Route. This is a stretch of road along the coast of Northern Ireland running from Belfast to Londonderry and it is stunning.

The Great Ocean Road has the Twelve Apostles as its stand out feature and, not to be outdone, the Causeway Costal Road has its own – the Giant’s Causeway. This is a natural rock formation jutting out into the sea made up of hundreds of hexagonal columns. It is one of the most amazing places I think that I have ever visited. The pictures don’t really do it justice and has to be seen to be believed. Get there early, before the buses and crowds, and see it at its best.

From there we took the short drive up the coast to Carrack-a-Rede and the narrow rope bridge from the mainland to the tiny rock outcrop overlooking the tip of Scotland.

We both had a great couple of days in NI and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. There is a small selection of photos below and many more can be found here.

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The UK has been basking in unseasonably fine weather for the last couple of weeks. There has certainly been no sign of the “April showers” and the forecasts are suggesting that it is going to stay dry for a little while longer yet.

This has led to us being able to go to Centreparcs for a few days and for the first time ever have a whole weekend without any rain whatsoever – this is completely unheard of.

Centreparcs if a great place to go and get away from it all but it does remind me of what I think an open prison might be like. You are free to move around the place but eventually you come across a wire fence and it is not clear if it is to keep you in or or others out. Of course they have a vested interest in keeping you in. While the cost of the holiday includes the price of the villa and use of the excellent swimming pool everything else is paid for and it doesn’t come cheap.

That said it does cater for everyone and those on a budget don’t need to eat out and can make use of the outdoor facilities and go on the walks and cycle trails. This time we found some cycle routes out of the park which led down to a lake. The boys followed this round and spent one morning on a 12 mile cycle ride while Helen and I sat reading the papers in Starbucks!

It was a great break and we all really enjoyed it and didn’t really want to return home but then as the Eagles said “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”

More pictures from Centreparcs

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Reading held a Flash Freeze on Sunday and Mat took part. Check out the video below and look for the figure in the red top on the left hand side about five seconds in (no, not her. Him).

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Last May I wrote about working from home and seeing the Google Street View car pass my house. Now, some ten months later, the results are in and the pictures have been uploaded and there I am at our window, standing like some shadowy Norman Bates.

You can quite clearly see that I am holding a cup of tea but it also looks like I have positioned it to protect my genitals! Maybe I misunderstood those articles about Google taking your privacy and thought they meant privates!

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My eldest son is currently completing the final piece of coursework for his A Level English which is looking at the the language used in pre and post watershed TV. To do this he is looking at various measures such as the complexity of words. One of the things he wanted to do was to look at the number of words by the number of letters. No problem I thought I must be able to find something on the web to do that. But an extensive Google search turned up nothing, perhaps because it is difficult to describe.

At that point I decided that I could do it myself and set off to write a PHP script to do it and you can see the results here! Cut and paste some text into the box below and hit the submit button and you will see a very crude set of results and a great looking bar chart courtesy of Google Charts.

It’s not perfect, it will only work for Western European characters and only for words up to 20 characters in length but it does the trick – enjoy!

Oh, and this is the chart for this article

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The “offer” left was spotted by boy 2 while in WH Smiths – mind you I would have to be paid to take New Kids on the Block CD!

As Mat would say “Fail!”

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It’s the time of year when everyone seems to turn to introspection and my letter box is filled with those blasted round-robin letters – why can’t these people get blogs like normal people?

Anyway, so as not to be left out this is my review of the year:

January

After the excesses of December we implement a one month spending freeze but this doesn’t extend to visits to Costa. One half of our best friends leaves for an 18 month secondment to Australia.

February

Suddenly find myself without a job after a falling out with my employer. Spurs me onto starting my own business Ammat Consulting and the search begins for clients. The other half of our best friends (and their kids) leaves for Australia. This makes us sad

March

Having struggled to keep my weight down I decide it is time for some drastic action and visit a hypnotherapist. It is a very strange sensation but I am not sure if I am more conscious about what I eat due to the hypnotism or just because the thought is more in my mind due to the sessions. Either way I lose weight.

Alternative therapies are to become a theme for this year.

April

Holiday in Florida. Every time we go we say that this will be our last time and enjoy it so much that we plan to go again. Can Alex be persuaded to go again in 2011?

May

Had an interview with a local software company about becoming their CEO but after a few weeks of negotiations it became clear that the incumbent MD was not going to give up his position easily so I walked away.

Meanwhile Alex had his first visits to potential universities ready for next year.

June

Alex takes his AS Levels and I queue outside O2 for the iPhone 3GS.

July

Mat with his guitar orchestra takes place in the regional finals of a national competition at the Festival Hall in Birmingham.

It’s a month for revisiting old friends. Firstly I meet up with Ella, a friend that I went to primary school with and haven’t seen for quite a few years and secondly I revisit Portsmouth with Alex to look round the University. Some things haven’t changed since my days there, others greatly.

Take an Insignia for a test drive.

August

Alex scores a set of fantastic AS Level results celebrates by spending a weekend ill at the Reading festival.

Quacks refuse to syringe my ear. I decide that there is no way I want to be spending 24 hours on a plane with blocked ears and so take matters into my own hands and go for hopi candle treatment. It doesn’t work and I come out smelling like a bonfire.

September

Helen and I step on a plane to fly to Australia to see our friends. This makes us happy

October

Collect my new car.

November

New car pays its first visit to the garage. Told that they couldn’t find any problem but they have done a software update. I am beholden to a team of programmers to make my car work. After 20 years in the industry this makes me more than a little nervous.

December

It snows giving us a white Christmas and a frozen boiler!

So that’s it for 2009.

What? You want to know why it is titled “Facebook, Face Bar and Face Palm”? Well 2009 was the year where I got back in contact with many friends from Portsmouth via Facebook, Alex spent many nights partying at the Face Bar and Mat spent much of the year doing the face palm whenever I open my mouth! Oddly Helen didn’t do anything face related this year.

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The picture to the right is of my knee following our first family bike ride out to Dinton Pastures. Given the amount of rain recently it won’t be a great surprise that it was pretty muddy and slippery under wheel. Helen had the advantage of mud guards on her bike and going slower, whereas Mat and I were mudguardless and consequently got covered.

Nevertheless a good time was had by all and providing the temperature doesn’t drop too much we shall be repeating the journey a few more times this winter.

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Driving home this evening I was amazed at the number of cyclists that were cycling on the roads without lights. There were at least half a dozen idiots that were willing to risk their lives and get mown down by a car. Actually, there could have been a few more that I didn’t see as they didn’t have any lights.

Given that I was driving past the university there is a good chance that they could have been students, although one was a mother with a young child on a seat behind her.

And then my mind drifted back 25 years to when I was at university and the first time that I was stopped by the police. for cycling without lights on my bike. To be fair to me I DID have lights it was just that the batteries didn’t work. An excuse I seem to remember using on the bobby.

I can remember the evening very clearly. I was off to see my girlfriend and was cycling through Southsea when this policeman appeared in front of me. He told me that it was dangerous to cycle on such a busy road at night without lights (well duh!) and that I should get off and push. He somewhat spoilt the whole thing by actually saying “I want you to get off and push. What you do when you get round the corner and are out of my sight is up to you”. Inevitably I pushed round the corner and then got on and cycled the rest of the way. Well, I had a lady waiting! I did, however, manage to procure a set of batteries for the return journey.

So on the one hand I am clearly a hypocrite but on the other those cyclists are bloody hard to see with no lights. If only they would push until they were round the corner and out of my sight.

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I have just returned to the UK on the back of eight individual flights to see the news that British Airways is to start charging to choose your seats.

I have flown BA a number of times in the past, in fact there was a seven month period in my life where I fly with them to and from Amsterdam every week. I like BA and I consider them to be a premium brand.

When I fly for business and cost is an issue I will choose a low cost carrier. When I fly on holiday and with the family I like to get the holiday off to good start and choose to premium carrier. What differentiates the two are things like food included in the flight and being able to check-in online and choose seats and ensure the family flies together. Now BA have removed those differentiators.

So why should I continue to fly BA? I am really struggling to find an reason.

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The final day of our holidays and another hot and steamy day in Hong Kong. We decided to spend the day away from the city and get a  bit of culture with a visit to the Po Lin Monastery & Big Buddha. This was a trip on the MTR (Hong Kong’s underground) followed by a bus journey up steep and windy roads.

I know that it is called the “Big Buddha” but I wasn’t prepared for just how big it actually is – it is huge. Just how they managed to get it to its position I have no idea. (A quick look at wikipedia shows that it was only built in 1993 so I can imagine plenty of heavy lifting gear being involved – also given that it cost $68M they had the money to put it there). It is reached up 260 steps and I made this trip (Helen sensibly elected to stay in the shade) at just about midday – talk about mad dogs and Englishmen. Around the base are a number of smaller statues. The setting is impressive set amongst the hills.

The monastery at the base of the Buddha was a beautiful and tranquil place with the shady areas providing some relief from the searing heat.

We had intended to get the cable car back down to the bottom and the train station but it was shut so it was back on the bus. Fortunately we didn’t have Michael Schumacher as our driver on the way back down.

Given our flight back to the UK wasn’t until midnight we had plenty of time to kill and so we took the ferry back to Kowloon to go to the Avenue of Stars. This had the handprints of a number of famous Asian stars. Not up on my Asian cinematography there were only a handful of people I actually recognised (Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee). There was a great statue of Lee in a pose from Enter the Dragon.

Then the trip to the airport and the long wait for the plane back home.

Click here for more pictures from Hong Kong Day Two

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We seem to have found ourselves a great hotel here in Hong Kong, well I say “we” but the credit should go to Trailfinders if I am honest. Not only is it well positioned with a great room overlooking the harbour, it also has free wifi, breakfast included and a HK$100 allowance for the mini bar. I can’t remember what we paid now but it wasn’t a kings random.

After breakfast of omelette and fried rice we hit the city or more accurately the heat of the city hit us. I have no idea what the temperature is here but but I am guessing that it is similar to Sydney and Cairns but the difference here is that it is some much more humid.

We caught a bus to Central and then wandered through the heart of the city to the Peak Tram station. Most of the walk was on a high level walkway traversing the city from one high- class shopping centre to another. The air conditioned centres were a welcome break from the sweaty heat outside. We then caught a tram to The Peak which was an interesting experience as it was pretty steep. The top was full of tacky shops but there was a tourist free walk around the top along Laugard and Harlech Roads which had some fantastic views over the city below. Stupidly we convinced ourselves that it wouldn’t be too bad to walk back to the hotel. We were wrong.

In the evening we caught the Star ferry to Kowloon and then a taxi to the night markets. This was a few streets of stalls selling all sorts of knockoff goods and cheap “traditional” Chinese items – it was great! We found a restaurant for some dinner and ordered what would have have had a home. We were delighted to find that special fried rice and sweet and sour pork tastes the same no matter where you are.

We got back to the ferry terminal just as the nightly light show was starting. As you look across the harbour the lights on the skyscrapers opposite flash in time to the music playing – it is a great sight.

Click here for more pictures from Hong Kong Day One

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So our final day in Melbourne and Australia was spent packing up all our stuff and making Grant and Sharon’s house look respectable before we left the country. We have had a great couple of weeks, seen some fantastic things and caught up with our best friends who we now won’t see again (other than on Skype) for a year. So it is with mixed feelings that we boarded the flight to Hong Kong this afternoon. Fortunately it is not straight back home as we have a couple of days to explore Hong Kong before making our way back to the UK.

I am composing this on the flight and the excitement of having a power point in my seat has now turned to disappointment as it does not seem to be delivering any power to my laptop adaptor. Therefore, with a battery life of only two and a half hours it looks like I won’t get anything significant done other than this post.

Arrived at HK late and crashed.

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Another day of travelling (the first of a few coming up) this time making the return journey from Cairns to Melbourne. We left Grant & Sharon and the girls, who we have been with for the last couple of weeks, in Cairns to continue their holiday while we make our way back (to their) home.

A couple of interesting taxi rides (sorry, it’s a slow news day). The first to Cairns airport was in a Toyota Prius of great interest to car buffs and greens (when I say greens I mean those interested in the environment rather than cabbages). I wouldn’t have realised it was a Prius if it wasn’t for the large display set into the dashboard showing the energy recovery and battery usage.

We have made several “interesting” taxi journeys now between Melbourne airport and the house. Today, however, was different as we were making it alone. The service here is notable for two things – firstly they ask you which way you would like them to take you and secondly that unlike British cabbies they have little or no local knowledge and will ask you the way when close-ish to your destination!

The cabbie today duly asked me which way I wanted to go and I replied the “cheapest” (is there any other way?). He laughed and then proceeded to take us the most convoluted route to date which came to almost exactly the same cost as usual. Helen guided him in.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Aus and make our way to Hong Kong.

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