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New Adventures

New adventures can be found here

Look What Happens When You Turn Things Around

Woody Allen's very interesting view on life - or life in reverse

I Had the Right Family

Am heading off to a family reunion in a month or so which ties in rather nicely with a chapter that I read in Randy Pausch's 'The Last Lecture', the title of the chapter was 'I Had the Right Parents'. I often see articles, books and hear comments about all the way parents fail their children, about all the things they did wrong that people carry into adulthood and throughout their lives, but I seldom see / hear things about all the things they did right, all the good things that parents did that made us into the people we are today. Randy's chapter focused on how great his parents were and what a difference they made to the person he turned out to be. I think as children we're all too ready to focus on all the negatives, the things that didn't go exactly right or the things our parents didn't phrase correctly and we forget about all the things they did right.

Like Randy, I had the right parents, I had great parents! Did they do everything right? Nope. Did we clash? All . the . time. Do I think less of them because we disagreed and each said stupid things while growing up? Not at all. I could focus on the negative things, but actually what I received from my parents was so wonderful, why would I?

Without them, I would not be the person I am today. I would not have the drive, determination, positive attitude and ability to solve problems. I would not have the focus on family and caring for relationships. There would not be that determination to figure out something for myself, the self-learning ability, the tenacity or that strong independence. All those things and much more came from my parents. Those things were the best gift any parents could give a child.

I also had / have a great family. Siblings who are great people, smart and funny and fun to be with, people who I look forward to spending time with and who challenge me to think in all kinds of new ways. Do we squabble and fight? Sure, but not so much as we did when we were kids! Here again, I could just focus in on where they're not so great, but why do that when there are so many areas where they are! They also had a huge impact on the person I am today.

Relatives are fun, smart, quirky, interesting, nosy, boisterous and many other adjectives I can't think of right now. Many are out and out characters who provide anecdotes and stories that live on from year to year and generation to generation. They help to form who we are, even the ones who annoy the heck out of us and I think sometimes, as we go about our very separate lives, we forget the value of family - family becomes just one more annoyance, one more irritant, one more obligation.

Like everything else in this world, it's all in how you look at it - families are a trial or they're a treasure - I'm choosing the latter. So unlike many who dread spending time with the relatives during the holiday season, or at my upcoming family reunion, I'm looking forward to seeing my family, they've helped to make me who I am.

'Impossible' - An Excuse for Doing Nothing?

"It's impossible." "Can't be done." "You'll never do that!" Heard any of those? What do you do when someone makes a comment like that? Slink back to your corner embarrassed for even having thought of such a thing or do you dig in and get even more determined?

Impossible is a wonderful excuse for not doing all the things you've dreamed of, isn't it? 'It would be impossible for me to retire early, travel the world, quit my job, do all the things I've dreamt of.' It's also a great way to put out someone else's dreams - "You can't cross an ocean, fly, go to the moon" - imagine if Columbus, the Wright brothers or all the folks at NASA had accepted the 'Impossible Excuse'.

If you choose to do some adventurous things with your 750,000 Hours (read anything beyond go to work, go home to watch the telly, and go to the mall), you will encounter folks who will discuss how impossible it is for you to A) quit your job, B) sail around the world, C) go live in a different country, D) any combination of A, B, and C or any other life dream you may have. It's very easy to let those comments affect you until you realise that although someone may be saying what you want to do is impossible, actually it's not impossible, it's just impossible for that person.

Most of the things we want to do aren't even close to impossible, the majority aren't even really that difficult with some self discipline. Many folks do what seems impossible to others without batting an eye (check out the Marathon Monks of Japan), compared to some folks the things we want to do aren't impossible, they're pretty simple really...

Wishing v. Planning

"It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Having a Life - Or Just Watching One?

(Prompted by a comment from Steve's sister Julie who is staying at our house this summer, "I've been here a week and I haven't missed the telly!")

It's always amazing when you start to total up the amount of time people spend watching TV. These are precious life hours being frittered away on game shows, 'reality' shows, soaps, watching advertisements and channel surfing trying to find 'something good to watch'.

When I moved from the US to the UK I stopped watching TV, that was seven years ago. As we grow up we get used to watching certain shows at certain times, none of 'my' shows were on over here and I didn't have the history of the shows that were on UK TV, they were too unfamiliar - so I fell out of the habit. Like Julie, I didn't miss it and other things quickly filled the space that TV used to take up - long leisurely dinners, conversations lasting for hours, evenings on the patio, etc. And instead of missing TV, I've become rather anti-TV.

It's amazing how prevalent TV is and what a large impact it has on us. It is in our homes, takes up a huge part of our lives and is largely unquestioned and unchallenged. Very few people question the idea of having a TV in their home, one just is. Livingrooms and lounges are designed around them. The English TV licensing agency gets increasingly snippy and then downright nasty if you don't pay for a TV license because everybody has one and if you don't pay for a license, you must be dodging the fee rather than ligitimately having no television.

And what a huge influence on our lives, consuming our non-work time, influencing our actions and buying decisions (they don't call it 'programming' for nothing!) and it reduces or destroys two pretty important human abilities - the ability to amuse ourselves and the ability to converse.

Don't believe me? Try these two tests.

Test 1: Have you lost your conversational ability? (How long can you go before turning on the TV to fill the conversational void?)

With the person you love best, turn off the TV and see how long it takes before the conversation dies, before there is a dragging silence, when the flow of words, thoughts and ideas you have to share with one another comes to a halt. How much time does it take? This IS the person you are most interested in in the whole world, right? And how long did your conversation last?

Test 2: Do you still have the ability to amuse yourself?

Similar to Test 1, turn off the telly and see how long it takes before you're bored and your fingers start twitching towards the remote. How quickly do you run out of ideas and things to do? You're a smart adult human being, you should be able to amuse yourself indefinitely, right?

So, how long did you go? Minutes, hours, days, weeks, years? Do you still have the ability to converse, do you still have the ability to amuse yourself - or are they both gone? Steve and I just got back from a trip on the motorbike where we talked for 17 days straight, no commercial interruptions - does that sound like fun or does that sentence bring on the nervous tingles of TV withdrawal?

Most people can go for a few hours or a few days, but then having lost those very important abilities turn to the TV to provide what they no longer have themselves.

So they watch and they watch, and as they watch the hours of their lives disappear one by one. Now, I don't know about you, but the only thing I want using up the hours of my life is me, not the telly - and I want to use those hours having my own experiences and adventures, making memories that I can look back on, stories to share with my children and when I'm old, my grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Because when you're 90 with your great grandchild on your knee telling the story of your life, what are you going to say, "I watched a lot of really good TV"?

A Comparison...

We shop at a market, a farmers' market in Blackburn, Lancashire, and we typically only shop at a supermarket when we cannot find what we want at the farmers' market or it's closed. Why? The food at the farmers' market is better, the shopping is faster, and it's cheaper.

For me, supermarkets are too big, with too many choices and too crowded - and (especially important for a foodie) the food isn't as good. For the past several years, we've comparison shopped and taste tested, and the food simply isn't as tasty. And I think it's because supermarket food is designed to last on the shelf.

Here's an example:

Two pieces of brie cheese, one bought from a supermarket and one bought from the farmers market. The supermarket cheese is a sharp edged well shaped wedge of brie, it keeps its look and shape both in the fridge and out - you can whack it on the table and it retains its shape - it tastes like eating cheese-flavoured paste. The farmers' market cheese doesn't hold its shape at all once removed from the fridge and 'melts' into a brie puddle - and it tastes divine.

My trips to the market are enjoyable. I'm not battling my way through crowded isles searching to find the things I need (supermarkets are organised so that we spend longer in them otherwise the bread, eggs and milk would be located together at the front of the store). At the market, I see stall keepers who know me and I know them, they know what they're selling and how to prepare it (without having to call for a manager). The food is fresh, not laden with preservatives and in the main cheaper. Overall it is cheaper simply because there is less choice, I can't buy the extras that I used to toss into the basket - fancy sauces, the interesting gadgets, the 37 different versions of something - because they simply aren't there, which makes for a significantly cheaper long-term food bill.

End of the Monster Motorbike Tour

Back in the cool, cool North and enjoying a bit of rain to go with our
sunshine. This year's motorbike trip was our most ambitious so far and it
turned out to be the best. Steve's planning (rather than someone else)
ensured that we were able to stay exactly where we wanted (except for one
locational challenge!) and we were able to go to and stay in places never
seen on prefab motorbike tours. It was a lot more time intensive for him,
but a much better tour for us.

Total tour - 3500 miles. Highest temp - 109. Lowest temp - well, there was
snow! Best meal - the agritourismo on the 'instep' of the Italian boot.
Best location - Amalfi, on a balcony overlooking the Med Least favourite
region - Calabria. Favourite region - a toss up between Tuscany, Umbria and
Lake Como

Here are some of the 491 pics I took!

Freiburg to Dinant - Not Lost Today!

Left Freiburg for our last mainland Europe stop on the trip before heading home. We headed up into the hills and then dropped down onto the plains of France for most of the day.

We did a run around Verdurn, an area where many WWI battles were fought. We'd been in this area before, but never in summer. In addition to roads weaving through forests and up and down rolling hills, the French houses and villages are all decorated with flowers - flowers everywhere!

We did the Alsace region in the morning and the Ardonne in the afternoon. And we found a really motorbiking road! After going through Verdun, Fumay and Givet, we reentered Belgium along the Meuse River. This road goes for miles along the banks of the Meuse following the curves of the river through flower decorated villages, past castles and chateaux. Steve is already trying to figure out how to add this route to our next trip!

Dinner in Dinant was tricky, there was some sort of music festival on and the place was packed! We checked restaurant after restaurant and no tables anywhere. We finally decided to take a risk on a Belgiun Chinese, a high risk proposition for us as we always like to focus on the local food when in a country, but one that turned out to be surprisingly good. I love the English translations, 'damp dumplings' was one of the best I've seen so far!

Freiberg is Not Friedburg!

Merrily zooming around Europe and temporarily uncertain of our present
position, that's us! We used to worry about getting lost, but now
it's all part of the adventure.

We left St. Moritz and headed off into the Alps. It was a glorious
morning, sharp, clear, sun glistening off the snow on the mountains.
Sadly we have returned to non-Italian coffee and I have donned my
Michelen Woman costume (but I am NOT complaining about being cool,
just describing the differences!). We had a great time weaving
through the valleys and zigzagging up and over the mountain passes.

We went over one, the Fruilipas (sp) that climbed well above the
snowline and we were riding up through the snow fields! It was
beautiful and thanks to my trusty MW suit, I was toasty! Snow fields
around us and craggy snow covered mountains towering above us, an
amazing experience in July!

We were zipping through a valley when Steve said, "The sun is rising,
we're heading north, making great progress!" The rising sun was over
my left shoulder, "We're going south." "That's a problem," replied
Steve quite calmly. No road signs and we were on a lovely road so we
kept going until we found a cappocino and map review stop. Yup, wrong
way, heading back to Italy, it was a lovely bit of road though!

On to Bregens by Lake Constance where we have been been before on
another motorbike trip, just for lunch and then up the side of the
lake and through the hills to our destination of the evening, Freiburg.

So often on this trip, the national language spellings of names are
different than the English ones (Genoa / Genova) that I didn't really
pay any attention when Steve kept saying Freidburg and I kept seeing
Freiburg. We knew the town we were going to, had been there before
and had specific ideas for dinner once we got there. And we arrived
as planned, yup, right town, there's the cablecar up the hill to the
restaurant we ate at last time, well done!

Steve gave me the map and we started the hotel hunt. Now, we really
need a GPS to do this well, but I do have to say, I'm getting pretty
good at spotting the signs and navigating to the hotel from the back.
We drove around and around and around and I couldn't spot a single
street that matched any of the ones on my map. Several times we
stopped so Sreve could try and figure out the map too, but we still
couldn't find anything that matched. We finally broke down and
stopped at a petrol station and bought a map - and still couldn't find
any of the streets on the map!

What the two maps did have in common were postal codes, each area on
our purchased map had a postal code labeled and the postal code was
labeled on the mapquest map - now we're getting somewhere! We
scrutinized the purchased map searching for the code that matched
ours. The codes on the map were all in the 70000's and our code was
in the 80000's, ours wasn't even on the map!

Then we looked at the town name. We were exactly where we wanted to
be, Freiburg (remember, we've been here before!). However, our hotel
was in Friedburg, a couple hundred kilometers away!

(Can you believe we used to be entrusted with millions of pounds?!)

Och well, we're in the right place even if the hotel isn't, time to
find a new hotel - which we did in a matter of minutes and in a matter
of a few minutes more, we were showered, togged up and sitting in an
outdoor restaurant in the main town square listening to a band play
and admiring the view of the cathedral.

The Friedburg hotel had never received our reservation so we didn't
have to suffer the indignity of being in the wrong town AND paying for
two hotels. While the Freiburg hotel was a bit pricy, after St.
Moritz Steve wasn't phased. "I paid this much for a beer last night,"
he commented.

Dinner on the town square was just as we expected, very Germanic food,
lots of it, some good music, Vicebeer and a glass of local wine. A
perfect ending to a perfect day!

What a Difference a Thousand Miles Makes

A thousand miles and 6000 feet actually. Sicily, Italy, to St.
Moritz, Switzerland. It snowed 3 inches the day before yesterday
(please note, this is July!). Luckily it was gone when we arrived -
motorbikes and snow don't mix!

We left Genoa before the heat came on and headed for the Alps. The
day started out lovely and cool, and as we headed up into the
mountains stayed that way. We have a new appreciation for cool!

We came by Lake Como which is one of the most beautiful places in
Italy. Old towns scattered here and there around the lake, many with
tiny cobbled streets and restaurant lined squares. There was a great
deal of al fresco dining overlooking the lake along with beautiful
summer homes lining the shore. The lake is 25 miles or more, we want
to come back and see the whole thing.

After Lake Como, it was up into the mountains, over a pass and Into
St. Moritz. The town is 6000 feet up and Steve has named it 'The Most
Expensive Place in the World'. It's like someone took Knightsbridge
and stuck it on top of a mountain. But it is also gorgeous, with a
lake below and surrounded by jagged, snowtopped mountains. It's a
wonderful place even in the off peak summertime, but only for one night!

Since we were in Switzerland, traditonal Swiss food was in order -
chocolate and fondue. It was Sunday so most of the shops were closed,
except for the chocolate shops! And the chocolate was every bit as
good as you would expect locally made Swiss chocolate to be.

We walked around for a bit trying to find a restaurant open on an off
season Sunday and finally walked down the hill to La Margda which was
recommended by the very happy and very helpful Swiss man at our
hotel. His recommendation was spot on. We had the fondue in the tiny
downstairs restaurant matched with some local wine - lovely! When we
ordered, I was thinking Melting Pot with a cheese fondue followed by a
meat fondue. The waitress was adamant that that would be too much and
she was exactly right. The meat fondue consisted of at least two
pounds of meat accompanied by rosti's (potatoes), various pickles and
a variety of sauces. We made it a little more than half way before we
gave in, we were defeated by the volume of food. Swiss fondue in
Switzerland is very, very good

How Can an Entire Country Make Good Coffee?

We've been in Italy for 8 or 9 days now and have yet to have a bad cup
of coffee - posh restaurants, ferries, tiny town bars, cheap hotels,
made by a barrista or from a machine, the coffee is all great. How is
it possible for so many different people in so many different
establishments (no chains here) to turn out a consistently good product?

Italians are not big on breakfast, however. A sweet roll, an espresso
and go. The breakfasts have all been continental with crossaintes,
broche, musli, yogurt, fruit, toast, jam and nutella - all great for
Steve who prefers that stuff, but I want MEAT!

They are, however, very big on dinner! We have had wonderful meal
after wonderful meal at night - in some of the most unlikely places.

The ferry ride to Genoa was great, if a bit boisterous - force 7 winds
and waves so high our 9 story ferry ( think small cruise ship) was
rolling over the waves. It takes some pretty big waves to move a ship
that size. Lots of people were ill. We simply got up, found food and
went back to sleep. I think we had a total of 4 naps during the day!

Genoa was great, a lovely waterront city with lots of character left
in it. The architecture was ornate with many old buildings, churches,
and palazzos scattered about. We wandered the tiny streets until we
found an al fresco restaurant with a guitarist and parked ourselves
there for an evening of food and music.

The End of the American Dream?

Have you seen all the press lamenting the end of the American Dream? It's gone, it's come to an end, it's over. What a load of rubbish!

We're not experiencing the end of the American Dream, we're experiencing the end of a consumption-based pyramid scheme that was labeled as the American Dream. Labeling cod liver oil as syrup doesn't make it syrup and certainly doesn't make it taste any better! Labels can be misleading though and if we don't scrutinize labels, we can be conned.

The American Dream was not to be a cog in a consumption machine, it was quite the opposite - moving far away from being a cog in someone else's wheel. The American Dream was about freedom, from being locked into a certain place in society, from tyranny and oppression. It was
about opportunity, the opportunity to have your own home, to raise your children in a safe environment, to give them an education. It was about opportunity, the opportunity to start your own business and create something that a family could build together. Many American Dreams were about families being together.

There was nothing in the American Dream about selling yourself into wage slavery so that you could spend your lifetime acquiring ever-increasing amounts of stuff. That's not the American Dream, that's the American manufacturers', marketers' and advertizers' dream - a veneer label placed over the American Dream.

What's happened during this economic 'crisis' is the cracking of that veneer which attempted to cover up the strength and enduring core values of the American Dream. That weak veneer could never withstand the test of time, and broke under pressure.

However, when you push aside the pieces of that crumbled veneer, you find the original dream underneath. It's reemerging once again. People are returning to those core values, that strong foundation that is the American Dream - freedom, family, friends and the opportunity to build something (and not just make a buck).

The American Dream hasn't ended, the American consumption dream has. The two aren't the same at all.

Cruising the Med

Palermo to Genoa by sea! An overnight ferry and a day off, sort of!

We left the south coast of Sicily and Agrigento, beginning the trip
back up north. One more crossing of the hot middle bit keeping to the
coast for as long as possible until we had to cut across for Palermo.
Steve booked the car ferry which departs at 9:00 so we organized our
backpack so we could strip off the leathers as quickly as possible
once we got off the bike - which we were able to do after a scenic
tour of Palermo when we missed the sign for the Porto.

We were much too early for the ferry, but found a shady cafe where we
had a two and a half hour lunch, and then a shadier park which was
perfect for keeping cool and having a next steps planning discussion
(red booking). Then once it cooled down a bit, we headed for the
Porto to pick up our tickets and find the queue for the ferry. Steve
expected this to be 'a bit of a faff' so we left plenty of time, but
quite the reverse, it went swimmingly well and we were ready to get on
our 9:00 ferry at 6:15! So we found some shade, people watched and
had a nice chat with an American and his Irish wife, Bill and Miriam.

A German guy pulled up next to us in line and we chatted with him
too. He had a temperature guage on his bike and at 7:00 in the
evening by the water it was still 38 degrees - well into the 90's. He
said that he had parked it in a sun / shady area a couple days ago and
the temp was 46!

Italy is chaotic, particularly the traffic, but once you understand
that the rule is that there are no rules it becomes doable (if not
understandable). We now squeeze ourselves into traffic with the best
of them and I've even heard Steve beeping his horn a few times!

Sicilian Summer

The weather here is gorgeous and,when you're not wearing 30 pounds of
black leathers in the sunshine, quite comfortable. By the sea there
is a breeze and the temp is a bit cooler. The humidity is far lower
than Florida.

We left Calabria yesterday and took a ferry over to Sicily, a nice
cool ferry! Headed down the coast and turned inland to ride by Mt.
Etna, a smoking volcano. Nice houses this way with many restoration
opportunities, but somehow the lava in the front yards made them seem
less appealing.

Inland was hot, dry, rocky, brown fields, and cactus. Did I say hot?
Steve caught some comment about record breaking temps and 41c which
would be 106 in faren, but we'll have to validate that data, but we
know it was 35 the day before. The next time we get the urge to go
motorbiking in the summer, we're going to Norway, Sweden or the Artic
Circle!

Actually, heat aside, it's been a great trip and exactly what we
wanted, to see Italy in the summer when it's at its driest and worst
visually and see if we still like it. And the answer is a resounding
yes, in parts. We're much clearer about the parts of Italy we like
now (there's a reason why everybody moves to Tuscany and the hundreds
of thousands who have bought holiday homes there are not wrong).

Italy is big, much bigger than we thought it was. We've done over
2000 miles getting to Sicily and it could be a country all by itself.
We rode all day to get from Messina to Agrigento (of course part of
that was heading in the wrong direction) and will ride 2-3 hours to
get from here to Palermo - where we pick up an overnight ferry and
head to Genoa and cooler climes.

Wet T-Shirt Contest

35 degrees celcius yesterday and we're applying all sorts of
techniques to deal with the heat - mostly by trying to keep things wet
which then keep us cool when the bike is moving. Today we're going
beyond wetting the neckerchiefs to a full on wet t-shirt contest!

Yesterday was our last day in Calabria. We've come as far as Reggio
Calabria and spent three days exploring the region. Steve says that
was two days too long. The mountains and the roads through the
mountains are spectacular and being on the edge of a cliff looking
straight down to the sea was amazing. The mountainous part of the
coastline is lovely and would be great to sail to.

Lunch in outlying areas is tricky to find so we've been warding off
starvation with gelato and cornettos!

New Thoughts

Am rereading David Bach's Start Late Finish Rich book. I've found his books to contain some of the most useful and practical money management advice out there. Although the 95 percent mortgages are gone, the tax advantaged savings advice still applies.

The book starts out with a bit of a motivational talk focusing quite a lot on how to stop beating yourself up for past financial mistakes. One thing that he said really struck me, that 90 percent of what we think today are the same thoughts we thought yesterday. Each day we think essentially the exact same thoughts as we did the day before and the day before that.

So if thoughts translate into action then if we're thinking the same thoughts every day, we're probably doing the same things every day. Doesn't sound like a prescription for a very exciting life, or even a very interesting one.

Are you thinking the same thoughts each day? Is that what you want? How do you start new thoughts or new thinking?

And by the way, stop beating yourself up for past financial mistakes, that's an already thunk thought! New thinking is all of your options from here on in!

Boil in the Bag People

Italy is the Ape' center of the world, according to Steve. Apes look like a truck (see picture), but are actually a scooter wearing a truck costume. Tonka builds bigger trucks. Top speed uphill is 3 miles per hour, downhill is 60. They are either driven completely empty or with more stuff than a three ton transit could carry. They are only designed to carry one person, but often carry many more. Steve desperately wants one.

Southern Italy in July is hot. Southern Italy in July in motorbike leathers is REALLY hot! All the Italians are zipping by on their motorbikes and scoots in shorts and tshirts and we're in 30 pounds of hot leathers. It's like being boiled in a bag!

We're 1800 miles into this trip and all the way down almost to the bottom of Italy in the Calabria region. We've gone from pouring rain in Belgium / Germany to total sunshine once we got south of the Alps. This trip has been almost exclusively non-motorway roads so it hasn't been a fast blast down the highway, bit rather a slow wind up and and through the hills, mountains and valleys all the way.

We had a lovely breakfast on the patio overlooking Amalfi and the Med yesterday morning, after a slowish get up and then headed further south. Made it from Campania down to Calabria last night and guess where our Italian dinner waiters have worked? At their uncle's restaurant in ... Preston! Very small world. And they miss it very much!

Today continued the journey through Calabria and tonight's stop is at the 'instep' of the Italian boot, close to as far south as you can get. Calabria has been very interesting, the geography is great, loads of mountains, tons of seaside, but unfortunately the 'ugly architects' had a field day down here! Ugly architects are what Steve and I call the designers of cheap, cinderblock, boring, square buildings with no features of any architectural interest at all. There is mile after mile of tenament apartments. Only once in a great while do you glimpse an old stone Italian building. It's been very interesting and a worthwhile exploration, but cheap house prices aside, Calabria is not for us.

However, I think agritourismos are! Tonight's stop is a working farm which has been converted into a B&B / restaurant. Old stone building, high ceiling'd rooms and (after today's heat) a very welcome pool!

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

We're on a motorbike tour exploring Italy. We'd like to retire here when we retire in the more traditional sense so are checking out the different regions to begin narrowing the choices from an entire country down to a specific town.

Calabria is the area we're in now, right at the toe of the Italian boot. It is a drier, more mountainous region and one of the less wealthy areas of Italy. Long neglected, there are many half completed construction projects where someone has attempted to bring housing or facilities to a place and given up before finishing.

However, much of the region is by the sea and housing prices are cheap for Italy (two rather important criteria for us) so we wanted to check it out. Not surprisingly, the view matched the reports - lots of empty, half completed modern apartmenty type buildings, trash lying about, pretty neglected really.

So when we drove into our hotel, we weren't surprised to see a place that was a bit run down, but we were hot and tired and wanted food so we didn't care. The hotel restaurant didn't look like much of anything so we headed out into the town for a walk and a half hearted search for a good place to eat. A long walk later, no luck, so we figured we'd settle for whatever the hotel had to offer and have an early night.

Now on this trip we have stayed in Lake Garda, Siena, and Amalfi type places - beautiful surroundings with food to match. We placed our order and expected to merely fill the hunger void.

When the food came out, it was fabulous - it was the best meal we had on the trip! We should have known better and not gotten deceived by appearances. This is Italy, renowned for wonderful food and the surroundings don't change that!