Aeolian Islands Sicily

So at the end of the holidays we set off for a sailing adventure with Leslie, Guisseppi,  and the skipper Tommaso. The islands are situated on the north west corner of Sicily, the water is clear blue, and the area is steeped in Greek, Roman and Etruscan history. The islands have a couple of major volcanoes, Stromboli, Vulcano. The main towns, islands are Lipari,  which has a terrific archaelogical museum, Salina where Il Postino was filmed is also amazing. We sailed around, and either stayed the nights in ports or in the harbours, as the weather turned nasty for a few days, and it was simpler being in harbour to visit the towns and get dinner. Hunter fished all the time, along with Ewan they would have a line out as we sailed along, sadly though the water was beautiful, we caught nothing. Jayne and leslie played bananagrams, and the boys all played a card game in italian, that l just watched.
Tommaso was great with the boys as was Guieseppi, and the boys had a great time. This area is well worth going to and sailing about, the beauty, history and food is brilliant.

Roman Holiday

Jayne and l went to Rome for a short trip, to see some of the sites we have missed in past trips. These included importantly an excursion to the Testaccio area, where the old meat market is on the edge of Rome. The Maxi Museum, which is furthur out and is well worth visiting, as it puts on exceptional exhibitions in an exceptional building.
So we organized a tour guide to visit the Testaccio area, as we wanted in particular to visit MOunt Testaccio, and entry is more by luck if someone turns up to open the gate, or you have a guide who organizes someone to be there. The mountain, and l feel that is a stretch for this hill is made completely of broken pots from centuries past, pots from Syria, Turkey, France, Africa, Spain conataining oil, grain, wine. The pots once empties where carted to this area and broken and then layed in layers, which is amazing to see a x section. The pots thanks to our guide who was an archeologist where identified by their colour or design of handle or shape. On the top of this hill which might be 100 metres they have cut a shaft and from photos you can truely see the layering effect, along with examples along the track you walk up. We then had a lunch in one of the many restaurants that backs into the base of the hill, and so the walls are of broken pots. The old meat market has become a sort of art area with studios and gallery spaces, though maybe not yet as successful as it could be. And next to that is the new market which sells everything, and is well worth going too, and tasting the local produce and wines.
Near by is an incredible cemetery , Cimitero Acattolica ( Protestant Cemetery) In this place Percey Shelley, John Keats are buried along with many other famous artists and writers. In fact you needed to be artistic to get in in the end. There is also a Russian section, it was established in 1716, when the Pope recognised that many inhabitants of Rome where not catholic. Near by is the Pyramid of Cestius built in 30 BC as a tomb, and looks odd .
And of course we did a trip to the Pantheon, because you just have to see one of the most incredible man made structures, and while there pop around the corner to see a few Caravaggios.

Boys 13th Birthday

We celebrated the boys 13th birthday, paintballing. Jayne found a place where you can bring a lunch, they have tables and chairs and undercover provided. It was at Castenaso, San Lazzaro di Savena, outside Bologna. Tricky to find, and a rather wet and cold day. Most of the parents came, and so we ate and drank while the kids shot at each other, it was well set up with bunkers, and old stylt buildings and cars lying in the circuit, there where about 20 kids. The great thing was Ewan and Hunter where able to use the paintball guns l bought them in the USA, and get the air cannisters filled there, they also sold smoke bombs to the kids, which l found odd, but anything for a few euros. And so after the birthday cake and celebrations, the kids ran around lettting off the smoke bombs, some kids bought 6, with a few going home with them, god knows what the patrents thought of us.
The boys had a great time, and it was a change from the bowling, and go karting we had done the previous years.

My first thoughts of Bologna

Bologna is beautiful
It is the rossa cita, the colours on the buildings are shades of earth reds, ochres, the buildings are 3 - 4 stories high, with incredible history and detail . You walk around the city under porticos, there are miles and miles of porticos (covered walkways) some with frescoes on the vaulted ceilings and terrazzo floors. Is is perfect in a city that can rain a bit, and is very hot in summer. These make wonderful views as you look down through the arches, the other thing is often you can walk down streets and see no one, which is a reason Bologna is beautiful, it is not a busy city. the centro attico is a walled city like many Italian cities, Bologna has some of the original walls still standing, and  entrance gates on the main roads in and out of the centre. Bologna has two main towers left standing at the intersection of several roads, one of the towers appears to about to fall over, and infact l cannot understand why it does not. The main transport is buses, which go everywhere and are quick, but l am starting to tire of the excitement of them. Obviously there are scooters everywhere, and though they say watch yourself when crossing the road, l find most drivers very aware of pedestrians, maybe because l have the boys in hand. Everyone loves the boys, they love children, especially blond twins. Everyone in Bologna is very friendly and seems to want to know why we chose Bologna, and very excited to here we are from Australia, as compared to America or England. Jayne always tries to speak Italian in the shops, and they appreciate the effort, often praising her on her accent, and from that we have made many friends who offer to give us free lessons in Italian, as they are bored in an empty shop, or teach us to make pasta, or where to eat or go.
I love the BARs that are everywhere, where l get my caffe, what l am not mad about is the amount of cigarette butts thrown to the ground, and the graffiti on some wonderful old walls.
For me the best way to get around Bologna is by bike, you can ride from one side of the centro to the other in 5-10 minutes
Everyone dress's very well, and the long scarfs are the look, no matter how warm, l have become an addict to these. You have to love the effort everyone puts into their look, and every second person wears aviator style ray bans. No one wears baseball caps, and the town closes down from 1.30-3.30 which makes a great time to walk around in quite streets.
There are no green grass areas in the centro, but wonderful piazzas. They have a large park on the edge of centro called Marguarita, which is packed with people playing sports , sun baking, pic nicking , they have a trampoline area with about 12 tramps, and bouncy castles etc for litle kids
There are many Africans walking the streets trying to sell tissues, crayons etc, they are happy and friendly people, so you don't mind being stopped and chatting with them so much.
One of the best views is looking through hugh wooden open doors leading into a palazzo, with a courtyard and small garden area, it is a perfect picture, and the respite from the bustle of the brick and concrete. This is were we will be living in a month in a palazzo off a wonderful piazza , quite peaceful and visually beautiful. So this is a quick response to my first thoughts, l will try to talk more about my thoughts of Bologna, but l imagine l will always feel it is a beautiful city, with wonderful people.

Lido

Lido, an island of Venice is a long thin strip with beach on both lengths, its at the end of the vaperatto (boat bus) line 1 not far from the gardens of the biennale. Jayne and l were kindly invited to stay a night there with our friends Nicola and Carlotta. They had organized an architectural based forum at the Excelsior Hotel for 350 people, it was quite an event over three days, lots of discussions, one on one meetings and main forums each night. Now we only came for a night and spent sometime around the pool and walking on the beach, but that evening there were drinks in which we met some incredible people, Alex, the dean of architecture at the Royal Academy of Art, Nadir from a very clever company called Transsolar, that used natural heat/cool in commercial and residential use, Riccardo who is the chief designer at Nicola, Carlotta's magazine "The Plan, and a good friend of theirs, Carlo who works in the building industry. We visited the Chinese and Russian pavilions, and the architectural biennale, which opens this week.
Ilse and Swen our Belgium friends were also there, sadly they leave soon to China, but it was great to have sometime with them quietly, and in Venice before they go.
That night we had a lovely dinner in the hotel with some of these people and others from all around the world, all who had come to be part of the forum.
Lido is a brilliant place to stay in Venice, as it is quite and yet close by, and a great place to escape at the end of the day the maddening crown of Venice, the nice thing about the Excelsior is that it has its own boat that shuttles to San Marco, and it is very stylish, l felt rather important in it! On the beach in front of the hotel is a long beach with incredible canvas huts that you rent for the day (200 euro), these huts have deck chairs, lounge beds and changing areas, a home away from home, and they are perfectly positioned along the beach with bougainvillea growing around them. The beach itself faces onto the adriatic, and so is not the best, no surf, the water is clean but not always clear, and the sand is more like silt, but we know that, and the view and the surroundings  compensate for that.
The following day we went to Venice to see the pavilions, and ended up with Riccardo and Carlo, at Harry's having bellini's, and then to Fortuna Museum to see a Dora Marr exhibition and some others. Later in the day we drove back with Carlo, having a great conversation.
Both Carlotta and Carlo have been most helpful in helping us get the boys into a local italian school , called Malpighi.

On the hotel boat, feeling great

Jayne celebrating having time away

Beach infront of hotel, note the beach box's

DAY TO DAY STUFF IN BOLOGNA - BY JAYNE

As the school year draws to a close, at the International School we get an extra two weeks of school, as Italian school finished earlier and all the italian kids are off to the many campi estivi ( summer camps ).
We will be starting a new phase in our sojourn in Italy, not a sojourn for the ragazzi though, they will start at the Italian school ' Malpighi ' in September, so they are busy with their tutor Nicola twice a week, Poverini!!
We will miss some aspects of the Bubble, oh, I mean the International school. We have met some great people there, in the early days of being here and trying to figure things out without many language skills it was easy being surrounded by english speakers.
Now after three years its finally time to fly the coop. We are ready for the next challenge.
Not sure if the boys are though, Ewan has been rather grumpy of late, and the playstation is foremost in his thoughts as an escape I presume.
Although he does now have very straight and perfect teeth after his braces have just been removed by our wonderful italian orthodontist Christina, like all good dentists she likes a chat, the fortunate thing is she chats to me and Im not in the chair, about where we are going and where we should go on our travels.
This school year Ewan was lucky to have a wonderful piano teacher, Nora from Portland, Oregon who came here with her family, Liz, Alex and Sophie on sabbatical. She is now going back to the US, we will miss her a lot, she became a wonderful friend, Ill miss our cups of tea and chats about music and her events of the day writing her book on Medieval music and Boccaccio,  prior to Ewans lesson.
Also Ilse and Sven from Belgium, who we came to know over the year are off to Shanghai. We wish they weren't leaving. We will miss them too and Ilse's laugh.
I suppose that is the life at the International School, people come and people go, we have met another great couple Gina and Stefan, so will enjoy them whilst they too are here.
Luckily for the boys their classmates in the boy dept are all Italian and they will remain in Bologna so they will hopefully catch up with the three boys in their class Michelangelo, Gianandrea e Matteo.
The new school they will have 100 kids in their year so potentially lots of friends to choose from.
Hunter has really got into world Cup soccer fever and has been up most nights to all hours watching, along with us after two 230am nights on the weekend. He went to Michelangelo's for a sleeepover with Ewan to watch Italy and England, Ully, Mickeys mum told me Hunter was the only one who would'nt wear the italian jersey, I think he was still upset after Australia lost the other night to Chile.

The joys of the bureaucracy of Italy we have been waiting nearly two months for our Permesso di Soggiorno, which is our permission card to stay in the country, I normally would'nt stress over these matters, but apparently you can't travel in Europe without it, and we plan on doing a lot of plane travel in the holidays, hence my concern if it interferes with flitting around the place.
There are now local police at the Questura, and I thought it seemed more efficient when we went to do our paperwork and fingerprints, no stupid questions like Residenza Elettiva? , non ho capito!!!I think they seem to think why on earth would you elect to come here voluntarily, siete Matti!!
As they say, all good things take time, not excluding the permesso, we need it to stay in this wonderful country despite its bureaucracy.
Well the skies are a bit grey today with rain and humidity, it has put a dent in my trips to the tennis club now the pool is open its very relaxing by the pool with the cicadas and loving my sessions with my trainer Fiorenza who is helping me to get my knee stronger after my skiing accident in January. Still can't run for a bus though, luckily I don't take the bus.
Art Class has wound up for the year with a morning of 'plein air' drawing at the Lido di Casalecchio now dont get excited the Lido is not what you think, it was lovely in the shade drawing a structure on the riverbank but its basically a park with people bringing along their banana lounges to sunbake along a murky river, bit strange.... I remember when I first started going to art classes with Antonio two years ago as an excuse to improve my italian, as I am no artist.  I bought along some friends from the International School and it started a group of us that has expanded and now English seems to be the flavour down our end of the studio. I do love this morning with cups of tea and cake and Cookies that the die hard Italian Signora's have baked, that have been frequenting for years.
My last picture was of a sculpture at Certosa Cemetery, I think this was a dark period in my life just after my skiing accident, will now move on to brighter things after the holidays with new inspiration after we will have visited Basel, Puglia, Spain, Paris and London.