A Pinay in Europe

The coast off the Dunure castle is jellyfish infested!

A jellyfish up close

A cemetery in Ayr. Year of death carved on one of these tombstones is 1880.

baaa baaa white sheep your backsides are showing!

A Scottish house

The dainty and well-behaved students at rest, in the castle grounds

the mobile homes zone in the Caravan Park

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“No vacancies” means this B&B is fully booked. Don’t bother to knock!

We drove round and round looking for a hotel/B&B to stay the night but all were fully booked! Luckily we came across this Caravan Park just outside Ayr, parked the car…. and slept in the car! Remember, we had no sleeping bags nor blankets so we slept with up to 4 layers of clothing! At least, we made the right decision to take winter clothing with us. They came very handy

The Holiday Park (or campsite)

Notice the park. A glorified version of a car park since it has full toilet and shower facilities. Caravans and cars are parked closely side by side …..to maximize occupancy!
Our bill that night: ten pounds!

Dunure Harbour

We were so lucky to chance upon a mini-concert going on in the Culzean castle. And these students look very dainty and well-behaved! They played old traditional scottish music.

another concert the previous night. we missed the genuine scottish playing band in just few minutes. we went home because i was falling asleep in my chair! so embarassing!

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It was 10 in the evening of July the 14th, France’s National Day, and like all cities, towns and villages in the country, we had our Bal (dance) on the primary school grounds just underneath the village hall.
Hubby and I went with Madame Alice, our dear neighbour of 85 years who is exquisitely gentle and gifted with admirable wisdom. She is particularly very doting to me with whom she has taken a grandaughterly liking, probably the “apo” she had always dreamed of but never had.
She is a spinster and lives in a huge four-level house next door - a maze of narrow corridors and zigzaggy rooms that in order to get to some of them you have to negotiate through tiny openings stooping carefully so that you don’t knock your head off. She is one of those I mentioned earlier who goes to her second home in Nice in the winter and returns to the village in the summer.
One day she invited me to her garden which is some 100 meters away, gently climbing up the hill and I was amazed, not only at her heavily-laden fruit trees but also at its neatness making my own garden looking like a green landfill.

Madame Alice’s garden and her plum tree

Going back to the dance, upon entering the premises, I was exceptionally awed by the presence of two very neat-looking and handsomely uniformed Gendarmes (a male and a female), with an added reinforcement in the form of a police dog, guarding the entrance.

Even if the chance of getting gatecrashed by suspicious-looking characters is very remote as i have yet to see a drunken neighbour or a bully 5-year old, our village comprising the over 85’s (yes, you can call it a retirement village) and only about 5 primary school age kids and some of their working parents, the best possible danger could still come from the campsite which is a 5-minute walk away but in any case, I love to feel that I am very well protected by these good-looking men in uniform.

Meanwhile, with the hubby next to me, I was swooning secretly to the male gendarme, how could all they be so handsome and looking so fit! I bet they are selected for the job because of these physical qualities!

On the Dance Floor

Among the personalities in the room were neighbours and those I was only seeing for the first time including the mayor whom Madame Alice introduced us as the new neighbours although we have been there nearly 4 years. But then, we never stayed in our village home long and frequent enough as to be able to attend those regular village meetings or activities.

The dancefloor was already heating up that moment with the tunes of YMCA, I will survive, Macarena (yes, this is the year 2007) as well as French accordion music. Madame Boulanger (the lady working in the boulangerie (bakery) was unstoppable.
Le Monsieur Pompier (the fireman) and his wife and two sons all dancing facing each other. I am always very fascinated about Mr Fireman as he seem to be the village all-rounder: if not busy putting off fires, you see him sweeping and hosing the streets or sometimes digging road holes. He’s a workaholic.
He fascinates me a lot because when we first moved in and he was the very first person we bumped into, we greeted him “Bonjour “and he would just ignore us. We did the same about few more times, kept getting ignored until we got fed up and stopped greeting him altogether. But everything changed when one day, out of the blue, we heard him actually saying “Bonjour” to us… for the first time! We later learned that it is normal for some of the French to observe newcomers first, from a distance, and when they realize that you are harmless and could be trusted, you are in as a good acquaintance. It comes in stages. We expect that in no time at all, he will be inviting us to one of his soirées.

Back to the dancefloor, when the DJ began playing American country music, everybody seemed to understand and have memorized the foot movements. They were all dancing in perfect synchrony! Why the popularity of that Cowboy Country Music in France beats the (good) out of me. I even see it featured on TV evening news - about some village holding the dance - or even Rodeo events - to celebrate some American occasion. Sometimes posters are put up in town announcing the start of a Country dance course.
I hope the French are not becoming too Americanized!

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Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

O my luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
My love like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonny lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only love!
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my love
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Burns Cottage

The Tam O’Shanter Inn.
A quaint thatched pub where Burns’ hero Tam enjoyed a few rounds before riding off on his beloved mare, Meg to Kirkoswald.
As you’d expect, the pub is decorated with tributes to Burns and is well worth a visit.

‘Tam O’ Shanter is Robert Burns’ epic poem and arguably his best. It relates the tale of the drunken farmer coming home on his horse from the public house in Ayr. On passing the ruined Kirk Alloway he disturbs a witches party and is chased by them over a bridge.

still part of the Inn

‘Souter Johnie’ was the drinking companion of ‘Tam O’Shanter’

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My husband and I were horrified upon seeing churches in Scotland being turned into pubs or theaters or simply as tourist attractions.

Modern Scotland, being a very religious country in the olden days suddenly found herself the custodian of so many of these religious edifices that are becoming emptier and emptier during worship services. The maintenance costs is astronomical and they have to give some up or sell them to private individuals. But the new owners are only concerned about profits, never mind the spiritual repercussions.

And so here now are a couple of churches we saw in Ayr that made us cry in shame

Where’s the cross on the top?

But this church is now a pub!!

just one of the many churches of Ayr, the capital of Ayrshire

..now doing all their best to attract the faithful

Even an atheist would protest at such utter disrespect of God’s house. Out of curiosity, we entered the ex-church now-pub and could still see the bygone glory through the stained-glass window, the majestically high ceiling, the still resplendent altar which has been turned into a counter and the nave, where members of the congregation used to sit, is now jammed with tables and chairs whereupon seated strange-looking men, women with mugs and mugs of beer between them. and btw, they also serve pub food! but personally, even if i am starving and it’s the only pub open, i will never never give them the business! shame on them

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The UK countryside, in general, is stunningly picturesque.

Reaching the edge of the North Yorkshire moors the landscape gets even more dramatic, continuing through the Lake District all the
way to southwest scotland and finally into Ayrshire. I had to set my camera at shutter speed mode so i could get clearer photos of
the beautiful scenery from our speeding car.

The landscape of rural England and Scotland as seen from the motorway is that of gently rolling hills framed by hedges (shrubs) or
trees or by criss-crossing dry stone walls that remind you of the great wall of China, miniature version, but equally long and undulating.

There sprawled grazing cattle, sheep and sometimes horses, all seemingly ruminating all day long - I say this because we saw the
same scene as we drove from morning till late afternoon! At a far distance, they appear like specks or dots and at close up, gets even
more amazing as they are like unmoving statues glued at dramatically sloping hills!

Equally stunning are the empty fields where perfectly rolled bales of wheat straw are scattered or stacked, then peeking out from afar
are abandoned farmhouses, charming cottages and sometimes the stately homes or manors of old.

Sadly, this picture-perfect panorama is, every now and then, replaced by horrible-looking factories of concrete lumps and metal
grids; of giant chimneys, the revolting design of which leads me to suspect that the architect must have ran out of design ideas that
he appallingly simulated the shape of the upper half of a milk bottle, painted it with a filthy shade of grey and now spewing out smoke of
alarming magnitude into the atmosphere. No doubt these are some of the culprits in the climate change phenomenon!

We knew we were entering Scottish terrain when the weather started to change and the sky turned very dark grey and rain
started pouring but only for a minute and then it all became clear and bright again - welcome to Scotland!

wheat fields are a common sight in Scotland

And no wonder GOLF finds its roots from Scotland. The whole countryside is like a teeing green of perfectly mowed grass with
even more sheep and cattle grazing in them.

The Westin Turnberry Resort in Ayrshire, most well-known for its world-class golf course and hotel & spa.
I took this from our speeding car!

purple heathers blanketing the hills
image from world-tour-orion7.com

And then there are the wild heathers creating patches of lovely violets in the hills, or sometimes, as they are self-propagating,
blanketing entire hills turning the landscape into glorious purple.

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It was the perfect bank holiday weekend…. so we thought.
Packed the car with 2 sets of clothing..winter get-up: in case the winter cold sets in and summer clothes: if the sun does decide to shine.
Scotland, despite its breathtaking beauty that has inspired poets and writers as Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, Kidnapped), Robert Burns (My love is like a red, red rose) and others, has the most variable weather even worse than the notoriously-acclaimed English weather. In Scotland - you could experience the freezing cold, howling wind, pouring rain, drifting snow and glorious sunshine all in one day! So miserable is the weather that the locals in the olden days fed up with getting cooped up indoors because of the freezing cold concocted a drink that would warm their bodies hence, the Scotch whisky was born.

Our plan was to explore Ayrshire with style, i.e., sleep in hotels so no sleeping bags this time.
As i’ve written earlier, this is the UK. Sleeping in the car is a big NO-NO not only because of the weather but it’s also possible that “we might end up getting stabbed”! well, i haven’t exactly said those words in my earlier post but i did mention “crime culture”!

the ruins of Dunure castle

the view from the castle

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Lourges is a hillside fortified town in Provence. Although its first record of existence was in year 986, it became a very important town during the middle ages
popular with the monks of nearby Thoronet Abbey. It was well fortified to withstand the barbarian invasions of the 5th and 6th centuries and the Saracen raids of the 9th century.

Lourges is 10 minute drive away from where we live in the Var

An outdoor café in one of the hidden corners of the village.  It is so unassuming that we thought we were on someone else’s porch

A flea market was going on that Sunday morning

 
A typical provençal facade but where the heck is the doorbell?

One of the arches which were part of the fortification

An antique shop

One of the village fountains    

A wine cooperative

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Day 1 – 3 Rome

Driving in Italian cities as I noted earlier in this thread is absolutely suicidal so I strongly advise that you park your car in the outskirts of Rome and take the train to central Rome’s Termini station.

Then to Umbria with your car.

Umbria is a landscape of sleepy valleys, green forests, grain and sunflower fields, vineyards and olive trees. It is rich in hillside villages, each preserving historical, artistic and architectural treasures.

Note: this is a trip for active people who are comfortable with driving and capable of difficult walking because of the steep hills.

Day 4 – Civita, Orvieto, Todi, Spoletto (to stay the night)

Drive from Rome to Civita …1 hour

Civita is a tiny little town that is on a pinnacle and is reached by walking along a long, steep walking bridge. The views are amazing. It’s an artist’s dream. Each lane and footpath holds a surprise.

- Sit in the piazza. Smile and nod at each local who passes by. It’s a social jigsaw puzzle, and each person fits. The old woman hanging out in the window monitors gossip. A tiny hunchback lady is everyone’s daughter. And cats, the fastest growing segment of the population, scratch their itches on ancient pillars.

The ground below Civita is honeycombed with ancient cellars and cisterns (for collecting rainwater, since there was no well in town). Many of these date from Etruscan times.
After passing an ancient Roman tombstone on your left, you’ll come to Vittoria’s Antico Mulino, an atmospheric collection of old olive presses. The huge press in the entry is about 1,500 years old and was in use as recently as the 1960s (donation requested, give about €1).
Farther down the way and to your left, Maria (for a donation of about €1) will show you through her garden with a grand view (Maria’s Giardino) and share historical misinformation (she says Civita and Lubriano were once connected). Maria’s husband, Peppone, used to carry goods on a donkey back and forth on the path between the old town and Bagnoregio.

Orvieto

Civita to Orvieto….1 hour

Orvieto has a spectacular setting atop a huge plateau because it is built on top of a volcanic plug rising more than 300 metres above the surrounding plain. There is a funicular from the big free parking lot below to get up to the main town.The main square, the Piazza del Duomo, has a magnificent cathedral considered to be one of the most beautiful in Italy with its bold mosaic and gold façade.The view of the Duomo rising from the top of this volcanic plateau is beautiful. Close-up, it is even more impressive, described by Jacob Burckhardt as ‘the greatest and richest polychrome monument in the world’. It dominates the piazza with it’s wonderful black and white stripes. It is an amazing building, a real joy. The whole piazza and the area around it has a lovely atmosphere, perfect to enjoy a well-earned beer.

Almost rivalling the Duomo is the underground of Orvieto. More than 1200 caves have been discovered so far, many dating back to the Etruscans. There’s also St Patrick’s Well, a 60-metre deep well built on the orders of Pope Clement VII following the fall of Rome. The well is 13 metres wide, wide enough to accommodate a double-helix staircase much like Leonardo DaVinci’s staircase at Chambord in the Loire Valley. Water was carried up these staircases by teams of mules. More than seventy windows provide light and ventilation, and just above water level a bridge crosses from one side to the other.

Todi

Drive from Orvieto to Todi….50 mins

Todi is chic and magical with lots of medieval nooks and two of Umbria’s most architecturally interesting churches: San Fortunato and Santa Maria della Consolazione.
it sits on top of a steep hill,. It has a main square of austere beauty and boasts itself as the best proportioned piazza in Italy.

Spoleto

Drive from Todi to Spoleto… 1 hour

- Use the town of Spoleto as a base. It has good restaurants, interesting shops, culture, a beautiful duomo. Or at least, spend a night here, devoting late afternoon and early morning to one of central Italy’s most enchanting 13th century cathedrals with outstanding frescoes, a staggering medieval bridge (Roman Ponte delle Torri) and aqueduct, Roman theatre, a fortress and several fine Romanesque churches- beautiful walled town climbing up a hillside, has great ruins dating back from Roman times, crowned by a fortress with a beautiful backdrop of green mountains
- classically chic with plenty of archeological, medieval and renaissance monuments
- Try the local cuisine: Spoleto is an introduction to the best Italian cuisine ((Mushrooms, black truffles (countering neighboring Tuscany’s white ones), suckling pig, and wonderful, affordable wines)
- take home some of the local homemade produce of the fertile Umbrian hills: olive oil, wine, mushrooms, sausage meats, truffles, honey and chestnuts.Day 5: Spoleto to Trevi, Spello, Collepino, Montefalco

Drive from Spoleto to Trevi…25 mins

Trevi emerging like a dream from a sea of silver olive trees, still genuinely undiscovered hilltown nestled into one of the last spurs of Monte Serano. It has a magnificent panoramic view. The town centre is surrounded by undulating green olive groves which in some places reach right up to its medieval walls. The “Passeggiata” is a magnificent 800 m tree-lined road (close to traffic during the summer) with spectacular views onto the valley below.

Spello

Drive from Trevi to Spello …25 mins

The jewel of umbria. A floral village with history going back to the Roman Age. For its position, Spello enjoys a panoramic view over the Umbrian plain
- the most precious treasures of Spello are the wonderful frescoes of Pinturicchio, in the church of S. Maria Maggiore.
- among the neighbouring cities, this is surely the one which preserves the most number of monuments testifying to the Roman era e.g. the town walls, which later became the foundations for the medieval walls, the ruins of the theater and the amphitheater, the thermal baths and splendid town portals dating back to the Augustean era.
- a 12th Century church boasting of a beautiful facade
- have a meal in the old town (one of italy’s best cuisines)

Collepino

spello to collepino…15 mins

Collepino is an enchanting drive through olive groves to a miniature postcard village.
- an attractive hamlet with bits of medieval wall and a tower, very nice views.

Drive from Collepino to Montefalco ..35 mins
Montefalco will be your homebase for the next 3 days)

Day 6: Montefalco

Montefalco

Montefalco is considered the “balcony” of Umbria with views offering a sweeping panorama of the Umbrian countryside. It sits on a solitary hill overlooking the mountain-flanked Vale of Spoleto, with fantastic views of the nearby towns of Assisi, Perugia, Spoleto, Bevagna, Foligno, Spello and Trevi. Enclosed by a massive 13th-century wall, the bell towers and defense towers spike up among the tile roofs.
- see the frescoes (in the art gallery of San Francesco and in the church of Sant’Illuminata) and the mummified saints (in the church of Sant’Agostino)

Montefalco is an excellent and peaceful base (with none of the parking problems of Assisi or Perugia) for exploring the coronet of little hilltowns and villages of the Valle di Spoleto.

Day 7: Gubbio (morning), Assisi (afternoon)

Gubbio

Drive from Montefalco to Gubbio …35 mins

Gubbio is the most perfect of Umbria’s medieval hill towns with Gothic buildings at every turn. Perched in the hills, it boasts of magnificent panoramic views and romantic sunsets.
- The Middle Ages come alive as you walk the streets of Gubbio.
- a vast 14th-century palace framed by the pretty forested slopes
- explore at random, be sure to take the chairlift into the mountains for some staggering views.
- many of the homes, constructed around the 14th and 15th centuries, are lovely with their unique rooftops.

Assisi

Drive from Gubbio to Assisi … 1hr 10 mins

The pilgrimage town of Assisi is the second religious center in Italy, after the Vatican. A place you absolutely have to see but it’s also a busy and trinket-infested pilgrim and tourist bottleneck. Things are better in the evening, however, when the trippers have gone home and the shops have shut - then Assisi is revealed for what it is: one of the most seductive and perfect-looking of all medieval hilltowns.
- marvel at the Roman architecture and Roman urban planning.
- see the Roman Temple of Minerva in the Piazza del Commune.
- visit the basilica with its magnificent early 14thcentury frescoes by Giotto that depict the life of St Francis

Back to Montefalco

Day 8: Bevagna, Bettona, Perugia, Lago Trasimeno

Perugia, the capital of the Umbria region, lies in the heart of Italy in a peaceful and beautiful landscape. It is the best-preserved medieval hill town of its size.- a city of art with numerous museums, including the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, and a city of culture because of the presence of two historic Universities and events of universal scope, as Umbria Jazz and Sagra Musicale Umbra.
- home to Italy’s best chocolate, PeruginiBack to Montefalco

Day 9 Florence

Do not drive into Florence! Traffic is horrendous and parking is a challenge!
Drive to Orvieto instead, park in the free carpark and take the train to Florence (about 1 hr 15 minutes).

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I think i’m suffering from culture shock!
England is a very different planet!!
From a very prim, proper, very cultured and very disciplined French, i think England is land of the misfits..the screamers (yes, sigaw ng sigaw!)…the bottle-bashers (beer bottles, broken or not, just about everywhere)…the nightclub-hangers (especially friday nights till sunday morning!) …the lacking-in-discipline-throwing-their-rubbish-everywhere…the very threatening British way of talking! even my British husband could hardly understand what they are saying!

and the people here are all mixed and matched, different sizes and shapes, but more on the alarmingly obese side. definitely not the place for people-watching because everybody just don’t know how to dress properly!!! all nationalities of the world are probably represented here!

anyway, Leicester is a pretty big town, with its charming victorian architecture. we are in the midst of buying furniture but getting telephone connection is a big challenge because British telecoms line is always busy!

Culture Shock Number 1..

The country dangerously constitutes a seriously obese population.

seriously speaking, and i’m not sarcastic here
It is so worrying everytime you see people of all ages, their guts (stomach) literally drooping down to their thighs, with alarmingly globose faces and similarly globose limbs and trunks…

In France, 95% of the population are slim, everybody seems to be sporting that pencil-figure and their dressing style is one that gives the impression that the whole country is a giant catwalk…

But in England, this is not the case. It’s a national problem - obesity.
It’s on the news..
In Leicester where we live, 1 out of 4 people is obese.
It’s a problem for hospitals, to pay extra for larger wheelchairs, longer blood pressure straps and double duty beds to take in the extra weight of patients…
It’s a problem for shops selling school uniforms, more and more kids are growing wider and needing adult-size trousers and shirts

Why this phenomenon?
Because of the wrong diet. All eateries are offering greasy chips as side dish, the fastfood culture, the packaged-foods diet which contain too much fat and cholesterol and carbs, the snack culture, and..and..
 Culture Shock No: 2

That everytime I go out of the flat to do some errands, or out of town or even to faraway cities of England (note: not the entire UK)for some sightseeing, I get the impression that i am walking on hospital grounds.
Why?

Because one in every few people i see seem to bear a physical disability, medical or mental problem of some sort.
I am not only speaking of old people on a day out of their retirement homes. I am referring to much much younger people, from their thirties up, already walking with canes or rolling in their wheelchairs or mobility carriages, the anatomically malformed, the badly handicapped or the seriously obese, so fat that they can barely walk and had to move themselves in wheelchairs.

Several instances we had to deal with salespeople who are either stoned/drugged, or exhibiting hyperactivity or other involuntary body spasms…

again it could be in the diet
- or that their mothers while pregnant drunk themselves so bad it disabled the growing fetus
- or they drunk themselves so bad or smoked fäg like chimneys that it badly numbed their neurons
- or the combination of all of the above
- or it may be due to their appalling weather which triggers all forms of arthritic conditions
- or who knows? it could well be due to physical injuries received from knife-wielding yobs!

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