Happy New Year: 2024 take 3

We spent the remaining days of Italy back in Vicenza.

My very clever mother-in-law made afternoon tea and crème brûlée for us – amazing! Cakes on the top layer were from a local patisserie.

We went to see the fabulous lights in Vicenza town centre – beautiful as always. It feels so magical and they are everywhere.

We had hot chocolate which in Italy means thick and can be eaten with a spoon. I much prefer this to the hot chocolate that is common in the UK which is usually also very sweet.

We headed to a park where there ...

Happy New Year: 2024 take 2

Day two in Turin saw us going to The National Museum of Cinema which I didn’t really think would be anything much BUT it was! It was really good but again, you must must must book tickets in advance. The queue was crazy! I think it was due to the special exhibition being Tim Burton.

The museum is in the Mole Antonelliana – a fantastic building inside and out. You can go in the lift which you can see in the middle for a view of the city. The third picture is there because it reminded me of the lyric ...

Happy new Year: 2024 take 1

Well, I went back to Manchester for Christmas, got a chest infection and it all kind of ended up as a blur in my head. We managed to get to the theatre at Home MCR to see Little Women and it was great. It’s one of my favourites anyway, so I was pretty much guaranteed to like it.

After Manchester, it was off to Italy and we spent New Year in Turin.

We drove over from Vicenza and stopped off at an outlet on the way – I didn’t buy anything but we went to Venchi to have a ‘ ...

NEW ENGLAND AND THE HUDSON VALLEY tour: day five |Boston – Salem – Portland

Welcome to day five of the New England and the Hudson Valley tour diary, Boston – Salem – Portland.

Boston

It was an early start – leaving at 7:45am, so we were up, showered, dressed and ready for breakfast for about 7ish. Today we were going to Salem!

Salem

I’d wanted to visit Salem for a long time, probably since watching Hocus Pocus (which was on TV a lot whilst we were in the US). We were due to have a tour which I was really excited about. Unfortunately, the lady who was supposed to do the tour was ill ...

2022 golden week trip to hagi, yamaguchi: part 2

myojin pond

We’re back and straight into day three where we found ourselves getting the bus to Myojin Pond and Kasayama.

Itsukushima Shrine at myojin pond
view from kasayama

We walked to the top which is very doable – it’s just a road and this was the view. There was a coffee shop at the top which we went to, but I’d pass if we were to go again. We sat on beanbag seats which I struggled to get up from and staggered about whilst being watched by a group who were pretend staring out the window, pretending not to watch, but they were watching! I could feel their side ...