29th December

Hadrian's Villa and the Villa D'Este in Trivoli

This was our other organised tour with bus and guide, we went to the travel firm to get on the bus which was just the other side of the train station, so not too far at all.
To call it Hadrian's Villa was an understatement, Emperor Hadrian's living and entertaining complex doesn't have the same ring but is a much more accurate description. The estate was extensive with tunnels joining the various areas on the different levels for the slaves to wandered through doing their daily tasks. Loads of baths, gardens to wander, water features, it took two hours just to see the best bits the tour guide was pointing out for us.
Lunch was a 45 minute break in Tivoli where we found a sandwich shop and sat in there. From the town centre we walked for a couple of minutes to reach the Villa D'Este which was built, but not finished by a man with aspirations to be Pope. He tried 5 times and just didn't make it. The house was the unfinished part in that not all the friezes were complete, the gardens however were amazing, a different fountain at every turn including one that played music, all working through water pressure.

28th December

Today we had tickets for the Vatican museum and decided to get there via the Metro as the hotel is 2 minutes from the train station. Buying the tickets was more of a challenge than we expected as they were available from the newspaper stand and not the ticket machine, but a couple of friendly Italians pointed us in the right direction and we made it to the meeting place on some steps opposite the Vatican in plenty of time to meet the tour guide. The queue for normal people was maybe 2 to 3 hours long but I had purchased 'skip the queue' tickets to get us in, it still took 20 minutes to get in, there were security checks like you get in airports as you change country, before you could get through to the exhibits. Once through we wandered for two hours before making a break for the exit through the Sisteen Chapel. People had packed in to look at the paintings which seemed to be the highlight of the visit, mine was finding a map with St. Helena marked on it!
By now we wanted lunch, so a convenient Chineese filled the gap then round the corner to St. Peter's  square and the Basilica. There was a queue here as well and as the Basilica is free we decided to move on after a few camera shots. We carried on to see the Castel Sant Angelo, where we wandered round the outside and then onto the metro and off again at Spagna to see the Trinita del Monti, the famous set of stairs that was crowded with sightseers. Back onto the metro to take a look at the Fontana Di Trevi, a well photographed fountain. Then back to the hotel to sleep before dinner and TV!

Travel to Rome

Another early start as the water taxi was collecting us at 8:05 and we were out of bed a little late. It was a foggy day and I did wonder if our flight would be on time, but the fog made no difference to flight times or the wait at the airport and we arrived in Rome at 12:20.  Finding the travel agent in T3 proved a challenge but by 1:30 we were on our way to the Hotel Genova. This was a 4 star hotel and was fairly well situated for what we wanted to do. The first thing was a trip to Piazza Navoa for the Christmas Fair. About a mile from the hotel and lots of pompous marble buildings along the way ( and a Spar!) and I was there. Half the stalls were the usual junk you find at any fair but the rest contained items to be used in Nativity scenes. They started with the basic diamadre and then nativity figures and then other people and animals, I bought a basket of mushrooms the size of a 50p and a watering can with a snowman face on the side to hang on the Christmas tree. Then back to the hotel to collect Maddison for dinner.

Boxing Day

Today we had a lay in in, emerging for breakfast at a reasonable 9am after which Maddison went back to the room to rest, her feet are sore after all the walking yesterday, she probably had on the wrong type of socks! Geoff and I wandered off to find some presents to take back with us. Vein aims seem to work to the same times as Egyptians so there were more shops open on the way back than on the way there.
The afternoon was taken up with a boat trip to the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello the iPad pictures for which seem to appear on yesterday's blog! I must be feeling a bit confused. Anyway, Murano is famous for its glass so we visited a glass factory and saw a man blowing a vase and making a horse, which took him all of 5 minutes. Maddison was quite taken with the horse so we bought one and then wandered down the street to look in the other shops. Torcello used to have 25,000 people living there and now there are 10, so we looked at the old church.
Burano is a fishing village where they have to keep the houses the traditional colours, they also make lace there so we were shown into a shop where a lady was demonstrating needlepoint lace making. It can take up to 9 ladies to make one item as they each specialise in one particular stitch. So many beautiful things . . . . .
Then back to Venice to eat and sleep.

Christmas Day 2012

We were able to book a photography tour today, the only drawback was it started at 9:30 on the opposite side on Venice so we had to be up for 7 am and down to breakfast for half past. The breakfast staff were very surprised to see us!

The tour was with Mario Mazziol www.schoolofseeing.com who took us wandering for about 3 hours around Arsenele. As he was born there he knew a lot of out of the way spots with hidden wells and backstreet shrines, along the way he gave me various hints about how to improve my technique and what to do with the pictures afterwards. There was a small problem with the camera over exposing that we couldn't see why but I did get some non tourist shots that I will upload when we get back to Cairo. We returned to the hotel to sleep and then out for Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

Christmas 2012

So what do you do do if you want to do something different, well we decided to not just book it but to Thomas Cook it with one of their winter breaks. Not London or Paris, we chose Venice and Rome! The flight to Venice left Cairo at 4:55 on Christmas eve and a good friend took us to the airport at 2am, which wasn't so good, so by 10 am we were leaving bags at the hotel to wander the streets.


The flight was with Alitalia and was via Rome which has a surprisingly large airport, more like a shopping centre with planes leaving down various aisles surrounded by Designer shops than anything else. We managed the change in the end but had to walk briskly through the airport to get there. Then 45 minutes later we arrived at Marco Polo airport, where Maddison's name was bodily displayed at the tourist desk we needed to get our Water Taxi across to Venice from. It did make her smile seeing her name like that. By 10 am bags were deposited at the hotel and we were free to wander. So off we went map in hand. Venice is not just canals there are a whole selection of narrow back streets full of craft shops to wander as well. The closer you get to St. Marks the more expensive the goods become, one Designer clothes shop had a window item costing in excess of 7,000 euros. Lunch was a restaurant amongst the bustling shoppers where Maddison discovered fresh pasta, how I will ever get her to eat the normal dry shop stuff again is a problem. She was so impressed she was even open to the idea of a pasta machine of her own, obviously she has no idea that it takes a little work to make pasta.
By 2pm we had mask, glass Christmas trees, fridge magnets and other goodies ready to deposit so we headed back to the hotel for a well deserved nap.
We wandered off for food around 8pm and found a very friendly restaurant just around the corner, then after dropping Maddison off at the hotel Geoff and I headed for the 10:30 pm service at the Basislica. As we wandered across various church bells were ringing out across the city. We arrived at St. Marks square only to find the service was an hour later this year, so rather than queue we wandered off to try and take night shots without a tripod returning later to join the queue and find our seats. The service was in Italian with incense and a translation in the service book. The Basilica is magnificent, gold leaf everywhere, a real statement to mans achievements. We lasted until 1am and then joined the surprising large number of people who were leaving at various points in the service to return to the hotel. What a time to loose your way, the wrong turning at one bridge and whew ended up in just the wrong place and had to work our way through back streets to reach our side of the island getting back to the hotel for 1:30am!
There are hundreds of photos on my camera but no way to transfer them to the blog until we get back to Cairo so I have taken the iPad out and this was the result. The snow is not real but the result of a Christmas app I found.