The Last Post

If you want to find out what we are doing now www.raven.dj is a good place to start.

Suellen's website is www.riversidetherapy.com and her wildlife blog is at thamesnaturenotes.blogspot.com

If you've enjoyed the read, drop us an email to dave@raven.dj and if you want to stay where we did in Peschici then visit www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/gargano/38595

Home !

34 days, 3,902 miles, £4,486 later - Not quite the cheap break we had planned.
Petrol alone was £745 - but what a great holiday.

Dawn in Langres was -10C and clear

And the 4 hr journey to Calais was another dream drive.

12th Jan 2009 - the blog ends here. Thanks for all the kind emails. If you are here after Google led you to this page and want to leave a comment - please do.

Dave Raven

A drive to remember

The 470 mile drive from Menton to Langres was a dream. Bright sunshine all day, quiet autoroute, and fallen snow by the roadside virtually all the way. Anyone who has driven to the Côte D'Azur is likely to have stopped at the large service area in Provence on the way back.


Around 3 hours drive from the coast it's a perfect place for a loo stop, and fill up of the car and its passengers. Normally bathed in sunshine, with added snow it's gorgeous.

The Marmotte hotel, Langres is cheap, clean and serves a good evening meal. Belgian, Dutch, French - we are the only Brits.

Today, the last 320 miles to Calais and another 100 to home. Final chapter tomorrow.

Let them eat cake

We have visited Menton on many occasions and have nearly always stayed at the Hotel Paris-Rome. It is about one kilometre from the heart of town near the Italian border and we thought that this time with the winter weather we would stay nearer the centre of town.

The internet is a wonderful thing and as it matures, the information you can get on hotels from sites like Tripadvisor and ViaMichelin means that you can get reviews from fellow travellers that are up to date. We chose the Hotel Méditerranée, good reviews and within our price range.

Their website had various offers. The old folks deal which included free breakfast, the romantic break with breakfast and a welcoming glass of champagne and the epiphany special with breakfast and epiphany cake and champagne. We chose that one.

Yesterday morning after a very good breakfast we asked when we got our cake and champagne. The receptionist looked surprised and said she would find out. When we got back from Ventimiglia in the afternoon we were given a card saying we could have our cake anytime between 5pm and 11pm at the rooftop bar on the 7th floor.

So after supper, where the cheapest wine available was 26 euros compared with our final meal at Pane e Vino Peschici where the entire meal, including one litre of wine, cost 25 euros, we went to the 7th floor for our glass of fizz.

At 10:30 we were the only customers and the bar manager said that our cake was waiting. We said that we were full and just the fizz please.
"It's not champagne it's cider, you can have a wine or a beer instead - but the cake is just for you, I'll wrap it up if you don't want to eat it now"

So a glass of wine on the terrace with a fabulous view.

And then to our room to unwrap our cakes. Not a little piece of Epiphany cake each but two whole cakes including crowns.

We'll save it for the journey back. Thank you Hotel Méditerranée

Pizza, Beer and Bananas

Today is Ventimiglia Friday Market - nearly a mile of stalls selling everything from cheap hats


- to fur coats starting at over £400. Loads of hooky gear and the French police mount a border patrol on market day to stop people coming back, not with cheap gin but with fake Louis Vuitton handbags.

What is very odd is that almost everything, from clothing, belts, jewellery down to pots and pans are stored in banana boxes. I cannot work out why unless the banana box is perfect for stacking in a panel van.

Then to lunch on the plage and a needed beer after all that retail therapy.

Suellen didn't enjoy her pizza !

And the view to the snow covered hills was great.

Tomorrow 500 miles to Langres.

Snow in Liguria

The little town of Mattarana in the hills behind La Spezia was coming to terms with the snow yesterday morning.

This is an area where snowfall is very rare and the narrow, hairpinned route SP1 had been cleared - up to a point. We set off in glorious sunshine with a shiny, black ice free road surface.

With great views and a lovely drive until the road down to the Autostrade. We slithered down the 3 miles, thank God for traction control.

A day in Rapallo with Suellen's old family friend, and then the 2 hour drive to France and the lovely town of Menton. We settle in to the 3 star Hotel Mediterraneané.

It's funny that the more expensive the hotel, the more everything else costs. Parking 12 euros a day. Wi-fi 15 euros a day. Compared with the Locanta where wifi and parking were free even though the room security did not look too strong.

Click the photo for full size and look at the key - a rare no lever lock.

Today is Vengtimiglia market and shopping in Menton - And the sun is shining.

In the words of an old friend " I can feel a lunch coming on"

Driving in a winter wonderland -Bah Humbug

The view from our hotel room in the hills behind Portofino on the Ligurian coast, 495 miles from Peschici.

A great drive for the first 300 miles then the snow started. I'm coming to the belief that the overhead information signs on the Autostrade are for the entertainment of motorists.

As we drove North we kept seeing signs for an abandoned vehicle at Pescara Nord. The first time we saw the info, Pescara Nord was still about 6o miles ahead. As we got closer the signs became more frequent. And then Pescara Nord; nothing, not even a broken down Piaggia.

Then a new sign - "Snow ends at Parma". What snow ? We're still driving in the dry, but then gentle flakes begin to fall.
"Ah well, It'll end in 80 miles at Parma".
The snow gets heavier and at Parma we turn off on to the Autostrade to La Spezia. The motorway is closed so we exit and ask the policeman on duty.
"Where are you going to ?"
La Spezia
"Four wheel drive "
No
"Chains"
Yes
"OK = be careful"
and waves us back onto the motorway for a 60 mile journey from hell.

Arrive at the hotel 90 minutes late and get stuck in a snowdrift when we park.

Today is a short hop to Rapallo and then 80 miles to Menton.

Our last day

Tomorrow we start the 1,500 mile drive home. Via Rapallo on the W coast to visit an old friend of Suellen's family who she hasn't seen in 30 years and then 2 days in Menton - Astbury made me do it !

Today has been perfect, a bit of packing then into the Foresta Umbra for a walk in the woods then down to Lake Varano for our last picnic lunch.

Pictures to follow when I have time.

Tonight, Pane E Vino for our last meal in this wonderful location.

Windy Sunday

The wind blows from the NE crossing the 80 mile wide Adriatic from Montenegro unimpeded. The whole East coast of Italy is golden beaches apart from the 500 square mile limestone clump that is the Gargano Peninsular rising sheer out of the sea up to 1,000 feet at its highest point.

Peschici clings like a limpet to this cliff and our house, Nido Aurora, is just 250 yards from the sea and 250 feet above the bay.

The wind thwarted by this blockage, buffets the house, the windows shake and it almost feels that the stone is moving.

For a small boat sailor the view is terrifying. Looking down at the lee shore, the scrotum tightening sea and the tight broadside turn against the waves to get into the shelter of the harbour, sends a shiver down the spine.


So we dress up in layers, woolly hats, gloves and off down the 350 steps to the harbour. When we get down to sea level, what felt like a gale from the house, is in fact a 6 gusting 7. Still, not one I would like to be out in.

We walk along the harbour wall, peep at the waves and then along to the bay. There we adopt the usual routine, pick up driftwood sticks to ward off the 2 dogs that protect the closed pizzeria and lido, then along the sand watching the spume blow across the beach like white balloons.


We head back home through the town and we are the only ones out. No cars, no pedestrians, not even a dog. The main street - Corso Garibaldi is deserted, just a street sweeper with his broom and dustpan.

Back to the house and an afternoon of planning the next Editorial Intelligence briefing at CASS business school on the 14th and the Taggs Island Management end of year accounts. Sadly, I still have to work on this trip.

This is for the BFBS Old Boys

A cold, wet Saturday in the Gargano peninsular. It is pioggia'ing with a steady determination. So off to a local restaurant for lunch.

The Pane E Vino does what it says. 3 miles from town, in the summer this will be a bustling agri-tourism campsite and pizzeria.


In the winter, we all retreat indoors round the 2 fires. No menu; starter, pasta, main course, pudding and local grappa and amaretto.


The oil, wine, spirits and most of the meat and vegetables are from within a square mile. £20 per head for 2 carafes of wine and a huge banquet of superb, simply prepared food.

BUT

Next to our table is an old Phillips radio

I go to look closely

And almost a tear. DAB - pah ! In the 1950's we had our own spot on the dial.

Love to all the old Forces Broadcasting colleagues reading this.

The Living Nativity - Alberobello

A cold day in Peschici - late afternoon. The first Raven'n'Blues of 2009 is done. We've just come back from a good trip out to the beaches earlier today.

Time to backtrack to last year and our first night in Alberobello when we went to experience a "Living Nativity". I had expected to see two people dressed as Joseph & Mary with a baby (real or otherwise), perhaps a donkey, some wise men, shepherds etc etc.

How wrong !

Alberobello has been presenting a Living Nativity for many years. I would guess that two to three hundred people are involved as actors in the many street tableaux, trulli residents in period costumes and guides.

Plus all those doing film and sound reproduction, catering at the end, care of the many horses, donkeys, sheep and even a camel.

After entering the church at the edge of the old town of piccolo (little) trullis you get a slideshow presentation of the history of the Living Nativity and some instructions about staying with your group and then you are off into the old town.


One by one the streets scenes unfold. You duck into little houses and see people dressed in 19th century costume, making bread, cooking food, weaving, and woodwork. Historical and biblical scenes are enacted.

The streets are full of groups of us, all being led by our guides with flaming torches, and at every turn as we zig zag through the old town, something else to see.

After over two hours we get to the nativity scene and then the last descent to the main street and are given a glass of wine with some savoury pastries.

And the cost for this - nothing. Should you ever be in Puglia at Christmas you have to witness this wonderful experience. But wrap up warm.

The video was grabbed as I was not expecting anything like this and left the big camera in the hotel room. Rough edits too, next time I'll be ready.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Italy

These are the church bells just 20 yards from our house and which Suellen can sleep through at 7am when they ring for the first mass.

When planning the trip Suellen bought a small Italian/English dictionary to help with translation problems.

As we enter our fourth week here it has becoming something of a joke. Every time we have looked up a word it has not been in the dictionary. The only words we have found that we wanted were ironing board and firelighters.

Suellen looked up the word for fireworks - fuochi d'artificio - and armed with that we went into town for the final shop of 2008. In our local veg shop, Suellen asked if the town had fireworks
"La città ha fuochi d'artificio stasera"
"No", she said, "No fireworks"
Since my stroke I don't do late nights, so after a good supper, off to bed with a book.
Midnight
Bang, bang, bigger bang, woosh.
Up we get, throw on some clothes, up on to the roof.
The town was alive with bangs, flashes and colourful bursts of light illuminating the harbour, the church tower and the towns along the coast.
So we went out into the town - not much life on the streets. The Fra Stefano restaurant was having a boisterous party. Otherwise just young boys setting off home made bangers and rockets.
So back to bed.
We plan to light our last fire in the house with the dictionary - obviously published by the "My postilion has been struck by lightning" school of language courses.