Sorry a post has been so long in coming but I have had a busy couple of months.
For those who dont know, LL and I got married on 18th of June. When we have some pictures to show I will write some stuff about the wedding but for now I will just say it was friggin' awesome. Absolutely amazing. LL shall forever hereafter be referred to as LB (on here).
We went to Italy for our honeymoon so for now I will tell you a bit about that.
Before going I downloaded a teach yourself Italian course - 8 Cds worth - but sod's law dictated that the first disk did not download. As a result I knew some clever phrases (like pua dire me dove....., please can you tell me where...) but not the vocab to finish it off (the library is??). Was a bit of a bummer but luckily most people spoke enough English for us to get by so was good. I did know some words that came in handy.
The cab was booked for 3.15am the Monday after and was to take us to Dublin to fly to Rome. LL was renowned for being a terrible traveller, and LB started her married life as the same. She got into the cab and then says that she has left her phone charger in the house. 15 minutes later and we have broken into her folks house and retrieved it and are off 15 minutes late.
The cabbie decided to drive like a granny on a mobility scooter and time was running out to get to the airport on time. That and the fact that I thought we were flying Aer Lingus instead of Ryanair (wishful bloody thinking and a completely different terminal) meant that by the time we got on the plane we had already had quite a stressful journey. Still we were on the plane and on our way to Italia.
We arrived and it was hot. Hot hot hot. Brilliant, but it made me wonder if the three jackets, two jumpers and a fleece that I had been dragging around were going to be surplus to requirements. We decided to get the bus into Rome to save some pennies (WTF were we thinking??!?) which was a bit of a pain and after walking for 30 minutes we were at our first point of call. Fortunately it was not this place that I thought looked quite interesting -
Whats with the nose? I cant see what benefits that may have for gays or lesbians. Oh right. I get it now.
Instead we were staying at one of the Rome Luxury Suites which was much more like it.
Located in a quiet courtyard (above) just off Via Margutta (below) - one of Rome's most beautiful roads, as seen in the film Roman Holiday) we were told my some Italians later in the trip).
....and the room itself was incredible - best hotel(ish) room I/we have ever stayed in. The photos I have do not do it justice. Large living room area, huge bedroom with walk-in wardrobes, amazing bathroom. Here are some any way.
So we had a day and a half wandering around Rome, mostly aimlessly, and we saw great historical and modern sights including -
The Colloseum -
The big marble monument roundabout thing -
This fishy fountain -
He's got the right idea - deal with the octopus attacking the family jewels and then get rid of the pigeon on the head.
Some awesome artwork -
and my personal favourite - this statue of the Abdul Ceasar (the lesser known Islamic Ceasar) and his four wives of choice -
Rome is full of gorgeous and glamourous people and everyone is super fashion conscious. This does not stop with just the humans and I was amazed to see that even the working ponies take pride in their appearance and like to look sharp -
A day and a half in sweltering Rome, as tired as we were, was enough and we picked up our hire car (Fiat Panda one point zero baby yeah) on Tuesday afternoon (LB "forgot" her driving licence back at the room so guess who was doing all of the driving for the whole f*@%ing holiday) and we started off on phase two of our honeymoon in Tuscany.
Before more about Tuscany I have to mention something about driving in Italy and Italian drivers. Rome is a nightmare to drive in - FACT. I had primed LB that it was not going to be easy and to not scream at me too much and to give her her dues, she was very good, even when we were driving towards a stream of six lanes of cars coming towards us and when we crossed straight back over the river that we had just crossed. Throughout Italy you have to be aggressive when driving and it is no surprise that most of the cars in Rome have at least one scrunch or scrape on their bodywork. When you get onto the bigger/faster roads it is like everyone else is playing Gran Turismo. You dont look in your mirror for a couple of seconds and next thing you know it is like you have a car in your backseat. They drive along the motorway indicating, flashing lights and in one case with the brighties on in the daytime so you know to get out of the way. The roads however are gorgeous to drive on, lots of hills with curves and turns, and when my wife had given me some useful driving pointers I was away and she was gutted not to be able to drive.
So we were on our way to the first of our relaxing destinations - Villa Bengodi on the Western Tuscan Coast.
This was more like it. A lovely villa in the middle of nowhere with a private beach, crystal clear water and sunshine.
Whilst here I underwent a transformation. This is one of those spot the difference type things. Five points per difference (maximum ten points) -
From there we went to a place called Cortesa de Forteza near San Gimignano (spelling in Italian is not my strong point).
Another lovely boutiquey B&B with six rooms, great views (from the loo in our room), a great pool and a high quality clientele of drivers like ourselves.
From there to Montepulciano where we stayed in Relais St Bruno which had a lush room -
a cool pool -
sweetass hammocks -
and useful and attractive people from whom to get directions -
We did a 3 day cookery course, where we made three courses a day (which we then ate for lunch with a bottle of their wine) including learning to make three types of pasta and cook sausages and sausage meat in a variety of clever ways. The plan was to take a picture of each of the three courses every day but as is often the case with plans, I have none to show.
We were stressing about what presents to bring back for the nieces and nephews until we found this gem of a shop which solved all of our problems in one -
Crossbows for everyone!! Woohoo!! We decided against it in the end as we thought LB's brother Ed would have an apple on each of his kids' heads before it was even out of the box.
Of course I took lots of photos of buildings and alleyways and statues and vistas. I tried to get LB to pose for photos but it seems she is not too keen on being photographed. I did however get many of her disappearing into the distance.
When I did find her again she either had found a gelato shop -
or perhaps was to be found being chatted up by some Italian hunk -
The last place we stayed was Locanda Rosetti near Orvieto in Umbria.
The best thing about this one was that we got to have four course dinner with the owner and the rest of the guests, and free booze. Now that I was not having to drive home after the meal, I was able to let my hair down and get plastered on the free wine, limoncello and grappa. Something I did with great relish.
Needless to say we stayed in some awesome places, went to many cool towns and villages, ate and drink some fantastic stuff, and basically had the time of our lives.
It was a bit of a pain to come back to Ireland but at least we had the weekend to enjoy ourselves before going back to work.
On Saturday we went to Northern Ireland's premier festival where we and about 50 (max) other people -
......got to see a few bands including the awesome beatboxer Shlomo -
......and my friend CK got his face painted - Meow!!
......embarrassed at all LS?
Sunday we were invited to out friend LF's island where we spent the day in the sunshine eating great food, having a few beers and swimming in Strangford Lock.
Here is a view from their loo (this may become a theme).
Bloody great.
I was actually quite relieved to go back to work to burn off some of the alcohol and pasta that I had ingested over the previous couple of weeks.
Married life has proved to be pretty tough thus far. Long may it continue!!
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