Food. Glorious Food…
I think we’ve just about got used to the idea that if you are going out for a meal in Italy, you need to make sure that you are actually very hungry. Order an aperitivo at your peril…
Ragusa Ibla
We hit lucky when we were staying in Ortigia, Siciliy – a friend tipped us off about a Buskers’ Festival which was happening in the inland town of Ragusa, and so with very little knowledge about it, other than it was happening, we hit the road… The road over to Ragusa was stunning – mountainous […]
Tarsia, Italy
We needed to break the journey up from Villa San Giovanni (where you cross to & from Sicily) to Matera and so consulted our trusty oracles – a well thumbed road map and google. Tarsia seemed to be a place that was just about equi-distant, but very remote. As boutique style hotels seemed to be […]
Roma! Part 2…
Whatever you think of the religion or the politics, you’d have to say that just on pure spectacle, this Roman landmark takes some beating…
Sperlonga
We’d not previously heard of this place, but now we know about it, it’s very definitely somewhere we’d revisit next time we’re in the province of Latina. Halfway between Rome and Naples, the very pretty village, perched high on a hilltop overlooking the sea, is a welcome break from the monotonous road south from Rome. […]
Sunny Salford…
As beautiful as the iconic L.S.Lowry paintings of Salford are, thankfully it’s no longer quite this grim up north. Wonder what Lowry would make of the regeneration of Salford Quays? Planning a visit to Salford, Media City or Manchester? Check out The Lowry Hotel located on the banks of the River Irwell in the Chapel […]
Beach…
Over the years we’ve seen quite a few beaches – rocky ones, sandy ones, packed ones, empty ones, white ones, black ones (check out Perissa, Santorini). However beautiful and memorable these beaches are, there’s one that remains a favourite… It’s close enough to home in Didsbury to be there in an hour. It’s wild and […]
A Festival in Frascati
A one night stop over in Frascati turned out to be more of a spectacle than we imagined. Sitting in a little square on a Sunday evening, we became conscious of some very beautiful singing way, way off in the distance. This gradually got louder and louder and more and more recognisable. It was the […]
The Georgian House
Recently, we travelled south to Essex to visit a We Are Life client and decided to make a bit of trip of it. Not having ever been to Essex before, assuming it was all brash a-la “The Only Way is Essex”, we weren’t really sure what to expect and I certainly didn’t have high hopes […]
Roma! Part One…
We were lucky to have two days in Rome before flying to Corfu. It has to be one of our favourite cities in Italy – how could it not be? For this part of our journey, we chose to travel by train from Pisa. Now, in England if you were to book a first class […]
Anti-Paxos
Anti-Paxos is a tiny island, about 2 miles to the south of Paxos, in the Ionian Sea. It is reached by a speedboat service from Gaios on Paxos – but don’t miss the last one back at 5.30pm as you’ll be stranded. The two or three beach tavernas close when the last boat has left […]
Tuscany in September
Tuscany is an area of Italy I’ve never really discovered -I’ve visited & stayed in Florence and Pisa, but have never before experienced the rolling hills and fields full of sunflowers, which seem to be so associated with this part of Italy. But, in the first week of September, that was put right, with a […]
