Category Archives: For educators

Day 9: I think Verona & Venice are the go today

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Joe and I outside the Arena, 2016

In 2016, Joe and I joined our colleagues at the Western Front for the 100th anniversary, but before this we made a couple of pitstops including Verona and Venice.

Verona

So on the 6th July we left our family in Calabria, taking off from Lamezia to Rome and then onto a connecting flight to Verona. We got there okay but our luggage decided to have a sleep over in Roma!!!

Luggage tags – don’t ever throw out your luggage tags. This was the only way I finally got my bags back!

We loved Verona, we stayed at this beautiful B&B (Art & Breakfast), literally around the corner from the Arena. We bought tickets for AIDA the next morning because another couple also staying at the B&B had been the night before and recommended it. Best show they’d ever seen! They were so right. “Spectacular sets, amazing lighting, great atmosphere! [Aida] is Amneris’s slave, the king’s daughter and is secretly in love ❤️ with an Egyptian General named Radames. ❤️He loves her too ❤️”

Aida at the Arena di Verona, My journal 2016

During our stay in Verona we invited friends Mauro and Franca, who drove from Casole d’Elsa for the day. We stayed as their guests in the town on a previous trip. It was great to catch up with them! We had lunch at Romeo’s place – yes really, that Romeo, Juliet was just around the corner 🤣❤️ We saw her just before lunch. I really loved Verona and all it had to offer.

Lunch, My journal 2016

Venice

The first time we visited Venice was on our family trip in 2007. Venice was just a last minute addition.

“I cannot believe that I had not put Venice on our list. If there is one thing everyone must do, it is to go there and have a gondola ride. It was magnificent, very beautiful and peaceful. Everyone loved it and at €100, was worth it!”

24 April, 2014

“A very comfortable taxi ride to Milan Central €12:50 and then a couple of hours in a Frecciabianca and we found ourselves in the ❤️City of Love ❤️.”

25 April 2014 – ANZAC DAY

We’ve been to Venice a few times and it never ceases to amaze. That morning, we paid our respects to our own diggers in Piazza San Marco at the raising of the flags ceremony.  We then boated out to Murano, Burano and Torcello Islands. We watched glass blowers creating amazing work on Murano, lacemakers weaving their magic on Burano and visited a tiny little church from the Middle Ages at Torcello!

“Brightly painted houses, legend says that the town of Burano – a fishing village, once had its houses painted in different colours so the fishermen would be able to easily find [them] … when returning … in the dark. Well known also for its beautiful lace and yummy biscuits called bassolá.”

 

My journal 2014

“I liked Burano the best.”

I do hope you’re enjoying the holiday journal. Just one day left. Hmmm, I wonder where we’ll go for our final stop? Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

Day 8: In Martone, Italy, we meet family & friends we never knew we had!

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My Journal, 2014

One of the happiest and proudest moments I think my husband experienced on our travels together was when we visited his mother’s birth town of Martone. 

8 May 2014

While visiting family close by, “we took the opportunity to visit Martone. This was a 10-minute drive up the hill with the most gorgeous views over the water and little townlets (sic) built into the mountain side. Martone is a little place at the top. After parking the car we walked up to the church. … We went over to a group of people sitting outside to ask if they knew where [my husband’s] mum’s family home was located. This was the beginning of a wonderful sequence of events that led us to find cousins and friends who remembered not only his mum (who left the town when she was 15) but who also still kept in contact with Zio Peppe’! [his mum’s brother in Australia]. An elderly gentleman took us up to the house- not 100 metres up the road and then we were invited into a bar [Osteria ‘La Via del Vino’] owned by a cousin*, Carmela, where she offered us chinotto and where we spent the next hour talking of old times and of people they remembered. It made Joe [my husband] very happy. He wanted to take photos of the street, the people and the church, as if I hadn’t already done so. We met Carmela’s son, Giorgio, and after fond farewells went to the cemetery to pay our respects to other family members who had passed. Joe was soooooo happy and excited to have seen the place. It was terrific!”

Joe in Martone, 2014

*not Joe’s cousin as such but related somehow to the family (twice removed) – you know how it is… 🤣

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Day 7: Our 25th Wedding Anniversary – London calling

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Our 25th Wedding Anniversary was pretty much all organised by our eldest daughter, who had spent the previous 6 months studying at Oxford Brooks University in Oxford, UK. I left her there after our visit to the Holy Land. After a week together in London and Oxford, checking it out to ensure she would be ok, I returned home on my own. That, I have to say was tough.

“Rather teary farewell but she’ll be fine and in no time we’ll be off again to London to reunite as a family. This will be a great experience for Nikola, one which I would not take from her. … Can’t wait to hug Jules and P xxx … A presto Nikola ❤️”

Anyhow, she organised it all. We just had to get to London. My husband, our youngest daughter Julia and I arrive in London on the 18th.

18 December, 2011

“We were lucky when we got to our hotel at 7:30am or so cause our room was free, so we went straight in … we arrived to a temp of -0.5° C!!”

“Our road, Penywern, is actually prettier than our street from last time”

We stayed at London Town Hotel. Penywern Road is mostly white buildings that light up in Christmas blue at 4 pm – which is pretty much already dark.

While Nikola traveled on the bus from Oxford to London to meet us, we had breakfast.

“She arrives about 9:30 am. She looks good but sounds different … She’s become very independent like even more than she was at home!!”

All together again, 2011

Our anniversary apparently begins today. Off to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, then Surprise number 1 – Madame Tussauds. 

Day 1 over, we return to Earl’s Court, Nikola catches the bus back to Oxford. She has an exam the next day!

19 December, 2011 – While Nikola sits her last exam we experience Surprise number 2 – Tower of London

20 December, 2011 – Our 25th Wedding Anniversary

“Slept in, missed breakfast LOL! Dressed and off to Westminster Abbey. Porridge, danish and hot chocolate out front. LOL!”

After a tour of the Abbey and celebratory pre-Christmas ritual, Nikola meets us again outside and off we trot to Surprise number 3 – London Show of Billy Elliott at Victoria Palace Theatre!! Wow, wow, wow.

Finally, that night, we travel in a black cab to Surprise number 4!

My journal, 2011

The whole time I was secretly hoping Jamie would come out to say hi, but alas, he wasn’t there. That aside, the meal was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Our mains consisted of fritto misto, tagliatelle, chicken liver tortes and squid risotto!

“… and dessert, OMG they had BOMBA on the menu, same dessert served at our wedding back in 1986! I told the waiter who promptly brought a piece out with a candle – on the house! Only thing better was if Jaime himself had served it hahaha. Waiter blew me a kiss when we left. Great day – Thanks!”

Thanks for reading 🙂

Day 6: Terra Santa – Our tour with the Italian Community

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In 2011, my eldest daughter and I joined a group of our Italian community and went on a tour of Israel! Mostly they were nonni, with a few of us young ones thrown in for balance hehehe. Oh my what laughs we had (remember the eye girls? 🤣). What lasting memories. I made this trip for my mum whose short life robbed her of the opportunity to travel. I felt her there at the Church of the Annunciation.

“I could ‘feel’ mum in this church and I was overcome with emotion.”

Some of our traveling companions – the Italian Community

Just like the visits to the Louvre in Paris brought my art books to life, so this tour of the Holy Land breathed life into the Bible for me. 

In the hills around Jericho, “the place where Jesus most probably spent the 40 days in the desert, … I truly thought that if I stayed just looking long enough Jesus would appear…” wandering through that desert and mountainous range.

Sea of Galilee, Israel. My journal, 2011

7 August, 2011 – On the road to Jerusalem

“Leaving Nazareth and onto the road to Jerusalem finds us driving through some amazing landscapes. It goes from green, full of date trees and palms and then – it’s desert! A dry, grey white, then suddenly up pops a town perched on the side of a hill. The cliffs are carved through to allow for the roads and every time one moves in and out of the precincts, we pass a check point. We encounter no problems, everyone just lets us through.”

My journal, 2011

But then….

8 August, 2011 – Bethlehem

“Getting in was fine at the checkpoint. Getting out was a little scary. Armed soldiers boarded the bus and asked to see our passports. Soldiers held machine guns and were very young, but scary nonetheless.” 

9 Agosto, 2011 – following the Passion of the Christ, (no, not the movie)

My journal, 2011

11 August, 2011 – Yad Vashem, a ‘name’ & ‘place’, Holocaust Museum

The Children’s Memorial

“The triangular corridor is dark with 5 candles illuminated and reflected on mirrored walls representing all the children killed. A voice recites all the known victims. The walk through was very sad, words cannot describe the feelings that come, only tears fall from your eyes. You feel their innocent spirits around. [It’s not creepy, it’s sorrowful] The museum doesn’t hold back on images nor on information about the Holocaust.” 

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Tomorrow we’re off to London …

Day 5: A day at Villers-Bretonneux

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I just cannot leave the Western Front without one more post. I’ve been going through my journal that covers this particular trip and have just come across pages of epitaphs I had documented. Once again those feelings return. I remember walking along the gravestones, many unknown, I can hear the bees, feel the warmth of the sun and the cold of the stone block where I sat teary and emotionally exhausted after I had finished transcribing the messages that had caught my eye. 

11 April 2009 – A place that will never forget the Australians

Just west of the town of Villers-Bretonneux in the Somme, we make a quick stop at the Adelaide Cemetery. 

“We found the place from where the unknown soldier was taken and is now in Canberra – very emotional moment.”

From here we visited the L’Ecole Victoria. A school dedicated to remembering our diggers from the Great War. I peered in through the windows as the school was closed that day, to find beautifully coloured drawings of Australian animals. The artwork continues on the external walls and a great big sign oversees the playground “DO NOT FORGET AUSTRALIA”. Every classroom looks out onto this sign. ❤️ Never. Ever. Forget.

Do not forget Australia. My journal 2016

 

My journal, 2011

We then visit Viller’s Memorial to pay our respects.

The epitaphs …

“Time passes but memory clings until we meet again”

“Your memory like the ivy clings”

“A nation’s gain. A parent’s loss. A sad bride. ‘Neath the Southern Cross”

“He has fought the good fight”

“Think what a man should be. He was all that”

“He died that we may live”

“Peace, perfect peace”

“My Pal”

Lest we forget 🌺

Thanks for reading 🙂