The last days of Puglia

Our idyllic time in our trullo is drawing to an end.  Joe has already left, flying back to work and that little matter of an AFL grand final on Saturday.

We’ve had two birthdays, as well as Millie’s first steps.

It hasn’t all been lounging by the pool though.

I’ve also spent some quality time in the hammock.

I don’t have a photo of Millie walking, but I do have one of her about to launch.  She and Toby are wearing outfits we picked up at the Nachsmarkt in Vienna.

One day, they’ll have children. Then they’ll understand.

We have had lots of fun with our cooking.  There is a wood fired pizza oven at the property, so we have had two pizza nights.  Various combinations of prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, salami, zucchini flowers, eggplant and artichokes have made for some excellent pizzas.  We also had a truffle pizza, using the summer truffles I picked up for Mum’s birthday in Rome.

As well as a pizza oven, there is an open fire grill.

All the butchers and supermarkets sell pre-made spiedini – basically meat on sticks.  The ones we’ve been buying are usually a combination of pork meatballs, chicken thigh strips and Italian peppers, all offset with squares of pork belly to keep things moist while cooking.  They are fantastic cooked over an bed of coals.

My sister Kate also had a brilliant idea, which we managed to achieve one night – Italian poppers.  Jalapeno poppers are jalepenos stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped with bacon, and cooked.  They’re delicious, and we got slightly addicted to the when we visited Texas 6 years ago.  (Then, in one memorable incident when we got home, I accidentally made habenero, rather than jalepeno, poppers.  Oops. And ouch.)

So Kate’s idea was to take the Italian frying peppers that are ubiquitous here, stuff them with fresh buffalo mozarella, wrap them in proscuitto, and cook them over the fire.

Voila!

There were about 10 on the plate a minute before I took this photo.  There were only 4 of us eating them.  They were delicious.

We’ve also been on various trips out of the trullo.  Yesterday we headed to Alberobello, a UNESCO World Heritage village.  As well as the famous trulli, there are dry stone walls everywhere.  Toby particularly likes the ones at the carpark we use.

We walked around the trulli zone, dodging tourists.  We saw the siamese trullo:

We then walked back to the local food market, and found our great last food adventure.  We’d meant to buy some small fish and grill them over the coals.  However we were running a bit late, so the seafood man had sold out of all fish except one flathead.  What he did have, however, were some kind of crustacean that looked sort of like a white prawn, with a squid like head and two spots on the tail.  We had no idea what it was.

So we bought a bagful.

A little googling when we got home revealed them to be Squilla Mantis, a type of mantis shrimp.  It is very local to this neck of the woods, being mainly fished in the Adriatic sea, and is known here as Pannocchia.

Further googling told us:

The reason for their unpopularity is that they are relatively difficult to eat, as compared to other crustaceans. They are usually served shell-on because their flesh is too delicate and would fall apart otherwise, but are a little complicated to eat the traditional way because their carapace is prickly.

Feeling slightly hysterical, I then started looking at youtube videos on how to prepare them (all in Italian).  It seemed a lengthy and complicated process.  And we had a big bag.

Mum also watched a video, said ‘Hmph. I could do that faster.’  She sat down with the bag of pannocchia, a pair of scissors, and set to work.  It did take her a while, but she got there – and faster than the youtube method.  The seafood man had told us ‘Spaghetti – Oilo – Pomodoro – Aglio – Vino Bianco – Delizisio!’ so I followed his suggestions, more or less.

We didn’t have any white wine, and I put in a chopped up small chilli.  I fried the pannocchia on the half shell in garlic, olive oil and chilli.  I then added some reduced passata.  The pannocchia themselves melted a little into the sauce, making it thick and luscious.  We served it with spaghetti, and the sauce clung to every strand.  It was indeed delizisio!

It’s just a pity that we only discovered them on our second last night here.

A Roman Holiday

It has been a lovely, if hot, few days in Rome since my last post.  Tony has been doing some work with a colleague, which has meant a bit less blogging time for me (particularly as Toby has been fairly resistant to the whole concept of the siesta).

But today it seems everyone else is asleep, and I have the air conditioner and some time to myself.

So what have we been up to?

We’ve visited old buildings:

I found the Colosseum slightly jarring.  It’s estimated that at least one miliion people died there over its active life.  And it was absolutely covered with tourists, taking selfies.  I can’t think of any other massacre sites that are now massive tourist attractions.

It was interesting, though.  We paid for one of the tours (I actually had to follow a spruiker to get their attention – worst spruiker ever!) and learnt quite a bit.  Like the marble slabs around the perimeter of the arena:

They are engraved with the names of the people who sponsored the events.  It’s stadium advertising, just 2000 years old!  (The arches and brickwork you can see were all under the arena – they were covered with a wooden floor, which was then covered with a thick layer of sand: to soak up the blood.)

We’ve eaten gelati.

Monday: Mint

Tuesday: Basil, Honey & Walnut (me); Passionfruit (Toby)

Wednesday: Hazelnut and Passionfruit

Wednesday: Millie got her own little cone of peach sorbet.

Friday: Raspberry and Lemon

We’ve also grown in size: one more family member added to the traveling circus!

For the record, Kate’s gelato choice today was stracciatella:

I’ve still been revelling in the amazing produce available here.  We’ve been eating our own body weight in buffalo milk mozzarella and proscuitto.

Last night we had Tony’s colleague and his wife over for dinner.  I cooked as best I could in the (rather oddly equipped) kitchen.  As well as various antipasti bought from the excellent delis nearby, I bought a beautiful bunch of zucchini flowers from the open air markets.

My kind of bouquet!

I stuffed them with a mix of buffalo ricotta (we have a buffalo milk shop a 3 minute walk down the road.  It is awesomely dangerous), sage and lemon zest.

I also bought some tonnarelli, which is a fresh pasta made by rolling out sheets and then pressing them through a wire frame to cut them into strands.  It’s a regional speciality which we had tried at lunch, and loved.  I checked out the fresh pasta section at the local supermarket and sure enough, there it was! So I bought some fennel, and some clams, and some scampi and made a seafood sauce to have with it.

Scampi tails in the pan – the heads and claws went into a bisque which formed the basis of the sauce for the pasta.

This morning we headed over to the Vatican museum.  We didn’t have time (or energy – particularly with Toby on a hot and muggy day) to see everything that was on offer.  We did look at the Egyptian collection, which was astounding.   I have never seen heiroglyphs up so close (no glass case!) – and they are so uniform and beautifully carved.  There are also several sarcophogai, including one with a mummy still in it.  Toby saw it before we quite realised.  His eyes went very wide, and I suspect we will have some questions at bedtime tonight.

We then walked through a series of passages with ridiculously beautiful ceilings.

We couldn’t take a photo of the most famous ceiling though – no photography is allowed within the Sistene Chapel.  So, for your viewing pleasure, here is one we prepared earlier.

It’s been a wonderful week in Rome – tomorrow we leave, heading South again.

To market, to market

Given that I am a fan of great ingredients, good cooking, excellent coffee, sunshine, picturesque views, shops with more character than international blandness, and cobblestones, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that I like Rome.

In fact, I love it.  At least, I am loving living in Trastevere.  It’s not hard when the view out of the main room window in your apartment is this:

Or when the street you walk down every day looks like this:

We are living right near the Piazza San Cosimato, which is surrounded by many little coffee shops/bars/gelatarias (making the Daily Gelati an easy task indeed:  today’s flavours were tiramisu (me), fior di latte (Toby) and black cherry (Tony).)  We have been taking our coffee at tables instead of at the bar: it’s more expensive, but easier with the kids.  So far we’ve tried three coffee shops within 5 minutes from our apartment, and all are excellent.  It is going to be hard to go back to coffee in England after three weeks in Italy. There’s also various delis, pastry shops, little boutiques selling charming things that are very easy to spend a lot of money in, and an open air food market every day except Sunday.

The food market is directly opposite a playground, so both Toby and I are happy.   Everything closes for siesta – a habit we are trying to adopt with varying degrees of success.  Every afternoon, as things slowly awaken, we have found ourselves back at the Piazza, and Toby joins the groups of Italian kids roaming the playground.

Meanwhile Millie is still not walking.  She has however started to climb.  Our apartment has a very low sofa and coffee table, and her new favourite trick is to climb onto one or the other, and then fall off (usually headfirst) onto the marble floor.

At the playground she is also determine to climb.

So the local neighbourhood is perfect for us.  Yesterday we did decide to venture further afield.  We went to two markets – the Porta Portese Flea Market, and the Circus Maximus Farmers Market.

The flea market was enormous.  We started at one end, which was decidedly on the ‘flea’ side of the equation – lots of bric a brac, old soviet military badges and paraphanalia, old toys, various bronze and silver trinkets and so on.  As we walked on the bric a brac gave way to new merchandise – beads, clothes, lighting, scarves, furniture, books, handbags, electronics – anything you could possibly think of.

It did get a little overwhelming after a while, especially as whenever you turned a corner, more market stalls stretched out ahead.

We did finally find the end, and crossed the River Tiber to the start of Old Rome.  The farmers markets are held just behind the Circus Maximus ruins, and we had a lovely walk up along the riverside to find them.  The markets themselves were small, but very busy.  There was one fruit and vegetable stall in particular that was packed.  When we finally got served (at least 15 minutes of waiting after taking a number), I chose the one vegetable that I had no idea of what it was.

A quick google when we got home revealed it to be Puntarelle: Roman Chicory. It was sold pre shredded and curled, ready for making salad.  We ate it with a dressing of garlic, vinegar, salt and oil and it was delicious.  I have bought salt packed anchovies today to add to the dressing (as is traditional).

The rest of our dinner last night was also courtesy of the farmer’s markets:

Truffles, fresh pasta, puntarelle salad – perfection!

Tonight we have been eating little buffalo mozzarella balls from the local buffalo milk shop (where Toby got his gelato) with Prosciutto di Norcia (I am amazed how many different types of prosciutto there are.  I was familiar with Prosciutto di Parma, but there are many more regional variations, each protected.  Our local supermarket carries quite a few different ones).  Later I will make a risotto with the enormous bunch of asparagus I picked up from the open air market this morning.

La Dolce Vita indeed.

An Inherent Sense of Place

A side effect of globalised world we live in is that wherever you travel (or certainly, wherever we’ve travelled so far), there are many familiar brands and stores and spaces.  So much so it is sometimes easy to forget that you aren’t actually at home – you’re halfway around the world, in a new city and sometimes even a new country.

And then there are those cities that make it impossible to forget that you are exactly where you are.  Edinburgh was like this, with Arthur’s Seat towering over the city.  In The Hague, our apartment lifestyle was quintessentially Dutch – from the steep staircases to the massive floor to ceiling windows on the first floor (the only way to get furniture up there).

And Berlin, especially in the warm early days of Autumn, I am delighted to report is also inescapably Berlin.  There may be the usual Starbucks and H&M and so on, but it doesn’t feel like another bland international city.

The above isn’t actually Berlin though – it’s Berlin in miniature.  One of our ventures today was to LOXX Minature World – a mini Berlin.

It was an odd place.  Basically a glorified model railway, but at the same time so much more.   Daggy and wonderfully impressive all at once.

Railways – many of them.

A mini Ren Faire going on in the midst of mini Berlin.

There were some serious model enthusiasts visiting, taking very serious photos on their very serious cameras.  Meanwhile, Toby took delight in sending the hot air balloon up every time night ‘fell’.  The idea of hot air ballooning at night (even in a model) was irresistibly funny to him.

It was actually quite useful to get a layout of the city, and we saw our next destination in miniature before we hopped on the train to get there.  We’ve bought Welcome Cards for the duration of our stay, which give unlimited travel on public transport within Berlin.  It would have been cheaper to buy tickets as we go, but we decided the peace of mind of not having to carry cash (and coins), and worry about buying the right fare was worth the extra money.  Today it certainly made things easier as we could dash for the right U-bahn (or S-bahn, or tram – just the bus to go and we’ll have done all forms) without pausing to buy tickets or validate them.

So we headed to the Reichstag.

We went up to the roof where we had a lovely lunch overlooking the city, and then climbed the dome to see even more spectacular views.  I don’t have any photos though, as I am not the best at heights.  (Having done the London Eye and the Reichstag Dome on this trip though, I feel I may be finally making amends for the failed Duomo attempt in Florence when I was 13.)

The Reichstag, like all of Berlin, has so much history simply in its walls.  It was burnt in 1933, and the fire was attributed to members of the communist party. It lead directly to the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties throughout Germany, and allowed the Nazi state to flourish.  There is still contention about the fire itself, with some suggesting that it was an inside job by the Nazi party. The original dome was destroyed in the fire.  The dome we climbed was only built in 1997.

The neighbourhood we are staying in is also steeped in history.  I must admit I chose this location purely on the basis of where the good coffee is in Berlin.  But we got an added bonus. It’s part of the former East Berlin, and our apartment block is about 100m away from where the Berlin wall once stood – and indeed, where it was first opened in 1989.  As we walk to the corner supermarket (organic – it’s that kind of neighbourhood), there are giant photos on the wall showing scenes in the same place in the past – an eager crowd in 1989, a lone soldier leaping over barbed wires in 1962.

The story of the wall, at this place, was also in Berlin mini:

1961: The first year of the wall.

1985: You can see the ‘death strip’ behind the wall.

1989: The wall comes down.

I’m sure the above aren’t entirely accurate – my reading would suggest the wall in 1961 was a wire fence, not a wall as such, for instance.  But it still tells a story.

Now the death strip behind the wall is a park.  The road we are on is a wide, tree lined avenue.  There are cafes everywhere (the reports of good coffee are not unfounded), with tables spilling out onto the footpath.  It is full of people on bikes, and young families walking.  There was a woman dancing on a skateboard earlier this evening.  As I write this, accordion music drifts in through our open windows.  Earlier, it was a jazz trumpeter.

At night, the different curtains in different apartments transform apartment blocks into gentle light installations.

Actual Berlin: not mini.

It is beautiful, and peaceful, and it is terrible but all the more beautiful for knowing what went on meters from here as recently as 26 years ago.

Moving North

After we left Oxford, we drove up to York.  It’s more or less due North, and in theory an easy drive.  In practice, the miles (quite literally) of roadworks made it a little more stressful.  We did stop at a ‘rest stop’ for a quick bite to eat.  I say ‘rest stop’ because it was unlike any rest stop I’ve ever seen in Australia.  As well as the usual fast food options (though this was more like a food court than a dodgy roadside KFC), there was a newsagent, supermarket, hotel (the idea that anywhere in mainland Britain is so far away that you’d have to stop for the night is slightly laughable.  I mean, I guess if you were driving down from John O’Groats* or somewhere, but surely in that case you could plan ahead to something better than a Days Inn by the M1?) and, most bemusingly, a gambling hall.  The whole rest stop was called a ‘Welcome Break’ and the gambling part (pokies aflashing) was the ‘Lucky Break’.  I know that when I’m on a long road trip, there’s nothing quite as refreshing as staring at flashing lights and losing lots of money.  Makes me in a great state of mind to rejoin traffic!

Anyhow.  We made it to York, and to the very nice apartment we were staying at.  By the time we got there, and returned the hire car, it was 5pm, so we only had time to do a quick shop for dinner and then settled two very tired children for the night.  (In terms of shopping, I’ve now been to a few supermarkets, and my order so far is Sainsbury’s > Waitrose > Sainsbury’s Local > Asda > Tesco > Tesco Express.  In terms of Tesco Express though, the one in central York is far superior to the one on Holyrood Rd in Edinburgh.  Just in case you were tossing up between the two.)

The next day was our only day in York, so we were determined to make the most of it. We woke to a beautiful day, and walked to the corner to see this as our morning view.

(St Georges Keep).

Our first stop for the day was Jorvik, which I thought my viking obsessed little boy would like.  He did, though some of it was a little sobering for him.  (The particularly gruesome explanation of wounds to the stomach and leaking bile has caused a few discussions).   The ride around Jorvik is much the same when I went back in 1994 – though the animatronics have improved!  The smells are still the same.

We then headed to the Jorvik Dig which is a more recent addition to the various historic museums/attractions.  It is aimed at kids, and the idea is that they get to experience being an archealogist for themselves.  There are four work sites set up for four different excavation sites (Roman, Viking, Medieval and Victorian).  They all have actual artifacts discovered in York set into the ground, covered with rubber pellets of ‘dirt’.  The idea is you expose an object and try and work out what it is, and what it meant about the people of the time period.

Toby found lots of oyster shells in the Viking section – in fact the actual archaeological dig uncovered over 750 000 oyster shells!  Obviously a delicacy of the time, they would have been brought up the River Ouse by visiting traders.  We also found broken pottery in the Roman section, a skeleton in the Medieval section, and a broken chamber pot in the Victorian section.

After we dug, we spent some time classifying found objects – bone, antlers, leather, brick and so on, and also saw (and touched) fossilised viking poo. (Coprolite, if you want the technical term).  Toby also played around with making stained glass patterns.

After the dig, we wandered around York for a bit.

I didn’t actually realise there was a wool shop there until after I took the photo.  But then of course I had to visit it.  And after I bought some wool to make Millie a birthday dress/cardigan (what, it’s over a month away.  I totally have time.  It’s not like I’m doing anything else over the next month), I had to visit the wonderfully named Dutton’s for Buttons to get (unsurprisingly) buttons as well.

We stopped for lunch at an open air food court and marvelled at the number of people.

It turns out there was a fairly big horse race on, and there were 40, 000 visitors in York on Saturday.  No wonder it was a little more crowded then I remembered.

This morning it was northwards once more – to Edinburgh.  We caught the train from yet another beautiful railway station.

Toby did a really good job of doing his journal on the train.

Toby is obviously missing a lot of school, so we are in charge of keeping him up with his schooling.  He has some online work from his teacher, but a big thing we are working on is his handwriting.  So he writes in his journal as often as is practical (daily when not in transit, not so often when it’s frantic), and we’re writing lots and lots of postcards. Feel free to let me know if you want a Toby postcard of your own.

We got into Edinburgh at lunchtime today.  None of us have ever been to Scotland, so we couldn’t resist the temptation to add it to our itinerary.  We are staying at private student accommodation for the University of Edinburgh, and though it’s not the same as the Oxford College accommodation, it’s certainly not without charm.

Note two things above:  One is blue sky.  It’s a beautiful day here, but everyone has been saying it’s very unusual.  Certainly the forecast looks different for tomorrow.  The second is the big green outcrop in the first photo.  That’s Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park.  We plan to walk at least some of it tomorrow.  But that will depend very much on point one.

As you walk out of our apartment, you enter the Royal Mile.  This is the first thing you see.

There are spots like this all over Edinburgh.  It’s full of amazing buildings, and bridges, and is just ridiculously beautiful.  I love it.  Right now the Edinburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival are on, so it is also amazingly crowded.  There are things happening in every pub, venue space and corner.  There was a double bass and clarinet act in the Apple store.  Toby is not entirely convinced by all the street performers.

He did however find giant plastic inflatable balls to go in:

(Note the crowd control system.  I’m amused by the recycling.  I guess Scots do have a reputation of being thrifty.)

We now have three nights in Edinburgh before we head south again, and tomorrow is full of lots of adventure to come.

*Yes, I looked at the map to pick that one.

Didn’t Harry Potter go here?

We have just spent a whirlwind 40 hours or so in Oxford.  Our reason for going was twofold – firstly, it’s on a nice point between Highclere Castle and York (our current location).  And second, and far more importantly, it let us visit our friend Ben.  Ben is a gentleman and a scholar and an all round wonderful friend.  We haven’t seen him for two years, as he is irritatingly insisting on staying at Oxford with his offices at Christ Church College and wonderful academic lifestyle.  Personally, I don’t see why he doesn’t give it all up and come back to Australia.

But I digress.  Visiting Ben, we were lucky enough to get the (patented – or if not it should be) Ben S. guided tour of Oxford – access into all the cool places, knowledge about absolutely everything, and even a punt on the river.   I’m not kidding about the knowledge about absolutely everything – if there is ever a Trivia Pursuit Oxford Edition challenge, I would move heaven and earth to have Ben on my team.  So, for the highlights edition of our trip…

We stayed at Keble College.  As alluded to in the last post, it does feature bricks fairly predominantly.

It was fun to stay there, and pretend for an instant we weren’t the overtired parents of two doing a (fairly insane) trip across England, and instead were young and eager university students, off on a big adventure.  That was helped by being able to bypass signs like this:

To have breakfast here:

Toby enjoyed it (he spread out the napkin of his own accord).

After breakfast, we met Ben and headed out to see (some of) the sights.  We saw the Divinity School and its glorious ceiling.

We climbed to the top of the Sheldonian Theatre, and saw vividly the roofscape that Philip Pullman described in the Dark Materials trilogy.

The staircase was small, and windy, and Toby was of course a model of proprietary.

(This photo, as are all the really good ones in this post, is courtesy of Ben.)

After a bit more walking, we then went punting.  Ben is an elsuive creature to photograph, being often behind the lens, but I did get him in a dodgy selfie.

Tony then had a turn punting, and we sat back, relaxed, and fed (and nearly caused a riot between) the ducks.

Even though it was overcast, it was ridiculously idyllic.  I can only imagine what is like when the skies are blue and the sun is shining.

In the evening, Ben took us for walk around the gardens of Christchurch.  It seems to be my week for beautiful gardens.

A highlight was the Jabberwocky Tree:  allegedly the inspiration for the poem by Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll) who was a lecturer at Christ Church.

The tree is around 350 years old – no-one knows for sure.  But that’s the age Ben told me, so I’m sticking to that!

It was a fantastic trip, and we were sad to leave.  Luckily Oxford is only a short train trip from Worcester, so we may well be back later in the year.

Sadly, Lord Grantham wasn’t home to visitors.

We drove from Southampton to Oxford today.  On the way we stopped at a little pile of bricks and stone in the countryside.

We got fairly majorly hooked on Downton Abbey last year, having somehow been under a rock and missed it until then.  We bingewatched seasons 1 – 5 in an indecently short period of time.  So when I learnt that Highclere Castle was open to tours, it was one of the first things I booked for our visit.

There was no photography allowed inside, so words will have to do.  It was fascinating to see such familiar rooms –  the library, the entry hall, the staircase, Cora, Sybil and Edith’s bedrooms were all on display, as was the dining room and the drawing room.  It is a ridiculously opulent house, completely over the top and almost too much – but still strangely beautiful.  Some of the rooms, like the library, seemed smaller than expected after seeing them on the screen.  It was still very impressive though.  When descending the main stairway, I did my best pretending-to-be-Mary walk.  I think it was hampered by the baby strapped to my back. The current Earl and Countess of Carnavon (the owners of Highclere) have their photos and portraits and family history all over the place – but it’s very clear the visitors are there for the fictional Granthams and not the real aristocracy.

My favourite part of the house was actually the gardens though.  They are huge, and absolutely stunning.  And luckily photography is allowed outside.  There were rolling lawns (complete with many picnicking families), and shaped hedges.

Beyond the walled garden was the secret garden that was simply glorious.

Every way you turned there were beautiful flowers after flowers.

On the strength of how much I enjoyed it, I’ve decided I want something like it at home.  So now I only need to get a 5000 acre estate with an English climate in Canberra, and I’ll be set.

Ok, I’ll settle for one planted border.

On the way back to the car, we walked back to the castle through a field of wildflowers.

I was particularly taken with the white ones, which are flat when fully in flower, but furled up either before or after (I had a good look, I couldn’t work out if they unfurled to flower, or furled up after flowering).

And finally we went to Jackdaws Castle, an 18th century folly overlooking the house (in fact, it predates the current house).

Overall, it was well worth a visit.  Toby was exceptionally well behaved, and did enjoy the gardens.  Millie chewed the back of my shoulder.

And now we are in Oxford.  We are staying in Keble College which is, to quote an unnamed friend, a ‘red-brick monstrosity’.  It is very red, and very bricky, but it’s also awesome.  This is the view from the kids’ room.

I’m typing this now looking out of our window onto the Computer Science Department of Oxford University which looks unlike any Computer Science Department I’ve ever seen.  We’ve already had a wonderful time here and it’s only been an afternoon – I wish we had more than two nights!

Notes from an old island

It is undoubtedly the New World in me, but the remnants of history scattered throughout England never cease to amaze me.  What also amazes me is the casualness which those who live here treat them.  I guess when you’re surrounded by 1000 year old walls, one more isn’t such a big deal. This is a reality that, like smoking, I am sure will become more prevalent as we travel through Europe. (I’m reminded of a story Tony tells of a Swiss friend of ours, who expressed puzzlement at Tony marvelling at cairns built by survivors of the Batavia shipwreck.  ‘Don’t you think this is amazing?’ asked Tony. ‘These were built in the 1630s!’. ‘Tony’, said our friend, somewhat pityingly. ‘My house was built in the 1600s.’)

Nonetheless, we as antipodeans gasp and gawk at the old stones around us now.  We came to Southampton primarily because of it’s proximity to Winchester (where we will be living in October, and where Tony is meeting colleagues), and because I had the Titanic themesong running around in my head when were doing the itinerary.  I didn’t know anything much about it.  I certainly didn’t know it was a walled city, nor that many of those walls are still standing and can be walked.

In the photo above, the wall used to be the sea side wall.  Over the years reclamation has pushed it significantly further back from the coastline.  As is the case with old towns, bits have been added, and expanded, and knocked down, and restored over the years.

None more so than the Tudor House, which we visited this morning.  Originally three houses, it was combined into one grand house around 1500, then re-divided into smaller households, then finally restored (somewhat authentically) in the early 1900s.

Toby & Tony did archery in the courtyard, which is the ruins of the oldest house on the site – King John’s Palace, built in the 12th century.

My favourite part was the marks left on timber from candlesticks being carried down passages.

Apart from a lot of history, there’s also been a playground or two.  They’re all nautically themed, of course.

And that’s been Southampton so far.  We’ve walked a lot, and we’re all pretty tired.  We’re also all staying together in the one hotel room, so it’s a little more challenging than the three bedroom house with private garden in Worcester.

I’m choosing to call it family bonding time.  I’m also calling it thank-goodness-the-hotel-bar-does-a-decent-G&T time.

More sauce!

It’s farewell Worcester, for us unfortunately.

And it’s not just the sauce I’ll miss.

(From the windowsill of the house we were staying at).

Although our front and back yards provided much of the running around, we did take the kids to Cripplegate Park, which has an awesome adventure playground.  Toby climbed and flew and had a wonderful time.

Millie crawled around on the grass, found three cigarette butts in 2 seconds, and then got carried.

On that note. We have all have noticed the difference in smoking levels here.  We can’t eat outside anywhere because that’s where all the smokers are. Which is a pity, because with a baby in either a stroller or a high chair (dropping food), outside is often more convenient for us and the poor people who have to clean up after us.  There are also cigarette butts everywhere. Which with a crawling-standing-crusing-will-put-everything-in-her-mouth-baby is pretty gross.  (As above. We’ve intercepted all before she chewed on them.)

It’s funny, the tobacco lobbyists are arguing so strongly that none of the Australian anti-smoking measures are impacting on habits or sales.  Yet it seems, visiting the UK, the opposite is apparently true.

The UK is set to introduce plain packaging, in wake of the Australian laws, which is brilliant.  But I think the bigger change would be to ban smoking within a certain circumference of food service (including outdoor areas), as we have in Australia.  It has the dual advantage of making smoking just that little more inconvenient, and making dining experiences so much more pleasant for those who don’t smoke.

But – back on topic.

Worcester!

Worcester has a cathedral, which is gorgeous.

Worcester also has flag of three pears.  Specifically, three black Worcester pears.  There was apparently a black Worcester pear tree on the island, but it was raining and miserable this morning when we left, so I never found it.

I did, however, find the stinging nettle that is everywhere.  In fact, I found it several times. I found it with my arm, and with my leg, and with my little finger. You can see it in the foreground of the photo of the cathedral – it’s the tall spindly things in the bottom right hand corner.  Thankfully we worked out what it was and identified it in our backyard before Millie tried to eat it (as she inevitably would have).

That was the only sting in our otherwise idyllic, bucolic jaunt in the English countryside. And a fairly small sting it was.  We have now caught the train to Southampton, where we will be for the next 5 nights.

Train reviews now stand at Virgin Trains > Great South Western > Cross Country (which does gain some points for having a refreshment trolley) > London Midland.

Bag count remains unchanged, but I suspect a backpack will be added over the next few days.