“Buon giorno Buon giorno Ferdinando” to quote from one of my
favourite films, ‘Room with a View’, however I sit here not overlooking the
dreamy towers of Florence but the pine forest of Ravenna Marina in the campsite
of “Piomboni” (it sounds better when you say it with an Italian accent!!) The obligatory glass of rustic red wine sits
by my side, Roccaverde Sangiovese, to aid the fluidity of the prose and the
temperature is only just beginning to drop.
I suppose many of you will have seen my husband’s delightful
blog today showing the temperature (sure you all wanted to see that at
present!?!) and the pictures of Tom and I asleep. It’s a good job it’s Father’s Day otherwise
he would have been in BIG trouble, if only he’d chosen a more flattering angle,
but I suppose he’s just getting even after my entry on Ben’s birthday. Anyway, that’s all by the by....
So when I last posted we were in the west of Italy, Ameglia,
seeing the sights of Pisa and the surrounding countryside. We were there for about 5-6 days but hadn’t
really felt that we got into the Italian vite.
I did manage to take myself off from our campsite one afternoon to
explore our local town, perched on the hillside some 500 m above the basin
floor; that was fantastic. As I pedalled
up the dusty road the heat radiated off the stone walls and being a Saturday
afternoon it was really quiet. People
were sat outside their houses chatting and on one balcony I passed there was
someone sat dyeing their hair and painting their toe-nails!
The commune of Ameglia was reached by passing through thick
stone walls hewn from the bedrock. The
solid wood gates were open and out of a sense of respect I got off my bike and
started to walk up the passageway that separated the houses. As I walked along the path, following a
couple of elderly ladies deep in conversation, it narrowed and the temperature
dropped. There must only have been a
couple of metres between the front of some houses, daubed in terracotta, rose,
pistachio and ochre with large solid brass door knockers on most doorways. Always the romantic, as I passed from the
path into a stone square to admire the view of the valley below, I was
enchanted to hear a mass of some kind occurring in the small church. I was too shy to pop in, too concerned that I’d
disturb something of importance, but I loved every minute of the experience
(including the rose garden at the top of the town set within the old
castellated walls) but perhaps it was just the chance to have a bit of time and
a bit of quiet all of my own!
On the last day in Ameglia it pelted down, those big, warm,
fat raindrops that drench you as soon as you set out. We decided that the morning would be spent
with the children in ‘Schola di Gellini’.
Kev, as well as setting a couple of tricky maths lessons, lead a
wonderful science lesson which composed of questioning what would happen having
shaken up a can of fizzy pop if you (a) tapped it 3 times (b) left it for x
seconds (c) opened it straight away.
There was much excitement in camp as Ben set his stall out as ‘the
shaker’, Ames as ‘the tapper and counter’ and Tom ‘the watcher’. With all 4 of them standing out in the heavy
rain the experiment took on another dimension.
Measurements were taken, noted and then duly discussed and written
up. I think he missed his vocation in
life, it was brilliant!!
As we left camp Ameglia the following morning the rain still
persisted and having left the awning up overnight in the vain attempt that it
might have dried out, we had a job to fold the sodden lump and store it in the
van for our next journey, to the east coast.
It was a long drive but B,A&T were kept entertained with Tom’s
birthday movie ‘Pirates’ and the now very popular ‘Hong Kong Phooey’. Much to our disappointment, we arrived in a
rain-sodden Ravenna some 6 hours later, but the staff at reception were so much
more welcoming than at Ameglia. The
irony was, as I think I mentioned before, the camp’s strap-line was “Here
everyone has fun”, they just forgot to tell the front-desk personnel!!
The site is set on the spit of land that juts north from
Ravenna which during the 5th century was the capital of the Roman
Empire (you learn something new every day!).
There is still a huge port situated behind the spit and being in the
Adriatic delta the countryside looks like The Fens. We’re about 100 metres from the sandy beach
and the site is great although the enormous mosquitoes are something to be
believed. (We’ve got Deet spray, citronella candles, mosquito coils and still
we’re getting chomped! although having Kev and Ben is a bonus as they seem to
be the first to be attacked!
We’ve had a very relaxing few days mooching from site to
beach and back for a lazy lunch of bruschetta, tomatoes and mozarella washed
down with a glass or two of rose’. We
did head off for a culture vulture trip into the old town of Ravenna which was
great, for Kev and I in particular!!!
We’d found the 3* Michelin green guide sites of historical interest and
hunted them down, Basilica di San Vitale, Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, Battistero
Neoniano and Sepolcro di Dante (he died in Ravenna having being exiled from
Florence!)
Well we didn’t actually enter the buildings but the
brickwork was beautiful and we did manage to slip into the cool of a small
church. Tom loved trying to catch the
pigeons in the square where we stopped to have lunch (stealth approach led to
full on attack!) and the gelato went down a dream, I can recommend the
Tiramisu!
The children have loved the beach. We’ve had sand wells, sand fortresses and
sand boats, shell castles, jelly fish hunts, volley ball matches, played piggy
in the middle, had boules competitions and been booted off the private beach
having illegally erected our new sun parasol and had the audacity to sit on our
own seats (but all in a very pleasant way!)
Last night Ames and I headed into the local town to purchase
a few treats for Father’s Day. The place
was absolutely heaving, it was like the last time I went to Ibiza with the bars
full of young, beautiful people drinking
cocktails (one looked like it had frog spawn in it!). Having returned to camp Kev had managed to
rustle up a delicious steak au poivre and frites with a tomato and courgette
gratin – delicious! The night concluded
with the mini disco, but one I’ve never experienced before, more like a wedding
disco. It was lead by a guy dressed in a
white shirt , tight black pants and a mike, who sang along to the songs whilst
gyrating his hips. We switched from the
theme tune to Alvin and the chipmunks, to some local Italian waltzes and
finished off with GamGam style or whoever you spell it!?! All good family fun!
Kev’s Father’s day started really well with a breakfast of
croissants infiltrated with honey and rich ground coffee and then off to the
beach for relaxation in the sun but has gone downhill since lunch...
He’s just emptied out the chemical
loo, packed up the children’s toy boxes in the heat of the sun (must be
pushing 40 degrees), cleaned the car and
packed up the trailer. I think he
deserves a meal out at the campsite restaurant and gelatto for pudding, don’t
you???! Ciao for now. xxx
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