Friends, Romans, Countryman, lend me your ears... home tomorrow

I forgot to say that some where on this trip we did the Spanish Steps and the the Trevi Fountain, we wandered the bars and night spots of Trevestare and ate an enormous amount of pizza and I drunk quite a lot of red wine - we are on holiday innit!!

The airb&b has delivered yet again although it said quiet location with garden and actually its on a very busy road and the outside area is tiny. but we have sat outside in among the trees having a night cap and it was all molto bello...

We had three very long days travelling and sight seeing, so day 4, our final day, was supposed to be very laid back - late rising, slow brekkie, and finally out to explore the modern art museum. After so much classic history its interesting to hit modern art and be brought back to the present.

Its a great gallery - wonderfully spacious and after yesterdays complete manicness at the Vatican sooooo peaceful and empty of people -and full of really interesting art. it was a great mix of contemporary work dating from early 20th century to present day. Not all of it was my cup of tea, I had to walk through a room exhibiting dead horse corpses hanging from the roof a piece apparently titled ''we are all flesh'' the animals came from the abattoir no creatures were harmed in the making of this art work.. I didn't like it!

I cant find a credit for this but am looking - they were just amazing sculptures

I did love a lot of the work though there was lovely Klimt and some more beautiful sculpture. I was intrigued by some of the very modern art - the stripey elephant with a tiger coming out of its bottom.

http://lagallerianazionale.com/mostra/bric-brac-the-jumble-of-growth/

BRIC a brac the Jungle of growth by Gerardo Mosquera and Huang Du.

I really loved the lions outside the museum, all very majestic and just lying there, watching and playing - there were more lions beautifully drawn onto the wall inside the gallery looked like they were done using pencil and graphite.

I did find credit for this but have lost it will update as soon as I find it....

There were many stunning pieces by Modigliani, Miro, Boldini, to name but a few .... quite a number of works by various impressionists dotted about - an (in my humble opinion) average Warhol and lots more - really worth a visit...

Klimt

And then that was the end of our relaxing day... it had been our intention to have a picnic in the park and relax, read a bit sketch a bit haha ... but somehow we ended up wandering again - right back into town - being fairly aimless because we were beginning to lose the will to sight see - we did find a very nice place for lunch but really we were being hopeless and eventually recognized this, gave up and headed home via a supermarket for food in case we felt we wouldn't venture our again.

And this was indeed the case - we sat in the garden among the pomegranate trees and ate a nice supper drinking beer and wine and enjoying a very balmy evening.... the traffic raced by on the other side of the hedge but we soon got used to it, its an early start to head to the airport and home and we have had a brilliant few days and I don't think we could have fit any more exploring Rome in!! (about 30 miles wandering in 3.5 days!!!!)

Rome has been wonderful, three days of intense culture - this is the problem with short breaks there is no time for a day off - but its been very splendid and time enough to relax and look at the hundred of photos I have taken over the coming chillier months!

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

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