Late last year, we had been invited to spend a week or so with a good friend and his family who was planning to rent a villa in Tuscany, Italy in the summer of 2006.\u00a0 For various reasons that fell through but we had set in motion the prospect of a European holiday with Tuscany being the centre piece of the trip.<\/p>\n
Shorty had never been to Europe and my trips to Europe had been usually business-focussed or for short specific purposes.\u00a0 Neither had done the ‘tourist circuit’ that these days seems to completed before you are 25 and with a backpack.\u00a0 When Tuscany fell through we nearly shelved the whole idea but tickets were tentatively booked and Shorty had already purchased a small library of the ‘what to do, see, eat variety’ so we rethought the trip and went.<\/p>\n
We saw a lot and I mean a lot, but we never felt we were rushed.\u00a0 The weather was absolutely, unbelievably glorious.\u00a0 Hot and sunny without clouds or rain day after day.\u00a0 We returned with a tan more likely to have been obtained from a trip to Hawaii than London\/Paris\/Northern Italy.\u00a0 Half our clothes never left our suitcase as t-shirts and shorts\/slacks were the only comfortable clothing.<\/p>\n
A busy few weeks of almost daily highlights that are hard to separate any specifically above the rest but here are some in rough chronological order not importance: – Watching jubilant Italians taking over Trafalgar Square in London after Italy won the Football (Soccer) World Cup – A visit to Mont St Michel – Le Louvre (Egyptian rooms) – Watching the Bastille Day Parade on the Champs d’Elysees – Versailles – Trout in a small Parisian sidewalk cafe – A beach in Nice to chill out – A Russian Orthodox Church in Nice – Milan Duomo – Venice Piazza San Marco in the evenings with live music – A mozzarella restaurant in Rome – Rome Palatine<\/p>\n
There weren’t many downsides: – Venice (see it once, never go back) – beggars in Italy and a terrible 1 star Michelin resturant with a Japanese chef that combined the worst of 2 cultures.<\/p>\n
And if you ever go to Europe, there is one place you cannot miss – Duomo in Milan.\u00a0 Absolutely, totally, breathtaking.\u00a0 After that adjectives and superlatives fail….<\/p>\n
Late last year, we had been invited to spend a week or so with a good friend and his family who was planning to rent a villa in Tuscany, Italy in the summer of 2006.\u00a0 For various reasons that fell through but we had set in motion the prospect of a European holiday with Tuscany … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.marknavin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Duomo200607.jpg\" "\\"Duomo")
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