Well the first treat is sitting in the first class carriage, complete with reclining seats and complimentary coffee! Not sure it was worth Chris having his car vandalised for, but a kindly gesture from Great Western Railway nonetheless.
We arrived in Cardiff a couple of hours later, left our luggage at the hotel and set off towards our very own part of town! In the 16C The Hayes was a piece of open ground within the town walls, and today it is a bustling shopping centre, except for the leafy centre where we found the Hayes Island Snack Bar.
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They have been serving up fabulous bacon sandwiches since 1948 and Chris was pleased to spot a veggie burger on the menu.
Replete, we set off for a walk and were soon reminded that Cardiff is the home of Rugby and we had chosen a few days to visit between World Cup matches. There were banners in the street and as we reached the castle saw rugby mania had breached the wall, nice try!
The castle is quite eye catching, with the huge clock tower, and surrounding wall, part of which is decorated with sculptures of animals, not unreasonably called Animal Wall.
Some like the lynx and lioness date from the 1870’s and others are later but still get a mention like the pair of raccoons and the anteater because I thought it looked cute!
We entered Bute Park, some 130 acres which was once the gardens for the castle, but now a public park and dodged the squirrels as we walked along the side of the River Taff to Llandaff Cathedral.
Our first impression of the Cathedral was how light and airy it was, with a huge modern statue of Christ taking centre stage. The cathedral was damaged in the war, hence the addition of a central reinforced concrete arch above which an aluminium statue of Christ in Majesty by Sir Jacob Epstein stands.
Other treasures include the Triptych of the Seed of David by Dante Gabriel Rosetti which was made for the high altar but is now in a side chapel …
… and a series of porcelain panels showing the Six Days of Creation by Edward Burne-Jones.
Returning along the river we stopped at tea rooms for refreshments and a slice of Welsh fruit loaf called Barmbrack. We checked in and the bears checked out the room at the Ibis … perfectly adequate and a snip at £50 a night including breakfast!
Every dining taste is met here in Cardiff and we felt unable to pass by a chance to eat just down the road at Wacaca … hopefully with tastes to remind us of our trip to the Yucatan … and a lot closer than going to the Southbank. We had a lovely time! The restaurant was decorated with colourful banners for the Day of the Dead at the end of October and we were shown to a table with a good view of the restaurant for us both. After margaritas and guacamole, we had three rounds of small dishes including tacos, tostadas, quesadillas and taquitos, all washed down with coronas!
Chris has been looking forward to the highlight of his trip … a Sunday afternoon football match between Hellas Verona and Lazio, a team from Rome. It was typically Italian football with nudges, trips, dives, hacking, drama and handbags! The score was 1-2, Hellas Verona woz robbed! I’ve not been to a match with such good singing and banner waving before … quite atmospheric. Tunes included YNWA, When the Saints, The Red Flag, Que Sera Sera and our very own God Save the Queen, no doubt all with different words! Chris read a Tim Parks book about a season when he followed Hellas Verona to every game, and every character and emotion described at those games, were present at our game!
Desenzano has been a popular holiday destination since Roman times, and remains so today, with a street of very chic and expensive shops and lots of restaurants and cafes. It was a bit overcast when we arrived and there had been a storm the day before.
The small historical centre gets choked with tourists, browsing in shops and consuming ridiculously large cones of gelato so we escaped and went past the little Chiesa Di San Pietro with a fresco of the crucifixion …
Mantova is a very appealing and walkable town, with four interlocking piazzas in the centre surrounded by civic buildings and churches. Unfortunately an earthquake in 2012 resulted in damage to some buildings which are still under repair.
Padova’s garden is the Orto Botanico del Padova, which was founded as the garden of curative herbs attached to the University’s faculty of medicine and still contains an important collection of rare plants. It also has the recently built Garden of Diversity with tropical and temperate greehouses containing plants from round the world. It was relaxing to wander round among the plants having spent the day in the town.
We are visiting Vicenza on the trail of Andrea Palladio, a 16th century architect, whose fascination with Greek and Roman buildings led him to develop the Palladian style which spread throughout the world.
In the early days of film, it was rumoured that a budding star only had to parade around the junction of Hollywood and Vine to be spotted by the film directors who drank coffee in restaurants here. Turning off the Boulevard, we saw the famous Hollywood sign high on the hills above and passed the iconic Capitol Records Tower, resembling a stack of 45rpm records, and actually visible from our bathroom window.
The Kodak Theatre, now renamed the Dolby has hosted the Academy Awards since 2002 and is surrounded by the Babylonian columns and elephants of a shopping centre.
We also explored the Financial district of Bunker Hill, Central Library and the Grand Central Market, together with the Angels Flight Railway …
Well Chris said, having got as far as New Zealand, why turn round … let’s keep going, so we did! After eight weeks in a campervan Chris was looking forward to having no car keys and I was looking forward to dining out rather than cooking camper meals … and some sun would be nice as South Island got a bit chilly!
Avarua is the main town and in the north of Rarotonga and we were staying at Muri, the next largest village in the south-east. The centre has hilly jungle and everyone lives close to the 32km road which runs round the outside. There are lots of scooters whizzing round the island, but we got about by bus, either the clockwise bus, or the anti-clockwise bus! Not that there are many places to go apart from Avarua!
