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Gloucester Arms, Kensington, London, England
At 34 Gloucester Road, in Kensington, London, is a pub called the Gloucester Arms. It is one of the Taylor-Walker line of pubs. It might be easy to think of Taylor-Walker pubs as the
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Volterra, Italy
This was probably the most challenging hike. The last two miles were definitely intense – a steep uphill climb to Volterra, the last mile on the main road, with cars and busses careening past us.
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Mount Vesuvius, Italy
Mount Vesuvius is about six miles from Naples. It is an active volcano, and last erupted in 1944. Its most famous eruption was in 79 AD. That is the eruption that destroyed both Pompeii
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Kilkenny, Ireland
We decided that we should venture outside of Dublin to see some of the Irish countryside, so we took a coach to Kilkenny, a medieval town about 90 kilometers southwest of Dublin. The return
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Siena, Italy
We arrived in Siena, home of the world famous Palio (a twice annual horse race around the Il Campo). Siena is divided into contrade (districts). Each contrade has their own mascot and crest. All
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Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence, Italy
Our reservation at the Accademia was for 11:45am, that left plenty of time, before that, to visit the science museum (6.5 euros), home not only to Galileo’s telescopes, but also to his finger (relic
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Herriot Country: Thirsk & Askrigg, England
My favorite series of books are the autobiographical novels of Alf Wight, better known as James Herriot. So I was very excited to get to visit the real town where Alf lived (Thirsk) and the
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Trattoria Sostanza, Florence, Italy
We both wanted our final dinner in Florence to be memorable and I didn’t want to leave Florence without experiencing the Bistecca alla Fiorentina. Again we thought of the Rachael Ray show($40 a Day) and the incredible
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Vinci, Italy
From Carmignano, we hiked to the village of Vinci, the birth place of Leonardo. We visited the farmhouse (at Anchiano, 3km from Vinci) at which Leonardo was (probably) born. Leonardo was an illegitimate child.
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San Gimignano, Italy
In the hills of Tuscany, far from any city, is a small walled town called San Gimignano. San Gimignano is sometimes referred to, by tourists, as the medieval Manhatten. In the 1300s, San Gimignano
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