You say winter, I say Djilba

Home, home we come and we three become four again.

Back home we are.  Back to school, back to work, back to vacuuming the carpet and washing the dishes.  Back to the ho-hums... if you let them be.  Do we have to?  What if we don't let it?  What if we take time to feel the...

 


 AND have some...

 Odd street art found on High Street, Fremantle.  Nice. 



What if we keep our travelling hats on, both figuratively and literally?

See the hats?  See how I did that?  Yeah. Esplanade Park, Fremantle

.

 So, we go for walks and buy ice-creams and take photos and enjoy the sun, the sea...

At the legendary South Beach, dog beach extraordinaire

 the sand...

Freo... Fremantle.  That's home. At Port Beach.

the flowers...

Almond tree, our backyard.

 and the bees.

And you may well be looking at all this abundant flourishing of blue sky, sunshine, blossom and pollen and thinking that the Fremantle winter is pretty splendid.  And it's surely splendid, but it's only winter for those who subscribe to the idea that we could impose our Euro seasons on a completely different climate.  The Aboriginal people who have populated this south-westerly corner of Australia for a likely 40,000 years+, that's the Noongar people, noted 6 distinct seasons according to temperature, rainfall, the whereabouts and behaviour of animals and changes to the local flora.  They named this time of year 'Djilba' - a gorgeous word to say, I think, as well as a gorgeous season.  It's marked by cold nights, warm days, frequent rain, fertility and lushness.

This season wheel can be found on a sign in Kings Park, Perth

Happy homecoming.  Happy Djilba, everyone.  May it be lush.

Coming soon, some time, Ayesha's report on segway riding through Rome. Stay tuned.

Big knockers and role plays

Wandering the streets of Rome on the eve of our arrival, the light is stunning and we are all the more awed by the ubiquity of antiquity, art and splendour.  It's exhausting!

 Ruins.  Ruins abound at every turn.  What were these?  Why were these?  It's incredible.  It's wonderful and awful too.  It's too much to take in.  And, you know what?  It's dirty and littered.   I feel the same shame I've felt in national parks in Australia where caravan-hauling n'er-do-wells have emptied their chemical toilets into compost toilets and on beaches in Thailand strewn with plastic water bottles.  The wrongness that occurs when we tourists descend.


What's lovely is the abundance of water fountains all around the city.  Aesthetically, they are gorgeous and sculptural, of course.  The water is delicious, cold and mineral.  Cleverly designed, they run continuously as taps to fill bottles and wash hands but put your finger over the hole and they send up a squirt to drink from.  We should have more drinking fountains in Perth even though we wouldn't want them running continuously.  Let's break the stranglehold of the bottled water sellers.


Numbers of tourists here are just as high as they were in Venice, especially in the more famous locations, like the Trevi Fountain.  Now, a well placed camera allows us to show said beautiful fountain without revealing thousands of onlookers, scaffolding and construction, beggars, touts and vendors.


We almost bought a bobble-headed pope here, but settled for a calendar featuring hot priests of the Vatican.  It's all kinds of wrong, so it's the perfect special gift for George who gave us a calendar of Kate & Wills' wedding last year.  Sweet revenge!

 When Ayesha mentioned that she'd seen a pair of enormous knockers we were, quite frankly, shocked.  Then she showed us this.  Brilliant, I want enormous knockers too.

 We made it to the Vatican, and took the obligatory photos in St Peter's Square to prove our presence in another country.  With obligatory gurning too.

 Then we invented a new game called 'Tour Guide', as shown in the next photo.  It requires walking with great purpose before stopping decisively to gesticulate and appear to be talking knowledgeably about something in the vicinity.  Bonus points if you attract interested onlookers.

 As an aside, these two are probably my fave pieces of urban/street art on this trip.  Found them in the Piazza Madonna dei Monti, which we'll feature in our next post.

Socks, scams, smurfs and not-sexy pasta

Next we went from Rovinj (Croatia) to Venizia (Venice, Italy) by boat, really it's the only way to go.

Until we went, me and dad kind of thought that there would be less walk-ways and more canals. A couple of years ago, I thought that, besides in buildings, no-body could walk in Venice, I thought it was ALL canals!!! So, I was slightly disappointed when we had to walk a while with our heavy packs.

 Well, the canals are beautiful...

 But WOW, Venice is amazing! Even with the masses of TOURISTS! Oh right, I forgot that we are tourists. But anyway, I wouldn't like to live there, still TOO MANY TOURISTS :) Tourists look a bit like this...

 

Another amazing thing in Venice is the door knockers, door handles, and  mailboxes

 

 Some of the food is odd, such as Smurf flavoured gelato and historical pasta.

 Splendid architecture is everywhere.

 We took the traghetto across the Grand Canal.  At only 50 euro cents, it's the cheapest gondala ride in town.

 The markets were full of colour.

When we got lost, we found peaceful places amongst the chaos
 

Time is taking its toll on the old city.

 And there are modern features too, like graffiti, 











a durex machine on our street, 

 
 and a Buddhist monk in sandals and socks in Piazza San Marco.  Of course.

View from the campanile (bell tower)

Although the branding in the lift may have been trying to tell us something...  People selling stuff EVERYWHERE...

 Behave.  OK?

Rovinj, how we love thee, let us count the ways...

Things we love about Rovinj, Istria, Croatia, in no particular order:

Our host, Maja, and her overly curious cat, Coco, with the broken leg (as a result of falling from the balcony... The cat, not Maja).

Our apartment... the Blue Door apartment with steep stairs, great views, wooden floors and white walls. We booked this via AirBNB

 

 

Views from the apartment.

Cold beer.  Cheap cold beer!

 Our little 'neighbourhood', where an old lady sat and said "Dober Dan" whenever we passed.

Truffles.

Cats.  Istrian cats hanging around restaurants and fishing boats.

Boats.

 Reflections.

Friendly, funny, flirty waiters.Sorry - no photos!

Truffles.  Cheap truffles!

Medieval, topsy-turvy town.  Buildings all atop one another.

 

Ochre and terracotta roofs and walls.

Steps leading down to rocks and the Adriatic Sea.

Truffles.

The crystalline Adriatic glinting in the sunlight.

The sun setting behind the old town.

Silly, slippery cobblestones.

Truffles.

Satisfaction of climbing 185 steep, sloping stairs to the top of St Euphemia's clock tower.  That's the high thing there.

 

The view from the top of the tower.

 No cars!

Did I mention truffles?