Brescia Tourist Bloggers Trip – My Interests Declared

Some weeks ago I won the Nigerian lottery. Again. You know the emails. ‘All you have to do is send us your bank details’… That kind of message. They must work I suppose. Someone HAS to reply otherwise they’d presumably stop. But who could be so daft? Well, it wasn’t quite the Nigerian lottery. But, as I sit and blog from the Stansted Express on my way to Brescia, the almost-as-good-win has come as a result of me being that ‘someone who replied’. Now I should quickly add that, although the email I received inviting me on a bloggers trip to Brescia and the surrounding area initially seemed too good to be true, the similarities with the Kenyan lottery end there.

Replying I’d certainly be interested in learning more about this trip. Several things, all of which were unexpected happened; one – I received a reply, two – more details were forthcoming, three – there was someone on the end of the phone when I called and four – the flight I am very early for was paid for by the Brescia Tourist Board. This is a short post. The adventure is to come over the next three days as I am to be whisked round an area I am less than familiar with, the timing of which coincides with an event celebrating Italian lakes called Festival dei Laghi (www.festivaldeilaghi.it).

However, as I believe is the done thing in such cases, I feel compelled to declare my interest in the next couple of blogs. In an, I think, very innovative move, Brescia Tourism have selected eight or so blogs from the Internet, contacted their authors, and put together a blogger trip. In exchange for, what looks an incredible programme including hotels, visits and restaurants, we are to blog. I assume the idea being our posts, in what is the much celebrated centenary year of DH Lawrence’s visit to the area, might persuade our readers to themselves visit one day.

I feel honoured to have been selected. As you know I love my blog and I hope I and it can do justice to this area. For 2ndcupoftea, this is a first, but perhaps a pointer in the future direction. So, look out for the next two blogs. My interests have now been declared, but looking at their website and app (they MUST be ahead of their time), I doubt it will feel too much like work.

Brescia links:

www.bresciatourism.it

http://itunes.apple.com/it/app/bresciatourism/id479250675?mt=8

Lost And Words In The Appenines, Italy

‘…and I thought to myself; Oh son you may be lost in more ways than one, but I have a feeling that it is more fun than knowing exactly where you are’. Passenger

Two things inspired me to wander off into the mountains alone and with no real plan for three days. The first was simply the location of my temporary residence; on, or very close to, the ancient pilgrim route the Via Francigena and the Parco dei Cento Laghi in the Italian Apennines, the second was Eric Newby. Until two weeks ago, that name would have meant nothing to me. However thanks to the abandonment of a (hopefully read) book on the shelf, entitled ‘Love and War in the Apennines’ of which the aforementioned is the author, it has become one I will now always associate with the mountain range known as ‘the spine of Italy’.

The Via Francigena was already well established before the first millennium and was taken by thousands of pilgrims in the form of, peasants, merchants, clergymen and even nobles. Running from Canterbury in England to Rome in Italy, the ‘road’ once rivalled that of the trail to Santiago de Compostela in terms of numbers of marching feet. Lunching daily on a terrace in Varano in the Lunigiana overlooking the Tosco-Emiliano stretch, for many centuries the easiest and most used route between the heart of Europe and Christian sites, something must have rubbed off on me and inspired an admittedly comparatively brief pilgrimage along some of the paths first trodden by the ‘homo viator’ the Medieval pilgrim. I was to discover that some of these paths might not have been trodden too frequently since.

Chioggia, Enhancing Your Life… SLOWLY

(Written on the Lido of Venice in February, 2012)

These are strange days, heady days. Days of waking up and wondering and wandering. Dawns break, ordinary at first, but following several coincides, happenings, encounters, they have now slowly evolved into beings loaded with promise. Like Pinadas waiting to be burst. I wake up generally with a feeling of melancholy, but then life takes over and life certainly has showed itself from its best side on my travels recently. How long has it been since I slowed down, my travels at least and opened myself to what the days bring?

Ruskin would argue these gifts have come because I have done exactly that, slowed down, when he wrote of the ‘Europe in a Week by Train’ offered in 1862 by Thomas Cook;

‘No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, happier or wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thoughts and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being’.

He was distressed by how seldom people noticed things and deplored the blindness and haste of modern tourists. As a Tour Guide in the 21st Century, although this continued desire puts bread on my table, they are sentiments I can certainly empathise with, especially as I board my group onto a bus after only two hours in Assisi or one at Delphi.

Several years ago whilst channel surfing I caught a fleeting glimpse of a walled, perfectly preserved medieval town. In vain I tried to find the channel again, for this one glimpse captured my imagination as an almost unreal, magical place, unlike any I had seen before, but the image had vanished. Incredible as it may seem, in those days there was no option of googling and I was left to wonder whether it really existed. I thought of Don Quixote seeing giants where windmills stood for it certainly looked as though the city was nestled in a Cervantes landscape, and hoped that one day I would discover where it was, visit it somehow and not be disappointed. Only years later when work took me to Carcassonne, in the South of France was I ‘reunited’ with its walls, towers and battlements and I recognised it instantly. I was not disappointed. No one had told me I should have been.

Chasing The Sun, First of Jan in Mongolia

(This article was published in the UB Post, English language newspaper of Ulaanbaatar)

At precisely nine a.m on January 1st 2012 I found myself 95km outside UB, a good 300 yards away from a reserved seat on a train that started pulling away. At this point I would have felt calmer had I at least been able to say it was pulling away ‘from a station’, or indeed any form of habitation. However with temperatures average for the time of year and snow falling, as far as I could tell, all it was departing was a sea of snow and isolation. And of course about 500 hungover locals.

This sounds a lot like one of those done to death film plots where the proverbial hero finds himself (it’s always a he) miles from where he is supposed to be with an improbably small amount of hours in which to get there. Often they involve stag-dos, copious amounts of alcohol and little or no recollection of how he ended up in this situation. He may be scantily clad to boot and about to get married. In my case, up until the now worryingly rapidly moving train made me think otherwise, none of the above were the case and things had seemed a little more thought through.

Muses, Wings and Mongolia

“Meanwhile, I accept my despair as a trailer for my flight. I know it will come some time” Jules Spinatsch.

More than the photos perhaps, these words jumped out from the canvas onto which they were printed and ingrained themselves on my memory recently. They were in fact only meant to accompany the real highlight, the images of the photographer at an exhibition called Real Venice, I visited at Somerset House in London only a couple of months ago. The exhibition was a fundraiser for my favourite city in the world. I was killing time.

Now 2011 is behind us, a year into which following an old Danish tradition I quite literally leapt off a precariously balanced chair with a glass of champagne to appease the Gods of luck, it’s now time to, if not ‘fly’, then at least start testing the wings. This piece, picking up the mantle of my previously much loved blog, has been a long time in coming. It has not been a year in which I have flown little, I have in fact literally had to come to Outer Mongolia, to find the inspiration and determination to try ‘taking off’ again. However, all flying this year has been on other people’s planes and very little under my own steam.

We Who Are About To Die…. 2 hours in Gladiator School, Rome

On my last trip to Rome I was fortunate enough to fulfil a bit of a fantasy of mine. Ever since I lived a year in Rome and walked past the magnificent Colosseum I have pondered the gruesome fate that awaited thousands of, I thought; slaves forced to fight as gladiators. On this occasion finally with time on my hands – I decided to sign up for gladiator school and see first hand what this might have been like.

The Gruppo Storico Romano located on the Ancient Appian way just outside the centre of Rome have for 16 years, since they were set up, offered courses in gladiatorial combat. On offer is even a full five month course. That seemed a little hard to justify in terms of time, money and effort. Am I to (fingers crossed) live to an average age – it would mean dedicating nearly 1% of my life to becoming a gladiator- hmm. However 2 hours? Now that’s more like it…

I can't Believe Gladiators in Rome Wore These - HEAVY!

So, after spending ages trying to find the place, my Roman taxi driver getting more and more frustrated, I rocked up at the gates of the arena. I was issued a rookie tunic and a wooden gladius and it was time to begin. If you would like to read more about my experiences as a Roman Gladiator, please follow the link. You can find details of how to enrol and the location too plus a few myths about gladiators busted!

The fact that I am reviewing this place does give you an idea that the lions went hungry that night, but it’s still worth a read- Ave!

 

What a Great Way to Look at Art – the Centrale Montemartini, Rome

In a break from tradition, this is not an article about some convoluted historical event, my experiences in a less than savoury setting or my girlfriend trying to bump me off. In fact 2ndcupoftea is going all highbrow and brings you a short review of a museum.

BUT, not any museum I hasten to add. I recently had the good fortune to visit Rome again but this time leading a group of travellers for whom, like me it was their umpteenth visit. The agency that had organised the trip knew this and wanted to include a visit none of them would have experienced before. They came up with: the Centrale Montemartini. I for one couldn’t be happier that they did. Here’s why…

Roman Sculpture in the Centrale Montemartini

The Museum is housed in an old power station and only ended up as a museum thanks to a series of fascinating and fortunate occurrences. It is now used by the much more famous Capitoline Museums as an experiment in museum display techniques; position of Roman sculpture, lighting angles and so on. This makes the experience quite unique. For one they allow photography and with flash. You can imagine how long I could have spent there.

To read more about why I found this museum so amazing please clink on: Roman sculpture in the Centrale Montemartini. And when you next visit Rome, if you are looking for something different: go! You’ll not regret it.