Lifestyles of the rich and the famous…

Lifestyles of the rich and the famous… Or at least pretending...

Hello again. Firstly just some context, after a 2:30am finish last night in Monaco, a 7am start this morning, the Soapbox is currently located on a 5 hour train ride to Montpellier, working on 4.5 hours sleep, and facing an ultimate arrival in Barcelona of approximately 10pm. So with that context in mind please forgive me any rambling, incoherence, spelling mistakes (mum) or other general poor form. So without further a do…

Day 17 – Having arrived in Bologna on Day 16 after some shuttling from SG and Firenze we followed some Lonely Planet advice and checked into the lovely hotel Panorama. Whilst having to share a bathroom was a new experience for these two non-backpackers turns out, at least in this rare example, it’s awesome! The hotel was immaculately clean and with only 6 rooms in total the 3 shared bathrooms were spotless and sparkling!

Not knowing why we were in Bologna, except for on the advice of a hurried Facebook poll, we went out exploring for dinner, stumbling through the awesome fresh food stall area and eventually settling down on the best appertifi to date, shared over a few beers and white ladies (Katrina’s new favourite cocktail, lemon juice, gin and Cointreau). Even though overly stuffed on said appertifi we decided it would be criminal to spend the night in Bologna and not taste the local Ragu (which we all know as Bolognese) so it was off to the next bar/restaurant where Katrina sampled the local Ragout with Tagliatelle (weird they don’t eat with spaghetti) and I tried some delicious homemade Ricotta and something else Tortellini. A solid free Wi-Fi session and one two many long island ice teas the night in Bologna was done and most enjoyed.

Day 18 – Up early-ish to do a whirlwind tour of the city before moving on it was off the Two Towers (not to be confused with the LOTR film of the same name) which mark the start of the university quarter. One of the two towers is on a massive lean but being less architecturally designed is not as famous as the ‘other’ leaning tower in Pisa. The Torre that is able to be climbed is much more upright, but at some 95m of narrow stairs is quite a trip. Superstitious students apparently say if you climb the Torre you will never graduate, however Katrina and I have both graduated so it was all good. Whilst the view was impressive, it was very contrasting to the Grosse Torre of SG looking out into the country side. Bologna’s main ‘old’ walled city is a mass of terracotta rooves and the suburbia seems to stretch well past the horizon.

Leaning Torre of Bologna

View back to main square and Basicilla in Bologna

Foolishly Katrina then took my advice to catch a cab up to Basicilla Santa de Lucca (Bologna’s answer to Sacra Coeur in Paris). Whilst the church is impressive the views have nothing on Sacra Coeur and the majority of the amazing gardens are unable to be accessed. We then, again foolishly on my advice, proceeded to walk along the world’s longest Portico (series of arches) which connects Santa de Lucca to the city walls. Whilst impressive, the first 5 arches are the same as the remainder of the total 666 and not always well maintained! Also thought the choice of 666 arches was somewhat odd given the numbers significance with the dark lord (6-6-6 the number of the beast!).

Would of really liked to of to spent the afternoon wandering around Bologna however, alpine Lake Como was calling!

A transfer through Milano Centrale and we were safe and sound in Como (the town of the same name as the lake, but the lake is called something else historically; it is generically all referred to as ‘Como’ by us dumb tourists!). Whilst my hotel choice initially led us to think that we were somewhat our of town, it turns out you can walk from one end of Como to the other in about 15 minutes so no harm done! Having eaten well all day (again) we settled for some appertifi and cocktails by the ferry terminal for dinner.

Day 19 – Falling for the tourist trap that the 11:10 ferry is only on weekends (apparently this is clear if you either a) speak Italian, or b) have access to the English timetable which we didn’t the night before). It was coffee and shopping while we waited for the next ferry up to Bellagio. Along the ferry trip we saw the villa where both Star Wars (one of the shit ones, maybe 2 when Annican and Natalie Portman get married) and Casino Royale (where Bond recovers and then ends up finding and shooting the dude) which was very impressive in that impossible lifestyle kind of way. Arriving in Bellagio to only the ‘low’ season shops being open was actually quite nice, quiet streets, the panoramic view of the lake to ourselves (oh and the thousand million weird flying little bugs that were there) allowed us to wander at our own pace and enjoy the beautiful sunshine. Under the ‘bluest sky I’ve ever seen’ (Katrina Bennett) we nearly bought more art work, and then settled for an amazing lunch of Pizza and lake fish with rice for Katrina.

Sunset sailing on Lake Como

Villa of Casino Royale and Star Wars fame

A stop in Argeno on the ferry back to Como was nice, but attempts to locate the fabled Bennett/Capp/Windows bar of a few years ago were unsuccessful. The gelato however was the new champion of the world! And Katrina tried a hot chocolate which was extremely rich and tasted exactly like hot chocolate yogo…it was also champion of the world.

Moon rise from Argeno

Ever wonder where the guy who discovered voltaic cells and subsequently invented the battery lived... Como, this is his museum, powered entirely from batteries... (may or may not be true)

As we had made a habit of appertifi and cocktails it was for dinner and then a bottle of wine back at the hotel while we planned Monaco-Monte Carlo!

Day 20 – We thought we had plenty of time to kill and took the railway/cart/cable car thing up the hill to Brenate where we fell victim to a combination of low season ‘deadness’ and overcast skies! After returning to Como and wandering for a while we thought we’d check the trains and discovered that there was now only 1 train that we could catch to Monte Carlo and it would not have us arriving until about 930 that night! We still had time to stop for ‘Thai’ in name only for lunch and then back to the train station where we were greeted with the news that the train we needed to catch to the French/Italian border was booked out, standing room only! No harm done and when we made it back to Milan Centrale via some fare evasion on a private train line from Milano San Garibaldi we managed to get on and cram us and the bags (ever growing with our shopping) into the train. Whilst the first few hours were a bit rough, as we got further from Milan seats freed up and the train ride turned out to be quite pleasant.

The cable car/track/train thingo

Arriving in Monaco late and not knowing the name of our hotel, thanks to a Mark Bennett classic of only writing down the address not the name, we took a risk with a taxi. The taxi driver seemed unimpressed and after we drove for about 2 minutes he stopped and we realised why. One of the other exits to the train station was about 50m from our hotel. He got his own back by raping us with a fare of 13 EURO!

The fair was in town in downtown Monte Carlo and whilst being amazed by the back drop of billions (literally) of EURO’s in luxury cruisers and yachts we wandered the fair and down to a little restaurant which during F1 time is right on the track. A beautiful Pizza and bowl of mussels later we realised we were probably somewhat under dressed to be staying in this amazing town! This did not however stop us sampling one of the local clubs for a quick dance.

Day 21 – The day was spent wandering the streets in amazement including a trip up to the Palace where the newlyweds live. You can’t help but noticing that in all the wedding photos of Pierre (?) and his new wife, he is the only one who looks stoked, she seems ok, but I wouldn’t exactly say a bubbling bride (she is however ridiculously good looking). The whole place is amazing, the boats are crazy, the streets are spotless, there is a heavy police presence and an overwhelming sense of affluence. I couldn’t help but think of the Simpsons in 3d episode where Homer remarks “I feel like I’m burning money just standing here…”  Also a quick note of their love of Princess Grace….there are monuments and posters up of her everywhere, they definitely love her.

Ready to go aboard captain

After a failed attempt to find a FC Monaco store at the stadium it was back to the hotel to rest up for the night ahead. (As an aside, the FC Monaco store was about, 50m from our hotel just down a street we hadn’t walked down!) Pre-drinks at the local (opposite the hotel) and then off the casino where we checked our coats, camera and paid the cover charge. A very different ambience to our casinos, hardly anyone drinking and a lot more ‘manual’ with 4 people running roulette table for example. Having blown a very quick sum of money on the blackjack table it was off to said roulette tables! Katrina found her inner gambler and kept us in it long enough for my lucky number 2 to come up and have us finish up 100 EURO for the night. Not bad at all. The casino is an amazing place with a very quiet reserved crowd blowing shite loads of EUROS! (for the gamblers amongst us, European roulette is slightly different to American roulette, and you are expected to tip at the table when you win…)

Not wanting to eat at the casino (although it looked amazing silver service style meals) we retired to another restaurant down near the marina. Katrina had an ‘amazing’ Bombay fish curry and I sampled the mixed tapas plate which was equally as good. A stroll through the fair ended up with us having some more useless carnie folk wares after playing various different games. On to the serious clubbing we went back to the place from the night before (where we knew there no cover charge and people of our like could get in (peasants)). Several hours later and at the change of DJs we decided we were probably done and retired for the night, back to the hotel at 2:15am not a bad effort for the old married couple that we have already become!

The winnings from the fair, having fun lugging around already!

Loving the Carnie games!

You'll find us in da club... bottles full of bud... etc...

As above

Live bongo player in da club

Day 22 – As per the intro currently on route to Barcelona via Nice, Montpellier, Perpignan and Port Bou Espagne in all 12 hours of transit and stop overs. Katrina is currently curled up on two seats in front of me catching up on last night’s lost hours of sleep while I keep watch for any angry Frenchmen whose seat she is occupying!

The week will be spent in Barcelona, so if you want to catch up, book a Skype time, otherwise stay tuned for the next instalment…

All our love

M&K

The travel is getting to me...