I’ve just been doing my pre flight checklist.
The bags have been packed, weighed, repacked and reweighed and are now sitting on the doorstep ready to go.
There’s a few meals in the freezer for the IT Geek for those nights when the days have been too busy.
I’ve visited Mum and had a good long dose of her loveliness.
I’ve planned The Writers funeral in the wee hours of the morning ( should I bring his body home or just scatter his ashes in France where he so loves to be?)
The sheets are washed and in the dryer ready to make up a fresh new bed for the first night home.
The list of phone numbers is safely installed on the phone and the in laws have been rung for a goodbye.(managed not to seek their opinion on where The Writer should be scattered)
I’ve made and scheduled 6 videos for release on You Tube every Monday we’re away so as not to disappoint my die hard fans.
The “Closed for holidays” sign is in my Etsy shop window.
Only one last thing to check……
The cat was definitely out of the bag before I locked it wasn’t she?
Tag Archives: Travel
A change is as good as a holiday…
I decided to test the old adage that a change is as good as a holiday so I changed my blog theme and I’ll tell you when I get back from my upcoming Europe holiday if it was as good as 6 weeks of culture, food, art, landscapes, coastlines and general hedonistic holiday revelry.
Sorry to keep you on tenterhooks for the next few weeks but it’s anyones guess how this little experiment will turn out.
A day trip to Bruny Island
I’ve been wanting a day trip to Bruny Island all January but The Writer was hanging out for the perfect day. He was after all those blue sky and sparkling sea shots. I was all for just going and working with the weather! So last Saturday I got up early , packed lunch and said “Let’s go”- and off we went.
I have to say I was quite happy with a few clouds- I’ve got lots of sunny shots from previous trips . My first solo art exhibition was inspired by a day trip to Bruny on an astonishingly beautiful summers day and I was looking for a different, more moody side of the island. The early morning light was subdued and the water took on a silver sparkle.
I love this into the sun shot at the Neck and have already painted a small pastel using it as reference.
I added a little more colour and used a square format. I’m a bit of a fan of the square for small paintings.
The clouds came and went creating some interesting skies and reflections.
…and the water kept on sparkling.
The tidal flats had just enough shallow water to make for great reflections of the amazing clouds…
And finally the sun took over the day and we had a swim and a snorkle in the fairly chilly water at Coal Pt with it’s weathered rocks that have been wind blasted creating a myriad circular pockets in the rock.
Then off to Adventure Bay for a few shots in the bright sunlight to satisfy The Writer.
The lovely tracery of shadows on the sand inspired another painting…
All in all, another stunning day on this small island off an island.
What tomorrow brought.
After a very frustrating morning dealing with a courier over a UK delivery gone wrong I threw myself into finishing yesterdays painting …. and here it is.
I ‘m pleased with the distant boat as it gives some perspective and I like the hint of white against all that blue and green.
But I’m not sure if the foreground water needs something else.
.. and the trees were a bit of a trial!
Love to hear what you think of it.
Capo Testa Sardinia- the next painting
Had a clear weekend so gessoed up a canvas and did my second painting in the Sardinia series. Capo Testa is a wonderful area on the north-west coast of Sardinia. There’s a maze of walking tracks amongst the huge boulders and so many wildflowers it’s like a series of rock gardens. There’s the mild scent of curry wafting over the cape from the yellow curry plants and the stunning blue of the Mediterranean in the background. Hope I managed to capture just a little of this amazing place which I hope to get back to some day.
Steinbock stalking in the Gran Paradiso…
I was driving along in the glorious, summer sunshine when a glimpse of light bouncing off something caused me to suddenly swerve onto the verge of the road and come to a spine jolting halt. The Writer craned his whip lashed neck in all directions looking for whatever it was that had caused this aberration in my usually impeccable ability to get us from A to B without running off the road.I waved my hand in the general direction of a pile of boulders excitedly yelling “horns- I’m sure I saw horns”.
We were heading up the Valsavarenche, one of three valleys that make up the Gran Paradiso National Park in Northern Italy, and we were steinbock hunting!
Grabbing the cameras we stealthily sidled out of the car – I’m no sure why ,since any animal in the vicinity had surely heard the gravel flying as I skidded to a stop. Anyway , sidle we did, pointing and whispering as we tried to catch a glimpse of anything moving on the rocks above us. It wasn’t long before The Writer began to mutter in a rather scathing manner something along the lines of ” wishful thinking…”
Can you see the horn?
Just a glimpse of the steinbock.
Just as the muttering started to gain momentum I shouted “over there!” and pointed ( in what I hoped was a “I told you so” sort of way) at a lone steinbock leaping over the rocks just metres away. His long, curled horns quickly vanished from sight as we started clicking away. I back tracked down the road following the line of the rocks and as I rounded the corner so did the steinbock. He politely posed , nibbling first on a patch of grass , then on the low branches of a pine tree, twisting and turning his handsome head as if to show off his sweeping, serrated horns.
The Writer was still hanging round the car hoping for a return of the steinbock so I headed back and nudged him in the general direction of the photo worthy horns. We spent a happy 20 minutes tracking and shooting stills and video and came across a couple of other young bucks frolicking over the rocks and alpine meadows.
Feeling very blessed to have had such luck we happily mooched on back to the car and decided we still had time for a quick walk in this beautiful valley.
There were a few cars in the carpark and as we hoofed it up the track we met a couple heading back with cameras and tripods slung across their shoulders. The Writer, deciding they were kindred spirits, regaled them with tales of our successful steinbocks potting advising them to head on back down the road where, if they were lucky, they might find a one with enormous horns posing on the rocks. They thanked us politely but not with what you would call effusiveness. I did think I caught “30 something” in amongst their rapid fire Italian and assumed they where asking how far to the big horns. “No,no – it’s only 5 minutes from the carpark ” I assured them.
We felt a little silly a few minutes later as we rounded the corner to find a herd of 30 something big horned steinbock grazing in the meadows!! They obligingly munched away as we clicked away. They waited while The Writer set up his tripod, they arranged themselves in picturesque groupings, draped themselves on the nearby rocks and generally behaved as any well educated model might. They knew the moves, they could hold the pose and they were politely disinterested in the photographers.
On the way home, we passed the rocky slope where we’d seen our first steinbock earlier in the day. In unison we turned to each other and said “ours was better!”
Looking back at our photos from the comfort of our living room several weeks later we’re still in agreement. It was a thrill to catch a glimpse of horns , see them disappear and then track silently until we came across a proud and majestic wild animal , alone on the rocks. The herd seemed altogether a more domesticated group!
What do you think?
The Italian Paintings
I’ve unpacked the suitcase, done the laundry and distributed the gifts. I’ve settled back into work reacquainting myself with the myriad small disasters of the working day. I’ve rearranged the studio and tidied up a bit. So now there’s so more excuses for putting off starting on the post holiday paintings.
It might surprise you to know that as much as I love painting there’s something a bit daunting about sorting through my memories, masses of photos and all those small sketches I did and trying to distill the essence of the holiday that I now want to capture in larger pastel paintings.
Sometimes I absolutely know what I’m interested in. One holiday it was patterns- roof tiles, fields of different crops, rows of lavender, five metal jugs on a wall, bicycle wheels- stone fences-the list went on. Other times it takes a while for a them to emerge and this last Italian holiday was one of those.
When that happens sometimes I just decide to jump in and start painting whatever and see what develops. So here are my first three paintings and I think what might be developing is a visual essay on the varied landscapes of Italy.
When you live as far “down under” as we do, in southern Tasmania, it’s a long way to Europe and our usual approach is to whittle away at our wish list across 2 or 3 countries each trip. This holiday we spent 5 weeks in Italy instead of our usual 1-2 weeks and it really made a difference. We were able to stay a week each in four very different regions and explore a bit more in depth than we usually have time for and I think the vastly different landscapes, architecture and traditional work is what captured our interest. Of course this variety shouldn’t be a surprise given that the Italy we know today is a very recent entity .
A gentle morning landscape with mist rising over the Tuscan wheatfields, the emerald waters of Sardinia and snowcapped mountains reflected in Lake Arpy in the northern Italian alps – the start of a series celebrating the diverse landscapes of Italy.
- Morning wheatfields. Tuscany
A working theory on holiday disasters.
For quite some time The Writer and I have been testing the theory that a little bit of disaster punctuating a holiday just makes the good bits better. You might have read about the border incident which showcased a classic example where stress and imminent starvation resulted in a bog standard schnitzel consumed an hour later tasting like something a team of Michelin starred chefs had dreamed up for the culmination of the final dinner at a gourmet retreat.
You might be surprised to learn we’ve amassed a fairly hefty set of data to support our working theory over the years. Indeed, The Writer has already published some early data based on a single holiday with five subjects participating in the field experiment-me ,The Writer, MIL and the two offspring.He has a perky little writing style and many a reader has commented along the lines of : “I bust a gut laughing at the antics of the Whitton family on holiday”. If you think you might enjoy a bust gut you can join the gang down at the hospital after reading Bon Voyage.
Sometimes the geek in me wins out so I decided to create an equation to express the working theory and here it is:
(Within the confines of H) D followed by NPE = HSH
where
H= a holiday from the usual place of residence ( preferably overseas with limited local language skills)
D= any event that precipitates pain, stress, financial loss, misery, tears, shouting or actual bodily harm
NHP= any normal happy event such as a dinner that is edible, a car that gets you from A to B without breaking down, a mobile phone that has signal when you want to use it or a swimming pool that is full of water on a hot day.
and
HSH = a heightened state of happiness.
I plan to post a few examples of D followed by NPE = HSH over the next little while so get your inner geek on, set up a journal club and join in the evaluation of the working theory.
End of holiday blues.
It’s always hard coming back after a holiday. Holidays mean the freedom of unscheduled days, hours of sunshine when I don’t have to be cooped up inside, an unspoken agreement that it’s OK to eat all those forbidden foods I usually ration out and a winding down from months of stressful work. It’s no surprise that I’m grumpy and out of sorts when it all ends!
Heading off I feel it will all be worth the 26 hours of airports and flights . I pack and repack happily, weighing suitcases to calculate how much I’ve left for the all important holiday buys. Do I really need those black sandals? Surely it won’t be cold enough for a jumper? I carefully choose a lightweight read and even look forward to watching a few movies on the longhaul flight. I stock up on chocolate and nuts at the airport and look forward to 5 weeks of blissful sun, sea, culture and good food.
It’s a different story on the way home! I curse the extra sandals as I try to crush in the last of the gifts. I decide I’ll have to carry the thick and weighty jacket I had to buy because it did get cold enough for the jumper I didn’t pack – and it annoys me all the way home as I haul it in and out of overhead lockers. The movies are rubbish and I the books I chose is dull. I don’t have any chocolate because I couldn’t face the queue to buy it but that’s OK since I feel sick as a dog.
I can’t wait to be back in my own home but once I am there’s all that unpacking and washing and sorting of clothes . The piles of gifts sit and look at me accusingly as I try and work out when I’m going to get to see all the people I want to visit now that I’m not on holidays anymore. The rain pours down and my nose streams as I hack and splutter with a welcome home cold. Jet lag kicks in and I can’t sleep for nights on end – the days at work are a blur as I try and act professional through gritty eyes and gritted teeth. I almost resign on the first day back but manage to keep my mouth shut and get on with it.
A week later and sleep returns and the very next day I find myself planning next years holiday. After all there’s only 11 months to go!
Trulli interesting.
A recent visit to the Val D’Itrea in Puglia, Italy was inspired by a promotional ad for holiday accommodation in a Trullo. It looked so unique that The Writer was hooked so we built it into our 5 week Italy holiday. I have to say that The Writer is a consistently great travel planner and does a lot of destination research before presenting me with options and possible itineraries. If I had to pay for his time I wouldn’t be able to afford the holiday!! Well I suppose he would just put it in the holiday fund and we would be able to afford it anyway… back to the Trulli ( plural of a Trullo in Italian)
What’s a Trulli?
A Trullo is a traditional round dry-stone house with a conical stone roof built by the early peasants of the area now known as Puglia in Italy. We saw thousands of them on our stay, concentrated in the town of Alberobello ,dotted around the countryside in fields and huddling together in farm complexes. There were ancient tumbling down Trulli, rustic but functional Trulli, faithfully renovated Trulli, renovated and extended Trulli and brand new built Trulli. Traditional Trulli were made with large grey rocks from the field set together without any joining material. A conical stone roof was added and then flat stones were layered over the top to allow the water to run off into collecting channels built like steps into the roof – a bit like the modern tiled roof. The roof is then capped off with a little spire holding a round stone ball ( sometimes other shapes were used). The cap is often whitewashed and provides a great contrast to the grey stone. Some are just a single room, others are grouped together with connecting doors through the very thick walls, and some big farming complexes will have a main house with many conical roofs and smaller dwellings for animals and storage nearby..
Why build Trulli from stone?
Well if you ever visit Puglia you’ll notice an abundance of stone fences. And when I use the word abundance I really mean it! Seeing metre wide stone walls running each side of the narrow lane way to our accommodation just emphasised the amount of stone that must have been in the fields. If you want to plant crops you need to cultivate the land so down come the trees and out come the rocks. You can use trees for buildings, furniture, storage, fencing and fuel and but once the trees are all gone you need to find another building supply. There’s only so many fences you can make so what better way to use up those pesky stones than to build with them. There’s also a popular theory that by pulling out the conical capstone on the roof the local peasant could dismantle his house almost instantaneously thus avoiding the tax on permanent dwellings. Sounds a bit dodgy to me – I bet they took a long time to build and I certainly wouldn’t be demolishing mine every time the taxman came around! I might make a portable painted panel to disguise it though. You know the sort of thing I mean – a bucolic little number with an olive tree and a couple of goats grazing underneath with a sow and her litter foraging for windfall. I reckon that would do the trick and save a heap of work.
Alberobello World Heritage Site
Whilst Trulli date from the prehistoric age the oldest intact examples are from the 14th century and can be found in the town of Alberobello where there are over 1000 Trulli! Many of the Alberobello Trulli have whitewashed walls with a stone roof and a whitewashed capping cone. Some have whitewashed symbols painted on the roof.
This area is now a World Heritage listed site and we visited it during peak tourist time, then again early one morning and later for a sunset . It’s impressiveness lies in the simple, functional beauty of the buildings and the sheer number in such a small area. The downside was all the tourist trinket shops set up in the Trulli. I love arts and crafts but they’re scarce on the ground in Alberobello. Puglia has been one of the poorer areas of Italy so while it’s pretty easy for me to be annoyed at the tacky souvenir shops spoiling the atmosphere the locals are just doing their best to make a living and I tried to remember that.
Is the Trulli a dying art form?
There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think the Trulli won’t be around for another few millenia. We saw a lot of modern Trulli which are often made from a lighter, creamy coloured stone using square-cut blocks from local quarries which were mortar set. They incorporated multiple conical roofs with other larger areas using different angled roofs and there are some stunning properties around. Our accommodation for the week was part of a renovated Trulli with very sympathetic extensions set in beautiful grounds with a stunning paved pool area, fruit trees and olive groves.
Would I want to live in a Trulli permanently?
Not really – great for a holiday but the design means there’s not much space in each little circular room. The up side is the conical roof means there’s plenty of height to hang your favourite rustic chandelier, the downside is once you’ve got in the table and chairs there’s no room for anything else. Still, in Puglia’s summer heat those 3 foot thick walls really keep you cool and once it’s winter you can just stay tucked up in bed when you’re not eating at the table!
