Judith's blog

We went to the ruins at Pompeii. What a brilliant place. It is massive and because it was buried by the pumice and dust of the volcanic explosion of Vesuvius in 79AD it is nearly completely intact. The roofs caved in and many of the statues have been removed to the Archeological Museum in Naples, but any restoration has been done to the benefit of the place and brings it to life more.

We arrived early to make the most of the day. We’ve been to enough historical sites in Italy to know that there is ususally no information (never mind in English), so you need to have a guidebook, an audio tour or a tour guide. We chose the tour, as you can ask questions. Our guide was a friendly elderly Italian gentleman and we were the only non-Americans in the group. He knew how to work a crowd for tips. You only need to mention the words ‘2000 years old’, whilst pointing at something, to Americans and they go into raptures of delight. Our guide did this a lot. He was pretty knowledgeable and after more than 2 hours we had seen the highlights of Pompeii.

A lot of the houses still have frescos and mosaics intact and you can see gardens and temples. We even visited a Roman brothel (lupanare) with the ‘menu’ frescos still visible above the doors to the rooms. As the tour ended the skies opened and we sheltered in the amphitheatre before making our way to more of the site. We left just as it was closing, still having only seen a fraction of the whole area.

It poured most of the evening, so we only ventured out for a quick pizza and then back to the hotel for a movie.

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We had a 5.30am start and we didn’t sleep much; as you don’t when you’re worried about sleeping through the alarm. The holiday didn’t start very well – in our early morning stupor we went off the wrong turning and had to turn around to get to the airport. When we got there it transpired that I had printed off the tickets wrong, so we had to get them redone at the Ryanair check-in desk. She wanted to charge us, but we persuaded her not to. On the plane they made an announcement for passengers Mole and Minshull (cringe) as we had given them our return tickets, which were now torn in half. At this point we hadn’t even left Spain yet.

On arriving in Rome we got to Naples and then Sorrento without a hitch, with thunder and lightning entertaining us most of the journey on the train. Sorrento is lovely and our hotel was just off the main Piazza Tasso. We wandered around a little, but were keen to check in, being very tired from the early wake up and journey. We walked round the square three times but no Hotel Belvedere. We asked a selection of waiters who had never heard of it and then phoned the hotel but got no answer. Geoff blamed me for being scammed on the internet, booking a hotel which didn’t exist.

We decided to try the tourist information instead and see if they could help. We followed the signs and the tourist office was a big building off another square, but not open until 4pm, after the siesta period. We went for a sandwich and a coffee and returned to ask about the hotel. The lady there hadn’t heard of it either. Hmmmm…. We looked at each other, then at her, when she said “Better to ask at the tourist information, this is a travel agency.” Tourist office, tourist information – it was so obvious, how could we have been so stupid? We walked another 100m and there indeed was the tourist information, except it closed at 4pm.

At this point we were running out of ideas and getting a little worried, so we phoned the number on the reservation again. We got through and they assured us in half Italian, half English that the hotel was in the Piazza, near the bar Ercolano. We walked all the way round the square again, and all the way around the bar. No hotel!

In the end I asked in the bar and they said ‘Of course, ask in the tobacconist’. Doh!

The woman in the tobacconist’s closed the shop, then took us through a scruffy door, a few doors down, with no sign whatsoever, 86 steps up a dingy stairway, but a lovely room and a great roof terrace with views of old Sorrento and Vesuvius. We collapsed into bed, had a sleep and went out to explore later.

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After only 4 hours sleep in the front seats of the van we arrived in Millau with a view of flying. We have a somewhat poor history of flying there, because for the past 7 years we have been driving through Millau twice a year, but only managed to fly there for the first time last year and that was only because we refused to leave the UK until there was a passable forecast there. We were rewarded with two days of nice flying then. It was not a feat we would repeat this year.

The forecast we looked at on Saturday was was good for Monday. We stopped to buy some lunch in the supermarket and saw people launching, so we headed up, thinking they were doing top-to-bottoms because it was so light. Wrong. On top it was howling and people were flying out to get away from the ridge. Within 15 minutes of us being on top it was completely blown out, although a tandem launched and one brave soul followed him. He flew out and the spiralled down pretty much straight away. Everyone else drove down.

Geoff didn’t have the energy to rig the hang glider, so we decided to do some tourist stuff. We drove to the Cirque de Navacelles, a huge crater with a stunning little village in the bottom. A walk and snooze in the sun later, we headed home to Spain.

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I said it was a great bed and breakfast place. Not that great; breakfast was eaten to the background of an evangelical local radio station, giving out the usual god garbage. Given how stupid we think all religions are, it’s an odd way to start the day. A shame, because otherwise it was a great B&B.

Off to Tintagel, which drags in the tourists because of its association with King Arthur. This is the King Arthur who probably didn’t exist, and certainly not in the mythlogised form; and who in any case had no association with Tintagel. But a nice castle in a stunning coastal location, and well worth a visit, especially on a  warm, sunny day like today. Geoff continued with the wetting himself theme to the holiday. We went through a cave an he missed the gigantic rock pool, which he walked straight into, right up to his knees.

And finally, a trip to Lydford Gorge on the way home. National Trust, a gorge and waterfalls. Nice 4 mile walk, followed by a 4 hour drive home.

Just possibly the coming week might be better weather, so we might delay our return to Spain. We’ll see what the forecast says.

Overall, an excellent holiday!

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Went to Clovelly. As its web site says, “one of the most famous villages in the world”. Well, maybe, not sure about that. But it was full if Italians and Germans making the most of the weak pound and strong euro. It is beautiful though, a very steep, very old fishing village, with no cars. People transport stuff up and down the cobbled streets on sledges.

Part of the reason it has been preserved is because the whole village – i.e. the land, the coast, the houses – is owned by one family – only the third since the Norman Conquest. It now must get most of its income from tourism – one of the few villages where people still live where you have to pay to go in – actually, possibly the only village. But it was worth it, and for the residents, fair compensation for the hordes of tourists who must overwhelm the place in summer.

We decided to look for a place to stay in Bude that evening. Never having been there, I thought it might be a giant Butlin’s camp, but actually, it was a really nice place, with a great free open air swimming pool on the beach. We found a place to stay, the first one we asked at, getting the last available room.

We had a walk on the beach, a picnic, some wine – and phoned Helen and Andy to see if any great XCs had been done that day, because it looked really good. Fortunately not, other than Kai who had done some massive 500000000km triangle or something from the Mynd. Everyone else, I think, was stuck on the hill.

Back to the B&B, for wine in our room and a movie – they had lots of DVDs and videos you could borrow for the evening. A great bed and breakfast place.

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We started off with a couple of walks in Lynton/Lynmouth; the first through the Valley of the Rocks, and the second part of the coastal walk. Both were stunning coastal scenery. It rained a little, but mostly it was bright and sunny.

We drove on slowly along the coast – Saturday the plan was to go to Clovelly, so we headed in that direction, taking a detour to Combe Martin and Ilfracombe, both of which I’d visited as a child, and both of which were very disappointing. Ilfracombe in particular has ruined a perfectly good sea front by building a couple of cooling towers there, pretending to be a theatre. It’s incredible what architects think is good design, and what planners think is acceptable.  We decided to drive on…

Driving past Woolacombe, we saw some paragliders flying, so decided to go and have a look (even though we hadn’t brought any gliders with us, intending just to have a walking and sight seeing holiday). It’s ok as a site, coastal flying, not as nice as Rhossili, but much better than the mud flats of Thurstaton. The highlight was watching a hang glider pilot launch with no helmet, and one of his side wires reinforced with glider ties. At least he clipped in….

We then spent the next three hours trying to find a bed and breakfast to stay at; they were either closed, had no vacancies, were full due to a wedding (the entire town of Westward Ho!), or had a festival on. Eventually, we found a hotel in Bideford, where the festival was. Went to the fair, which had possibly the least amusing fun house in any fair anywhere. Back to the hotel via the pub, and bed.

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Having finally seen a good forecast for more than two days in a row, we decided to try and take the holiday we’d be hoping to take most of the summer, and went to Devon and Cornwall (Judith has never been to Cornwall).

On the way down we stopped off at Cheddar Gorge. The gorge itself was really nice, the caves were wildly overpriced, and you couldn’t just pay for a cave – you had to pay for the cave, a walk, a museum, plus a couple of other things, so it was pretty expensive if you were short of time and just wanted to go in the cave, which we did. So we went for a walk through, and round the top of the gorge instead. We got off the beaten track (i.e. we got lost) and had to take the scenic route, which was quite exciting, as we never knew if we were above a shear drop. We got down ok, albeit through lots of bushes, down rock falls, etc.

We headed off south and at one point we thought we’d never leave Somerset, but eventually got to Devon. Every road in Devon seems to be 1:4 gradient. We ended up in Lynton and Lynmouth on the Exmoor coast. Never been there before, but it turned out to be a really beautiful place, although most famous for a flood (like Boscastle) in 1952, when 34 people died. We bought some food, and watched the surfers, who were doing more paddling than surfing; then went and found somewhere to stay for the night.

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