The Long Way Home

What an incredible meal we had around the corner from Florence’s central train station last night. Gemmola was as amazed by the pasta as I was. I have the feeling she will have to be dragged kicking and screaming from Italy to Greece.

A centuries-old painting of Christ on a Florence wall, next to a graffiti replica from 2010. Florence’s public walls are covered with ancient artworks.

Florence’s Duomo may be larger, but Milan’s is more spectacular.

Marti lights a candle inside the Duomo.

The Duomo’s dome.

Two examples of a Uffizi exhibition of Caravaggio and others who utilised his style (unfortunately the single piece of Caravaggio’s in the exhibition was the same one used on the promotional posters) – beheadings were a very popular theme.

One hell of a Bella Italiana.

A long day from Menton to Firenze. We took the slower train which was covered by our Eurail pass, and was very scenic.

Marti soaking up Tuscany.

Excuse me, are they… Fonzies?

A wonderful collection of seeds at a Florence nursery. I bought some Cypress tree seeds to plant in Militsa (second from left and three from the top).

As wonderful an innovation as the Ferrari – this pocket espresso is the dimensions of a single butter portion and is just a little deeper, with a mini drinking straw on the front. A bit like a caffeine addict’s hypodermic – or perhaps an epipen for the coffee crazed. I have a few stashed in the kit for emergencies with you-know-who.

312 steps, plus a lot of uphill in between. Martina only climbed them twice without a stitched toe. What a true champ! I’m not sure we’ll miss them, but our campsite at the top is lovely.

What a lovely wedding it was! The interior of the marriage hall was decorated by Jacques Cousteau, the happy train drove us to the reception, where the bubbles refused to disappear, followed by a self-serve dessert in a fantastic ice-cream shop! All right on the sea with lovely company, food and drink.

Here it is. The unveiling of the toe. I could have snapped a beauty just we we hopped out of the sea, but had I put this blog before the stemming of my Gemmola’s gushing toe I would be a single man today.

Gemmola’s pretty dress hangs in the breeze of the olive grove as we prepare to get to the Salle de Marriage.

Martina’s new wedding shoes are… original, shall we say.

You know who you are.

(The following contains descriptions which may be rendered very graphically by your imagination. If you are sensitive, and a non smoker [but only if you are both] please skip this post and search for Frozen Custard instead.)

Yesterday afternoon Martina and I watched South Africa draw with Mexico in the first game of the world cup. We had limped there together and the Sangria was beginning to work nearly as quickly as the anaesthetic was wearing off her little foot.

Along came an older gentleman, fairly incapacitated due to a lack of oxygen in the blood, it seemed. He gurgled through a hole two inches beneath his adam’s apple. Struggling to speak, he loosened his scarf and pulled out a small mirror to inspect the excavation. Then he proceeded to gurgle up a cacophony of substances. ‘Gurgle’ does not really capture the sound: imagine a symphony of cement and gravel being shoveled, backed by several imbalanced dice being rolled in a wooden dice-thrower, and accompanied by some twangs of out-of-tune, about to snap vocal chords. Or, imagine a digeridoo, lined with two inches of slimy, un-homogenised mucous, playing Carmina Burana, kept in rhythm with the repetition of a bushman’s saw rasping through a rotting redgum railway sleeper.

The stage is set. After several bars of the symphony a set of very long tweezers – a conductor’s baton – pause the chamber reheasal. With eyes firmly on the mirrored excavation, the conductor reaches inside and grasps first slime, then bloody mucous, now something indistiguishable. The baton is inspected and hurriedly wiped on a tissue each time before being reinserted. And each time the conductor reaches too far, he winces as the pointy metal hits the back of his oesophagus.

The show has many encores, bur we cannot stay on. My companion’s blood loss, shock, stitches and waning anaesthic have proven too strong an oers d’oevre for such a dramatic concerto. We must leave.

South Africa 1, Mexico 1. My smoker friends 0, when you do this to yourself and expect my companionship.

(Well-paid job offers with anti-smoking agencies may be forwarded to ahatzis(at)tpg.com.au)

I must get back to breakfast. Aurevoir!

It was only three stitches. Here’s Martina’s new footwear, after I taped her flip-flop to her foot. Ingenious, if I do say so myself. (When the dressing is changed, I promise a more gruesome photo). Sadly, we missed a lovely long lunch with Abi and Adam.

Marti kicked what she thought was a rock while treading water at the casino beach in Menton. I think it must have been a broken bottle. The cut runs along the length of the top of her second toe on the right foot, clean, an inch long, and to the bone. Filleted, disected, like de-boning a chicken thigh (her toes are much more attractive than a chicken thigh of course). She’s being stitched up in emergency as I write this. They wouldn’t let me in with her, so I asked the doctor as he wheeled her away to give her a tetanus shot for being naughty. There was a lot of blood initially but we taped it up and got a taxi. She nearly fainted, probably from shock. My guess: six stitches.

Waiting in emergency:

My temporary tape-up:

It was quite a hike from the train station to Saint Michel campground. The altitude increased 1000 feet over a distance of 800 meters! Our bag didn’t help. But is beautiful up here – our tent is in quite an old olive grove.

The view over Menton from about half way up our climb to the campsite..!

There’s someone in my tent again!