Image by palmamod via Flickr

We just got back from Cagliari, Sardinia, where we spent some time enjoying the Summer sunshine. I only got round to taking a week off, while Gioia had an extra week before I joined her (which was good, so she could bake and get tanned before I arrived so that we could go to the beach at pensioners’ hours to avoid sunburns on my end).

The only negative thing of this break was the Serie A players’ strike which cancelled all games of the first game-day, including of course Cagliari – AC Milan which we had planned to go and see. But other than that, it was thoroughly awesome.

Most of the time was spent on the beach, eating, or a combination of the two. That is to say, proper holiday. It was nice of course to go to the main city beach, the Poetto, but we also travelled a bit more this time, visiting the beach at Mari Pintau (“painted sea”) and (whilst visiting some friends for a proper Italian lunch) at Torre delle Stelle with some awesome friends.

The best bit, however, was the boat trip we took on the second to last day before leaving. A friend of Gioia’s brother’s is a diving instructor, and is based just off Costa Rei, and was extremely kind and saved his entire afternoon to get us around the South-East tip of Sardinia. We got some bread, cheese and salumi at the San Benedetto market, where Gioia’s dad’s butcher shop is, as well as a few drinks, just in case we got thirsty while cruising.

The day was spent jumping in and out of the boat, diving to grab some sea urchins and to spot triggerfish in one of the only places where these can be found in the Mediterranean (seriously, there’s a marked buoy and you can “park the boat nearby and go down and they’re around there!). All of this after we got the only few drops of rain of the whole holiday: we got a bit worried but then soldiered on and had an amazing day.

Before getting back home on the day we stopped at the caddozzo by the Ossigeno football pitches, to have a nice sandwich (sandwich is an understatement), but weren’t left overly impressed.

Some very nice food was enjoyed, however, at Sciue’ Sciue’, a proper pizzeria napoletana in the heart of Cagliari. I like my pizza but usually I’m not a big fan of the way they do the napoletana one (it’s mostly to do with the crust) but was very happy with my calzone.

I was also very happy with the Plasmon ice-cream I had at the Isola del Gelato in Piazza Yenne: it had the exact taste of my favourite biscuits from when I was a kid, exactly that one. They have all sorts of flavours, from Galak to Bounty. You should go.

Shame it was only (for me) a week.

Andalusia with fields full of grain
I have to see you again and again

So you’ve heard about the wonders of our trip to Andalucia (here you can read about Sevilla, Cordoba, Jaen, Granada, Malaga and Sevilla again), but we’d like to share with you some random bits and tips that helped us a lot.

The preparation

We chose the stops on our trip thanks to the lovely people of the interwebs, with a special mention to @Federchicca and her post on, you might have guessed, Andalusia. We only went to 3 of the 6 places she suggested, but until the very last minute we were thinking of visiting Guadix and Gibraltar too.

Once we had our flights booked, we sorted our accommodation via Hotels.com (which, disclosure, is a client at work) for our stay in Granada and HostelBookers for the other destinations. We booked a car from Sixt, which we’ve used in the past (when we went to Portugal) and never had any problem with, making sure the navigator was there. The one thing we should have done earlier and we didn’t was booking the visit to the Alhambra in Granada: we did manage to visit in the end, but only thanks to an Italian couple who sold us their tickets. So if you’re planning to visit Granada, book the tickets as soon as you know you’re going.

Getting around

To avoid getting lost and also astronomical roaming charges, I downloaded OffMaps 2 before leaving. It’s a nice little app that is well worth the one-off cost of the app itself and the extra map packages. It basically allows you to store offline maps (but you might have guessed it by now) and use them with your GPS (which does not use roaming data). It uses OpenStreetMap maps, which are great, and has layers of information from the likes of Wikipedia and Toptable.

Before leaving we also settled for The Rough Guide to Andalucia. The decision was made against the Lonely Planet guide, mostly because of the Rough Guide being more up to date, as well as having slightly better reviews on Amazon.

Other bits and pieces

Despite having used OffMaps to avoid getting lost in the mostly tiny streets of the main provinces in Andalucia, I still managed to have less than decent roaming charges thanks to the likes of Foursquare and Instagram, which I used relatively extensively to avoid forgetting the names of the places we’ve been to. I even managed to become mayor of a couple of places by being there twice!

And that’s pretty much it for our trip to Andalucia. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and that our trip could help you plan and enjoy yours!

Image via Wikipedia

Yep, we’ve come to the end of the journey. After the first stop in Sevilla, Cordoba, Jaen, Granada and Malaga, we returned to Sevilla for just over a day.

Ronda

We left Malaga in the morning with the same miserable weather that graced us the previous day, and took the road through the hills toward Sevilla, with the plan of stopping by at Ronda for lunch. The journey there wasn’t of the most pleasant, as the constant rain and all the twists and turns up and down the hills forced me to pass the wheel on to Gioa for her not to feel sick. The drive, on a nice day, must be fantastic, but that was just not the case.

By lunchtime we had reached Ronda, where, upon recommendation of our Rough Guide, we had a meal at El Porton, the local bullfighters’ favourite tapas bar, where we decided not to go for tapas but instead had nice meat platters. El Porton is only a few yards away from the Plaza de Toros, generally considered one of the most important in Spain for its history and contribution to the art of bullfighting. We didn’t go visit unfortunately, as the weather was really impossible. We made te mistake of having a coffee in the nearby bar: we asked for a “solo” but were presented with a “cafe con leche” instead. A huge one, which basically ruined the whole lunch. Unlucky, really, cause we had very nice coffee throughout the entire trip.

Back to Sevilla

We continued toward Sevilla, and set our GPS to the Triana quarter of town, where we checked-in (physically, and digitally) at the hostel and then handed the car back to the guys at Sixt. We kind of decided to relax and take our time until the flight on the next evening, so we just had a few tapas stops in the Triana area, before heading back to the hostel where, in the meanwhile, some forty 20-year-old Dutch students arrived for the weekend, but we managed to beat them with our precious ar plugs that pretty much saved us on the night.

The following day we attempted to visit the War Museum by Plaza de Espana, but #failed to find it for some reason, or maybe it was misplaced on the guide. No one around the Plaza was able to guide us on where we could find it, so we just left. We headed toward the Museo del Baile Flamenco, which we had attempted to visit the previous week but when we did go they had a show taking place so we could not visit. The museum is very interactive and explains a lot and very clearly, so even if you’re not really into it you can still appreciate it.

We headed back to the hostel, stopping for a last tapa, grabbed the bags and jumped on the bus to the airport, homebound. One last bit of advice: if you are waiting for the very last minute to send your postcards, you will be glad to know that yes you can buy stamps at the airport, and yes you can send them from there. The only thing is, you need to go through security as they sell the stamps there, but then the post box is outside it, so you need to head back and go through security again once you got the stamps. Retarded, maybe?

Image by palmamod via Flickr

We left Granada (after stopping in Sevilla, Corboba and Jaen) and headed toward Malaga. Malaga is the capital of the province by the same name, and was our only planned stop by the sea, which Gioia was particularly looking forward to.

Unlike the previous drives so far in the trip, we decided to avoid the main roads  and motorways and headed toward the mountains and the Zafarraya pass. On the way there we stopped by the stunning Embalse Los Bermejales, a reservoir just by Arenas del Rey, a small town in the south-western corner of the Granada province.

We stopped after a short continuation on our journey and had some tapas for lunch in the main square in Alhama de Granada, a spa town 50km from Granada. Historically it played an important strategic role for the Moors as it was on the main route between Malaga and Granada, overlooking the connection between the Spanish territories and the main port connecting the African homelands.

We proceded towards the Zafarraya pass and took the downhill road towards Velez-Malaga, then returning on the motorway along the seaside towards Malaga.

Malaga

We arrived in Malaga on Thurdsay in the early afternoon, and stopped briefly at the Hostel, Villa Alicia. The weather forecast suggested we were by far better off running at the beach as quickly as possible to make the most of the April sunshine, given the following day was supposed to be raining. So we headed to Pedregalejo, the main beach within the city, and just relaxed under the sunshine. We had a fantastic dinner at one of the many bars on the paseo del Pedregal, and just had a nice walk down the beach before heading back for a nice rest.

Needless to say, the following day was indeed raining. We took our time and decided to visit Picasso’s birthplace and the Museo Picasso. It was interesting to see how the Picasso Foundation described Picasso’s early years in Malaga, when he actually left for Madrid and never quite wanted to go back to his home town.

We stopped for lunch at El Pimpi, one of the best known bodega-bar in town, full of celebrity pictures on the wall. We weren’t overly impressed, however, and headed back to the hostel to (of course) check on the Royal Wedding. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent lazying around, going out again in the centre of town and generally relaxing.

Overall, we can’t really say we liked or disliked the city, we probably spent too little time there and the weather didn’t help. After less than 48 hours, in fact, we were back on the move and headed back to Sevilla.

Before Granada, we stopped in Seville, Cordoba and Jaen.

Granada was after Seville the city we were most impressed by. It welcomed us with good weather, a convenient hotel and an unforgettable Jamon Iberico (which now I understand is nowhere near the Jamon Serrano and it’s ten times nicer) and two glasses of Rioja. The bar where we stopped at was actually one of the oldest in Granada with a very familiar staff. The pictures above speak for themselves.

That night we ended up in a very small bar in a hidden street where we got small beers for 1.50€ and tapas accompanying them for free. There we met the owner, a Belgian guy in his thirties who came to Granada on holiday seven year ago and he never left. He was now looking for a new experience maybe India, maybe Thailand.

We reached the Alhambra several times. When you read book in advance for your tickets they really mean it. Booked our flights and accommodation months in advance but left this to the last minute ending up in booking a night visit of the Generalife (one of the buildings of the Alhambra complex) only. The night visit was nice mainly because it forces you to use/focus on other senses than the sight, you walk in a garden of roses and oranges, under the stars, all very nice. On the other hand the visit is quite short, there’s not much to visit and little to see because of the dark, so maybe a bit too pricy for what it offers in the end. The same morning on the queue to the ticket office we met an Italian couple, who offered to sell us their tickets to the morning visit to the palaces because their travel agent had made a mistake booking them for the following day, after their return home. Yuhuu!

Please note that there’s something to see all around the Alhambra free of charge, you pay to enter the palaces mainly, but you can still walk around them and enjoy the fresh air and the landscape.

Also worth visiting in Granada is the Supramonte borough, where the gipsies live and the most famous flamenco bars are. This is where you can appreciate the city bests landscape. We visited the Museo of the gipsy women, free of charge, in a cave house where a guy told us a lot about their history, traditions etc. I felt like I knew loats about it after watching “My fat gipsy wedding” on Channel 4.

Granada sound so far like the kind of perfect city should we wish to relocate one day. It’s half an hour from the mountains, very convenient for Matteo to ski, and not very far to the beach for me…

But also very cold in winters and very hot in summers and little jobs. Maybe one day…

We left Granada and headed towards Malaga.

Here you can read about of first two stops on our trip, Sevilla and Cordoba.

We left you when we were just about to leave to Granada from Cordoba. On the way to Granada though, we took a minor diversion and stopped in Jaen. The Rough Guide didn’t really picture it too nicely, but we have friends there so we stopped for part of the afternoon. It’s impressive how useful Facebook could be sometimes. It has been seven years I had not seen my friend Antonio but thinking about all the good times we had going out together during his Erasmus in Sardinia, it sounded like a good idea to get in touch and try to meet.

It was somehow an unexpected surprise because of our “guide” (a friend, a local and an archeologist), but the town is very nice and has some interesting stories to tell especially if you are after catholic little gems and very nice tapas. I took the opportunity to ask some questions about why is it ok to throw cigarettes and olive bones on the floor, as well as the difference between aceituna and oliva (whilst in Italian and English the word is the same): aceituna is the fruit and the oliva is the tree. We strongly recommend to reach Jaen’s parador which on a nice day is stunning. Locals go there for drinks at night, and people go for special occasions to the hotel which still conserves medioeval features and can be visited.

We pretty much only stayed for the afternoon, and then left for Granada.

Here you can read about the first stop in our trip to Andalucia, Seville

We made our way to Cordoba and fortunately managed to leave the fog behind us, and when we got there the sun was very warm. Now, if you’re planning to stay in Cordoba and you get there by car, don’t follow your sat-nav to the city centre but try to remain on the main, wider roads. We had a nightmare to find parking space and in the end we parked on Avenida de la Republica Argentina, some 20 minute walk from the hotel, but for someone coming from London where you walk everywhere, it was worth walking because the parking ticket was less tha 2€ for 24 hours.

Cordoba is a nice little city, its historical centre lying at the bottom of a hill, with very narrow streets. Its masterpiece is without the shadow of a doubt the Mezquita, a Visigothic church turned into an impressive mosque and expanded in successive phases of the Moorish domination.

The Arab baths were nowhere near as nice as the ones in Sevilla, it had the feeling of a waiting room at the walk-in centre. The changing rooms are very small and crowded, the place itself smell not good and it is not even cheaper than Seville. Another thing we didn’t like was that there was no intimacy at all, you could watch the others getting a massage which to me doesn’t sounds or look relaxing at all. So, if you plan on visiting one or the other go for Sevilla without thinking about it twice.

In the evening we visited the modern centre of the city, it is worth exploring, following the little narrow streets famous for their flowers.

The following morning we visited the Alcazares de los Reyes Cristianos, which are not as nice as their Sevilla counterpart but have a very nice garden. We visited early on a sunny morning before leaving the town and it was well worth it.

We then left and got on the motorway to Granada, which we’ll tell you about in the next post.

Hey fellas, a quick (?) post to update you on our Bank Holidays break (not the latest one though, we’ve been a bit slow). We had a tough time deciding where to go once we found out we could have gone away for 10 days with only 3 days off work, courtesy of the Easter weekend and the Royal Wedding before the Bank Holiday. We had originally thought about going to Turkey, doing a bit of a cultural trip between Istanbul and the western coast. Then we thought about a round-trip of Morocco, but the unrest in Algeria, Egypt and Lybia kind of made us change our mind.

We opted for the South of Spain, mor precisely for Andalusia. We had both been to Spain briefly in the past, but never in the area, so it seemed like a good choice. After some research we decided to fly into Sevilla, move on to Cordoba, Granada, Malaga and then Sevilla again to catch the fly back to London. And, despite threats of a strike in those days, we actually made it.

Sevilla

When we got to the Sevilla Inn Backpackers we met Marco, an Italian guy who had recently moved to Sevilla and invited us to join him on a bar crawl around town. Needless to say we accepted, so we joined a group of about 10-15 people who were staying at different hostels, and enjoyed an evening of chatter, beer, honey rum and caramel vodka. London looks like a huge city where it’s difficult to bump into familiar faces… but here we go, first round of tapas and drinks and we immediately met a lady who worked with a collegue of mine at the FT! I’m shocked, as far as you travel from London you will always find a connection or a friend.

The city itself is beautiful and vibrant, of course not as hectic as London but, maybe because of the Semana Santa (which is the biggest celebration of the year in Andalusia, likely the most religious region in catholic Spain) there was loads of people around. We managed to avoid the most crowded streets during the processions, so overall it was much more manageable than we had originally thought.

The two most iconic landmarks are without a doubt the Cathedral and the Real Alcazar, both impressive remains of the Moorish dominance in the region. At the Alcazares I bought an amazing neroli parfume called “Agua de colonia – Flor de azahar”, the only souvenir from Andalucia. Seville and Andalucia smell of orange flowers and olive oil; trying to bring home those parfumes was the best souvenir ever and I’ve now got it in London… every morning.

Less Moorish but equally impressive was the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, the oldest bullring in Spain, where on Easter day the bullfight started for the year. The tour was very interesting and we learnt about the way bullfights developed, about the fact that cats used to be thrown in the arena, that one or two ears of the bull go to the toreador at the end of the fight, and that the bull always die and the beef is then sold in restaurants and markets. It may sound like a stupid comment but you know it is a bit of a cruel show and I’ve never wanted to know the truth, hoping at least some bulls managed to save their lives. Apparently toreadores are really wealthy and when they become popular they get to earn up to 150.000€ per show.

One of the most amazing things was the Aire de Sevilla, the Moorish baths: we had booked a 2-hour session. After reading a not too good review about the banos arabes in Granada we decided to opt for the Seville option which was better rated, and I can now say that was a brilliant idea. If you ever go to Andalucia, stop for 1 hour and a half to experience the baths and enjoy the athmosphere. All in the shadow we experienced the pools in complete intimacy, we felt like it was been reserved for the two of us and that was magic. No loud people chatting, no crowded pools, herbal tea when we wanted. For about 24€ we came out brand new and super happy. I strongly reccommend this one, there’s no contest with the one in Cordoba.

We finished the evening with more tapas and beers just enjoying the movida around us where it looked like, no one could stop eating, just like us.

Before leaving Seville we decided to visit the Archivo General de Indias, with all its maps, travellers’ stories and the history it hosts. It is an extrememly fascinating place to visit, and it collects all accounts of conquers, trades and people from what used to be one of the greatest empires ever.

It was free to enter and we could have spent ages reading about everything, but the archive was closing so we had to leave quicker than we wanted to.

After 3 very busy days, we left for Cordoba!

Image via Wikipedia

Last week was the best one we’ve had so far this year weather-wise, and quite surprisingly this lasted (and actually got even better) throughout the weekend. This came pretty handy when we left on Sunday morning to go and visit our friends in Henley-on-Thames.

Henley-on-Thames is a small town on the River Thames (clue is in the name, got it?), just north of Reading, and easily reachable from Oxford and indeed London as it’s only about an hour and 15 minutes from Paddington with (or sometimes without) a train change at nearby Twyford, in Berkshire. We had a lovely chippy meal just by the banks Thames courtesy of Loch Fyne on the main street, which we enjoyed under the April (unusual) sunshine with some very appropriate pear cider. We had a nice chat around the usual stuff, you know, events, social media, blogging and the like. The usual suspects of our conversation topics, really.

Some family needs brought us back in town and we had some proper coffee (Rancilio and Pantone mugs #FTW) before heading to the local Lovibonds brewery, where we enjoyed a few drinks of their lovely brew in the afternoon sunshine and discussed how being Italians abroad is making us see the place where we are now and how it is making us see Italy from the distance. Things like the NHS or the Italian embassy, driving licences and politics, the whole lot. I really enjoyed the brewery, it’s only open like 16 hours pr week over the weekend and it’s in a very “agriturismo” environment which we really liked. See, if only the weather was this nice more often, we could have much more of this…

It was nice to meet @fabivs, too, after a while of online chit-chat. You should follow him, he’s cool.

(On a side note, don’t rely on Twyford Rail Station toilets to be open on a Sunday afternoon, ever.)

We’ve always wanted to go and visit Bath for many reasons…

• It is not that far from London
• Jane Austen
• The Roman Thermae Spa

Travelling to Bath from London is not that cheap: a return ticket costs in fact about 48£ per person.

This is why we decided to go straight away when we heard about the offer going on with the Oyster Card from the 26th June for a Month: you can travel to lots of different destinations in England from as little as 5£ each way, or get discounts on other activities within London itself.

The main reason for a visit to Bath was indeed my link to the author who spent a couple of years in the city as well as many people’s description of its beauty.

I’m not a Jane Austen person if with this term you think I’m desperately in love with romantic stories at all costs and a very feminist view of life, but I had to spend lots of time studying her works and life at Uni… and since then we’ve never left each other.

Jane is in fact mentioned in most books, sometimes on newspapers and magazines, for some reasons. So after years of hate and love the relationship with Jane has become more peaceful so that we’ve decided to go and visit her for a Tea.

Bath is a beautiful small city not very far from London. It only takes about a hour and a half from Paddington Station. The surroundings are stunning and as you approach the city becomes clear why this place is so beautiful.

From the train station the city centre is just a few minutes walk.

You can purchase a Visitor Card online or from the tourist centre for as little as 3£ we didn’t buy it this time but I’m sure it is convenient for anyone staying a little bit longer than just an afternoon or so.

We went through most of the main attractions in the city, Including the Sally Lunn’s Refreshments House and Museum, The Cathedral, The Roman Thermae, The Jane Austen Museum, The Circus and the park.

It is all worth a visit but most of all the Thermae are a must. The ticket is not cheap. It costs about 11£ pp but it couldn’t be avoided… is like going to Rome and not visiting the Colosseum I guess.

Before visiting Jane Austen we stopped at a nice café opened for lunch so we dined al fresco with nice panini and a small jug of Pimm’s to share. How British are we becoming?

The Jane Austen museum wasn’t as good as I did imagine: the ticket costs about 6.50£. Every 20 minutes or so you can enter a room where a very nice lady tells you more about life and works of the dear author, but apart from that you can have access at the museum which can be visited in 5 minutes, with general reproductions of portraits and clothes of that time. Then you can sit down and watch a very quick video… and then leave, but not before greeting Jane Austen at the door!

We also decided to stay a bit longer for the experience of having a tea in the Regency tea room, which unfortunately doesn’t have a terrace and is very tiny, so it’s a shame a so pricey museum doesn’t offer as much as it maybe could.

The real house where Jane Austen lived is on the same street at 25 Gay Street where at the moment there’s a dentist.

It was a beautiful warm and sunny day in Bath so we decided to spend the last hour or so at the Park.

Altogether Bath is definitely one of the most charming cities in England we’ve visited so far and we are very looking forward to go back again… maybe for a SPA weekend?