Heading for home in a vintage VW Beetle

By -
We're in Genoa.

The Italians are a noisy lot. But possibly not as noisy as the Greeks.
This is a beautiful city.

In Via Garibaldi, the grandeur of Italy's largest port hits you right between the eyes.
 
Our hotel was hard to find in a 1969 Beetle in the blistering heat. But it's quirky, just as I like it.
 
 
 
We're heading west today, off to my dad's cousin in Provence before sweeping across to Toulouse to visit a former colleague and catch up with her news. And then it's up to the Dordogne to see our old chef. (I was a publican in a previous life. Christophe became our good friend).

And, then, on Oak Apple Day, King Charles II's birthday, we'll board a cross channel ferry back to Blighty. Bella the Beetle will be dwarfed by all the other vehicles. Here she is coming off the ferry from Corfu to the mainland.
It'll be good to be back home, at least for a while.

But, I have to say, the Corfiots put on a great show for us on our last day on the island. Although it did happen to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the British ceding the seven Ionian islands to Greece.
That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Comments

  1. Pondside25 May 2014 at 18:49

    Safe travels! It's good to come home - if only to look back and consider where you've been, with new eyes.
    Genoa, Provence - names to pique my interest - love the way they roll of the tongue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. maddie26 May 2014 at 17:55

    Thank you, Pondside. It's been an interesting trip.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And it's goodnight from me - I'm closing The World From My Window for the last time

By -
Image
A Happy New Year to you all! Here's hoping that 2020 is peaceful, healthy, everything you hope for and full of blue sky bunting. After twelve happy years, I've decided to give up this blog. I wanted to say a big thanks for all your support. The World from my Window has opened many doors (and indeed windows) for me during that time, including an appearance on Channel 5's  The Gadget Show , and a weekly writing slot on the world's oldest weekly magazine for women, The People's Friend . I love sharing my stories with readers of my Maddie's World column and the People's Friend team are a joy to work with. Long may that continue! Through this blog, I've had a loyal host of followers from all over the globe, including particular champions in those dozen years. It's a huge boost and very humbling. Thank you. Since I was a young child, writing has been my thing. I started this blog during a creative writing course with The Open University in 2...
Read more

Just like the Durrells, we moved from Dorset to Corfu, but eight decades later

By -
Image
So, what do you think of it so far? The Durrells , I mean. If you live in the UK, Sunday evenings on the telly have just got a whole lot gentler. The always-watchable Keeley Hawes heads the cast in a series based on Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy. And it's pretty sublime. The warmth and light of Corfu shines through in this very enjoyable series. It's a bit like The Darling Buds of May  only set in Greece. Just the thing for a Sunday evening. It's got me hankering after Corfu, where I lived for a year in 2012-2013. I do pop back there from time to time and I know how lucky I am to have a foot in beautiful West Dorset and another in the jewel of the Ionian (although I have to be careful not to do the splits). Corfu Dorset Just like the Durrells, we left rainy Dorset, pretty much on a whim, for life on a Greek island. Who wouldn't want to up sticks and escape the drudgery of the day job? Especially to Greece. Dorset Corfu But my grown-up g...
Read more

Batten down those hatches, it's recycling day

By -
Image
It's blowing a hooley out there.  The wind is lashing against the windows and the dogs are play fighting in front of the Aga before one of them goes too far and I have to break up the party. It's recycling day today and the wind knows it, whipping up through the street into the square and down the alleyway from the church to present the village with a soggy mess of paper, cereal packets and plastic all along the side of the road, a twice-monthly confetti for the marriage of consumerism and environmental guilt. You can tell a lot about people from what's in their rubbish. Forget about stealing ID, I'm talking about their character - where they shop, the type of people they are. A small, white bottle with a label denoting that it's  kefir,  a fermented milk drink good for the gut, rolls around my doorstep. It's not mine.  I pick it up to dispose of it and can feel there is still some miracle juice inside. It was clearly not to the user's l...
Read more