I’ve come to the conclusion that I prefer travelling alone. I love spending holidays with family and friends but the actual travel section; getting to the airport, waiting around and then flying, well it always seems such a palava when your with other people. When your on your own you can just do your own thing, and your not held by anyone elses time limits or dragged into the nightmare of someone else forgetting their passport or taking another persons bag (cough cough Arthur).
Although on Sunday evening, when I travelled to Italy I wouldn’t of minded another person being with me as I was so bored!! My flight to Rome was leaving Gatwick on Monday at 6am which meant check-in was at 4am and instead of getting a taxi to the airport which is pretty expensive I decided to go up the night before. So I set off at 9pm on Sunday night and arrived in Gatwick at about 11pm. That was the easy bit of the journey! Not that the rest was strenuous, it was just exceedingly dull. I hate falling asleep at airports when I’m on my own just in case something happens like my luggage gets nicked so I decided I was going to wait it out. Well, it was a long night! Why does time pass so slowly when you are not doing anything?! There are only so many books that you can read and I devoured two, actually ‘The American Wife’ by Curtis Sittenfeld is a fantastic novel and I really recommend it. But anyhow, back to Gatwick and people watching. People watching kept me sane, as there is so much you can imagine about a person as they wander by. There are so many characters off on their travels and you can’t help but imagine what sort of adventures they are embarking on, and after 5 coffees and 4 red bulls you’re mind goes into overdrive. I was living in a fantasy world and it was definitely preferable to reality; uncomfy seats, bad coffee and utter exhaustion. But, I made it to Italy eventually, although I can’t say I say much of it the first day as I just slept as soon as I got to the B&B in Tivoli.
After missing out on exploring Villa Adriana the day before I was determined I would do some sightseeing on Tuesday, after all we were leaving on Wednesday morning. So we were up bright and early ready ready to wander over to Villa d’Este . The interior of the Palace is lovely with incredible fresco’s upon the walls and ceilings but it is the gardens that were truly breathtaking. I have never seen quite so many water fountains in one place. There were fountains that ingeniously played music, a long row of fountains called the Hundred Fountains where the water fills a rustic trough and each carved face is so charismatic it makes you giggle.
My particular favorite was the Fontana dell’Ovato (Oval Fountain) where water cascaded from a basin into a pool set against a nymphaeum which was gorgeous.
It was such a perfect day for a visit as well because it was so sunny and hot which meant the gardens and fountains were extremely refreshing and you could appreciate them all the more for it.
In the afternoon Dad and I went for a drive to see the views and got a little lost following all the little roads. Dinner in the evening was also lovely, we found a restaurant just off the main street which served a very good seafood pasta..mmm. Then it was back to the B&B to sleep as Wednesday was another early start, well I tried to sleep anyway but there was a screaming kid upstairs intent on waking the whole neighbourhood so I sort of dozed.
Travel, travel, travel; up at 5 to get to Rome for our flight to Nice. We flew with Blu Express which I think is like the Italian equivalent of Ryan air as it’s a bit of a bargain. The flight was fine I suppose, I just slept the entire way threw it and we got our bags really quickly so that was great. We only hit a problem when we got to the hire car place, Europcar, and discovered that they hadn’t bothered to get a car ready for us so we proceeded to wait for 2 hours till they found a suitable replacement. Then we were on our way to Biot, well only after dad went the wrong way on the motorway and stalled the car three times, and he takes the piss out of my driving skills?!
My Aunt, Uncle and their two boys live in a little town called Biot which is about 4 km from the Mediterranean beaches between Antibes and Nice. I absolutely love spending time here as it is such a picturesque little town and it is renowned for it’s glass-making. They live in Upper Biot, which means they have an incredible view from their balcony overlooking the entire town and beyond. We arrived just in time for lunch and my Aunts twin sister and her family were joining us as well so we had a feast including some gorgeous figs picked from the neighbours garden.
We have a week here now until we have to return to the drudgery of England and I plan on enjoying every minute, and I promise I will put pictures up when I return.
Au revoir
