On Tuesday we had a change from hiking and took the bus from nearby Los Cristianos to the capital of Tenerife in the north of the island, Santa Cruz. The journey takes about an hour. After coffee at the Opera House we took a bus and tram to the former capital and university and cathedral city of La Laguna.
On Monday we were off to the Teide National Park a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mount Teide is the highest peak in Spain at 3718 metres. There are many trails in the park but Barbara found this one for us which introduced us to the landscape and lead to a crater and was not too strenuous. It was also on the quieter, less frequented side of the mountain.
Last week by invitation of my friend Barbara from Bern I visited Tenerife. This was the first time I’d travelled so far south – to the largest of the Canary Islands 62 miles west of Morocco. Barbara and her husband, Paul, own a beautiful house there on the edge of the small resort of Palm Mar in the very south of the island. This year Barbara and I met with our two other friends from the Cambridge days to celebrate 40 years of friendship.
As I’d decided to spend most of the day at The Hermitage I bought the full price ticket (no reductions for pensioners!) and after a tasty lunch of pumpkin soup and apple pie I headed for the other show. There’s no permanent collection, as far as I understand but the Golden Age portraits are showing for an extended period.
Last weekend I made a short trip to Amsterdam. My Dutch friend, Monique, who joined me on my Irish trip last year, had invited me to her 60th party and I joined up with two Swiss friends (also called Barbara) for the weekend. We all met when I worked in Cambridge and they were at Language School. That summer (1977) Monique and I went to work at a Hotel in the Bernese Alps. We met up with the Barbaras during our time there and have met up over the years ever since in Boscastle, Italy, London, Grindelwald and Amsterdam. Later this year Tenerife is on the cards!
The Hermitage Amsterdam
During November Milady was called to the Jury at Leeds Crown Court and those two (harrowing) weeks were followed by a week busy visiting family and friends in Norwich, London and Surrey and last week preparing for Christmas – writing cards, shopping and buying presents – and planning and packing for THIS week in Switzerland!
The Hart-Montague Trail is primarily a bike trail and it follows a disused railway track between Hart and Montague, two small towns in Oceana and Muskegon Counties in West Michigan just east of the Lake. The trail was the first designated Linear State Park in the US. It’s 24 miles in total and primarily used by cyclists but any non-motorised vehicles may use it and walkers too, of course. No horse riding is allowed, though.
Early morning view of Florence from the Boboli Gardens Terrace
Friday morning dawned dry and promising so, having foregone a wet afternoon there on Thursday, I decided to get packed and hurry over to the Pitti Palace and gain entry to The Boboli Gardens when they opened at 8.15. This gave me about an hour and a half to walk around, check out the most significant features and return to the apartment to collect my bag by 10am and head to the Railway Station to pick up our bus to Pisa Airport. Continue reading
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