Author Archives: Steve Walker

About Steve Walker

Once a tech in-house PR type, now professional photo/videographer and recreational drone pilot. Violinist. Flautist. Occasional conductor. Oenophile.

Ready, Aim, Firenze!

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Tuesday 6 May 2025 – And so the adventure begins!

As is normal with us, we can tell that we’re travelling because we have to get up at an obscure hour of the day. In today’s case, it was an 0500 alarm in order to catch a flight to Florence, so that we could have a few days’ kulcher in advance of starting the long walk to Rome, which peregrination is the main reason for being in The Foreign.

We had treated ourselves to a night in the Sofitel by Heathrow Terminal 5 to mitigate the early start by as much as possible. Upon reflection, we could quite easily have simply started from home on the same schedule, but never mind; it started to get us into the rhythm of living out of suitcase, as we will be doing for the next month.

Courtesy of last year’s extravagant travel schedule, I find myself at the Silver level in BA’s club, which gave us priority check-in and access to the club lounge and an opportunity to snarf some free fruit and yoghurt rather than paying £28 per head for the same service at the Softel. Lots has been written about BA’s service, much of it uncomplimentary, but in their defence I have to point out that Marmite is available in their lounge; a lot may thus be forgiven. And actually everything went pretty smoothly on the flight, despite the fact that the aeroplane was parked up at Terminal 3, which necessitated a bus journey long enough to make us wonder whether the driver actually knew the way. But she found us a plane and we piled on board, Jane by the window and me on a middle seat.

Which was OK until it became clear that the aisle seat next to me had been reserved by a very overweight person, who I felt should either have paid for two seats, or possibly reimbursed me the proportion of my space that she occupied. I dealt with this is the only way a British chap can; by saying nothing and pretending not to be aggrieved whilst hoping that my seething indignation somehow conveyed itself to my right.

And I was unable to finish the Super Fiendish Sudoku! Still, it was nice to see the tips of the Alps poking through the clouds as we flew over them.

Our luggage arrived into the baggage hall very shortly after we did, which was nice, and there was a very affable chap awaiting us to whisk us to our hotel in Florence, the Hotel Camilla. At reception, we were greeted by the very affable and capable Jessica, but only after we’d puffed our way up two storeys of really quite chunky steps. Also, it’s a listed building, so no lift is ever going to be possible. The room we have is perfectly nice, has a decent view out of the window,

and, importantly, a kettle, which held the prospect of combining nicely with the bags of Twining’s finest Earl Grey we’d brought with us. But first, we had A Mission with some important objectives: lunch; a pharmacy to buy the sunscreen we’d forgotten to pack; and some kind of bag to carry stuff around when sightseeing. We haven’t travelled since October, and we’re a bit out of practice, it would seem.

Jessica recommended a pharmacy and a fruitful area for lunch prospecting and so off we set, into the narrow, crowded streets of Florence.

The hotel’s location is pretty good – well done to WalkThe Camino.com for its choice. We are very near many of the major sights of Florence, such as the humble San Lorenzo Basilica

built when Florence took a dose of its own Medici. It’s actually larger than the cathedral, which was built by the Medicis from their own money, so I suppose they deserved this cute little chapel. We popped inside to take a look.

Without being overwheming it’s quite spectactular, with a marvellous ceiling,

some major artworks,

St. Lawrence being griddled

The Annunciation

some major carvery by Donatello,

Originally a pulpit – careful examination reveals a door

and a lovely cloister courtyard

featuring some very eye-catching statuary.

Further works by the sculptor, Andrea Roggi, are outside the Basilica, but many were draped in unattractive punters, and so were photographically unrewarding. This one – Tree of Life – is very impressive.

Next stop was for some lunch, taken pleasantly al fresco outside Trattoria Antellesi, to fortify ourselves for some more wandering about. For it is given that when Jane and Steve visit a place, they go for a walk. Obviously.

Jane suggested a route which led past the astonishingly large central market, which is both outdoor (hugely redolent of Italian leather)

and indoors.

Our path then took us to the Duomo, the main cathedral of Florence. Having only seen this photo

and not really appreciated any of the detail in it, I was unprepared for the impact it had on me. It is simply staggering.

The colour, the detail, the scope – amazing.

and it really annoys me that people, faced with such majestic beauty, want nothing more than to interpose themselves as foreground interest.

Walking round it reveals that the brightness and colour has been the result of some considerable work; other areas are awaiting attention

but will, I’m sure, display the signature white and green colours in due course. One can see some progress has been made elsewhere.

Another obvious Thing To Do in Florence is to visit the Ponte Vecchio, so we headed off in that direction, past various slabs of Florentine masonry,

eventually arriving at the crowded bridge

before finding our way along the river so that we could look back at it to appreciate it better.

Others, of course, were less taken with the view.

We passed a couple of interesting sights. This rendering of the Mona Lisa

was worth a closer look.

and we caught a glimpse of the Bacchus Fountain in the Pitti Palace

as I searched for a possible place for launching a drone for an aerial shot. I think I’m going to be unlucky in that; drones are, unsurprisingly, not allowed in the city, but I remain hopeful that I can find somewhere legit to launch for a quick photo.

There were, unsurprisingly, many artistic touches to be seen across our short walk, including coats of arms on the sides of buildings, such as this one of the Medici family,

and a couple of statues as enigmatic as they were large.

No, it’s not clear what these figures represent. That’s Art for you, innit?

We returned to the hotel to find that the sainted Jessica had provided some milk, which meant that we could induge in a restorative cup or two of Twinings finest Earl Grey.

We have a proper formal guided tour to look forward to tomorrow, so that we may learn a little more of the history and culture of this remarkable city, and so that I might be able to make better informed comment about what we’ve seen. Do please come back to find out if this actually is the case, won’t you?

Another Long Walk In The Foreign

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We successfully walked the French route of the Camino de Santiago nearly two years ago. The memories of tedious uphill slogging, being occasionally either fried or drenched and getting fed up with crowds of ~~pilgrims~~ punters on the final stretch have faded sufficiently that Jane and I have decided we should undertake another major ~~slog~~ pilgrimage route in The Foreign; the Via Francigena, in Italy.

When we Jane first came up with the idea, we thought that this was the pilgrimage route for another saint, Saint Francis of Assisi.

It isn’t. That one is the Via di Francesco, which is so obscure it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry! Its route runs a more northerly course through Umbria, passing through Assisi before eventually jinking south to end in Rome

The Via Francigena in its entirety runs from Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome, and then to Apulia, Italy, where there were ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. It gets its name from France: the route was first documented as the “Lombard Way”, and was first called the Iter Francorum (the “Frankish Route”) in the Itinerarium sancti Willibaldi of 725 (how can you tell that it does have a Wikipedia entry, eh?) .

We’re not walking all of it. Not, at least, on this occasion. Under the auspices of the excellent Walk The Camino who organised our Santiago excursion, we’re walking the section which runs from Lucca to Rome.

and it’s not on the straight and level, I can tell you.

It’s not quite as daunting as the Pyrenees crossing that the Camino Francés demands and overall it’s only (only!) half the distance, but we’re quietly confident that we’ll be much fitter if when we return home after the walk, which will take us about four weeks.

It would, of course, be madness to go to this area of Italy without visiting Florence (where I’ve never been) and Pisa, as well as spending a little time exploring Lucca. So we’ll do that before setting off from Altopascio, just up the road from Lucca. En route we’ll pass through Siena (if it hasn’t been burnt by the time we get there). We’ll also spend time in a place called Montefiascone, where I hope nominative determinism is at least temporarily on hold.

The photographic element will vary a little from the previous Camino routes we’ve walked, in that I will use a Proper Camera, rather than the phone, to take pictures. It’s a long walk and I don’t want to lug a Big Camera all that way, so I will take a newly-acquired Sony RX100 VII, which, in a pocketable form factor, is the equivalent of my Nikon setup (24-200mm equivalent lens). It will be interesting to see whether it does the job or whether I go back to using my phone for speed and convenience. In theory, I’ll get better quality images from the Sony.

As is usual with these long walks Day One Is A Bastard (why do organisers always seem to set it up this way?) – 29 km, or 18 miles in the old money (the last time I plan to use it, by the way – everything henceforth will be metric). So: long. And not flat, either.

Therefore we thought we ought to have a bit of a practice. Everything round our way is rather flat, but at least we could simulate the distance via three excursions around the local roads and paths.

That was yesterday. We made it, though we were both footsore and weary by the end.

The rest of the journey will unfold in these pages, and we’d be delighted if you want to follow our progress. If you haven’t already subscribed to the pages, then all you need to do is to leave a comment somewhere and tick the box that says “keep me updated” and – lo! – you’ll be able to received e-mail updates as I write them.

Our journey starts on May 6th; see you then, I hope!

Cairns: I had Crocodile in Dundee’s

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Tuesday 8 October 2024 – Our journey home started yesterday with the short flight from Lizard Island to Cairns, which didn’t produce any more memorable photos than the journey up. When we got to the Hinterland terminal, we found that there was someone prepared to transfer us to our hotel, the Crystalbrook Riley. Whether this was Hinterland being service-oriented or the tendrils of the Lizard Island resort reaching out, I don’t know. Whatever, it was very welcome; and the chap who drove us there was an ex-scouser called Steve. His family had come over as ten-pound poms and he’d lost any trace of his Liverpool accent, but he was very interesting to listen to. It wasn’t quite like a London cabbie saying “‘ere, do you know who I ‘ad the back of me cab the other day?” but he seems to have driven a lot of people around – Lee Marvin, George Harrison (who lived on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef for several years), various politicians; he was also interesting on the subject of the development of Cairns, which was once just a frontier town popular for visits by people doing Big Fishing. He was also good enough to drive us a little along the Esplanade and show us some of the older buildings in Cairns.

Another interesting nugget that he divulged was that yesterday, October 7, was a public holiday to celebrate the King’s birthday. This is, we read, a Queensland Special; other states celebrate the King’s birthday at other times, many of them in June, to coincide with his official birthday in the UK. I suppose Queensland decided that it wanted a spring bank holiday and our Chas was a good, if tenuous, excuse. Steve’s final contribution was a venue recommendation for dinner.

We relaxed at the hotel for a couple of hours, as we were both beginning to feel a bit travelled out, to be honest; we’d been on the road for over two months. However, the lure of exploring a new place proved too strong, so we went for a walk. Obviously.

The Riley is on the Esplanade in Cairns. To be honest, as far as I can see, almost all of Cairns is on the Esplanade or just a block away from it; it’s not a large place. Most of the buildings are modern and not particularly tall, but there are some older ones among them. We wanted to get in to St. Monica’s Church, which was opposite the hotel, but it was closed, I guess because public holidays and worship don’t mix here. Next door, though, was a rather nice deco building,

and further along the road were

the law courts, now an art gallery, and

the town hall, now the Cairns Library.

The road these buildings are on is one back from the actual waterside, so we walked over and alongside the water for a bit.

As you can see, it’s mudflats; close examination shows some mangrove roots and one or two small mangrove trees, and I guess they have to work at keeping the mangroves under control, otherwise the whole waterfront would just be a mangrove swamp. The mud seems to be an attractive place for pelicans

and egrets – there were a few, but then again….

The war memorial is by the water

and there’s a Ferris wheel in a waterside park, too. It looked a little short of business, so we stumped up the necessary to have a ride and spun round half a dozen times. It gave us a bit more of a view over the city.

The Ferris wheel is in a park area; it being a sunny and warm public holiday, there were a lot of people around. There was even a bookable public barbecue facility there.

As we headed back towards the hotel, we passed the Cairns Night Markets,

so we popped in for a look around. It’s popular and very colourful, with all sorts of stalls set up,

and the inevitable food court.

We even found a stall that could sell Jane a new hat!

This passed the time agreeably until we could go to our dinner restaurant, which was called Dundee’s at the Aquarium, and which was really quite busy.

You can see that there’s part of the Cairns Aquarium on display; you can buy tickets to go into the aquarium proper, but we contented ourselves with just dinner and gawping at the fish. It’s rather like watching a fire – something that is quite hypnotic and endlessly watchable. The food at the restaurant was very good. One of the items on the menu was Crocodile Spring Rolls, so I can say that I’ve had Crocodile at Dundee’s.

We had just the one night at the hotel, which has an attractive atrium

and some nice artwork

by Wayne “Liwingu” McGinness. It also has a very large pool area outside which makes it a very family-friendly hotel, something that impinged on us particularly at breakfast time this morning as there were many, many families there, with many, many kids, not all of whom were sitting quietly and eating their cornflakes.

And now it really is time to go home – a process that takes some 30 hours. The route is Cairns – Brisbane – Singapore – London; all of the flights are with Singapore Airlines, but the first leg was a code share with Virgin Australia, which made us wonder if we would have to retrieve our bags at Brisbane and take them across to the international terminal there. We were delighted that Virgin were able to check the bags right through to London. The transfer between terminals at Brisbane enabled us to have one final glimpse of the city’s skyline

before we were sucked into the vortex of airport terminals and aeroplanes that we hope will spit us (and our bags) out at Heathrow.

As I write this, we’re currently sitting in Singapore airport awaiting our final flight, with heads full of all the things we’ve seen and done, fond memories of all the friends we’ve met and laughed with and mixed feelings about going home to a cold, wet and dark Britain. It would be great to stay on and enjoy the warmth of the weather and the people; but equally two months is a long time to be away, and it will be nice to be home, despite the weather. We’ve covered quite a lot of this huge place and many people have asked us what has been our favourite bit of our travels.

The answer? All of it.