Tag Archives: Religion

Aiming for Pisa mind

Friday 9 May 2025 – Our target today was to get to Pisa, meet our friend Caroline, who will be joining us for some of our walk on the Via Francigena, and meet a guide at 3pm in order to have a guided tour. We weren’t quite sure of what; of course there’s the famous leaning tower*, but the guide was due to meet us at the hotel, which was some 15 minutes walk from the site of the tower. Was there anything else worth seeing in the town of Pisa apart from the tower? In the end, it didn’t matter, as you’ll find out of you stay with me, here.

To get to Pisa, we took the train, buying tickets online from TrenItalia for a very reasonable €9.30, and finding that one could add them to Google wallet – overall a very neat way of handling the ticket. Then we hefted our cases down the really rather awkward steps leading from the hotel to the ground floor and trundled them, a ten minute walk, to the station.

Inside, it was what a supercilious Brit might call a typical Italian scene – mobs of people all trying to get somewhere else through the press surrounding the departure info board.

Apart from people getting in my fucking way all the time, getting to the train was fine and the rest of the journey proceeded uneventfully for an hour, until we detrained at Pisa. The platform was black with people, but we eventually found our way out to the station forecourt and trundled our bags a further ten minutes to the Hotel Bologna, where, delightfully, both Caroline and our room were waiting for us.

We spent a few minutes sorting ourselves out and then joined Caroline on an expedition to seek coffee. Since we were due to see the tower that afternoon, we didn’t see much point in heading that way, but somehow seemed inexorably to be approaching it. We passed a small but delightfully gothic church, of Santa Maria della Spina,

before crossing the river (the Arno, which also flows through Florence) which offers quite a nice vista,

looking for somewhere to serve us coffee. Having got on one side of the botanical gardens, we couldn’t deviate from the path that was leading us towards the site of the tower, but eventually managed to make a right turn, which led us to a street with lots of restaurants and bars.

We stopped at the first place that looked like it might serve us coffee. By this stage, as I say, we were quite near the campus where the leaning tower is located. The tower is not the only building there; I vaguely remembered from a previous visit, some 23 years ago, that there was a church there, too. From a distance, it looked like there was a decent amount of restoration work going on

and I hoped that this wouldn’t detract from our visit later.

After coffee and a couple of drinks, we decided that it must be lunchtime, and so went in search of somewhere appealing to eat. The street we were on was wall-to-wall restaurants, but they all seemed to have pictures of food outside them, and we are followers of the A A Gill gospel that says any restaurant displaying pictures of their food is best avoided. On a side road, we eventually stumbled across Grano Libero Ristorante senza Glutine, which just seemed to emit the right sort of vibes, so we settled in for some lunch.

And a very fine lunch it was (even though they didn’t have gin). The gluten-free bread they served was really excellent, and vastly superior to any GF bread I’ve ever sampled. We had a plentiful lunch of excellent meats, cheeses and vegetable-based dishes. It would have been nonsensical to walk back to the hotel to meet our guide, so Jane contacted her and arranged that we should meet by the tower.

During my last visit, the tower was closed to visitors because the Powers That Be were worried that the leaningness might imminently turn into falling downness. So I was really hoping that the restorative work that had been carried out over the last quarter century would allow us to climb the tower. As we approached, the auguries were hopeful.

We arrived at the site

and, prompt at 3pm, met the delightful Ilaria, who was to be our guide. It was immediately clear that she knew a vast amount about the history of Pisa. She showed us a map, similar to the one below, which highlighted the historic walls of Pisa.

I hadn’t known about the walls, or indeed much of the history of the place at all. On the map above, our hotel was just south the the river, and the site of the tower, the Piazza del Duomo, is some 15 minutes brisk walk from the hotel. So you can see that this historic Piazza is really very small, and formed only a tiny part of the original city. But, tiny as it is, Ilaria was able to spend three hours giving us an engaging, intensive and educational tour round it.

The site has basically five buildings: the cathedral (consecrated 1118), the baptistry (1363), the tower (started 1173, finished 1372 – long story), a cemetery (1277 – late 15th century) and a hospital (founded 1257, modified at times up to 20th century and now largely used for administrative purposes so we didn’t venture inside). Because it was due to close first, we started in the baptistry.

In contrast to the one in Florence, this is round, rather than octogonal, which was the conventional shape for a baptistry. But the republic of Pisa decided that they wanted a building that was larger than Florence’s – part of a pretty intense rivalry between the two cities. At one stage, Pisa was far richer and more powerful than Florence, but Florence eventually grew to the point where it usurped the power and the position as the principal city.

It has twin domes, actually – an open, conical one and, outside it, a more conventionally-shaped one. This is illustrated in drawings inside.

It’s a wonderful ambience inside the building, and one that can’t really be conveyed photographically.

The conical inner dome gives the place an amazing accoustic, which we were lucky enough to hear demonstrated by a singer,

Ilaria gave us a huge amount of information about details that can be seen in the building. I won’t bore you with too many of them (OK, I can’t remember them that well, either) but there are carvings of exquisite detail, such as these in the central font.

Some of the stained glass represents significant people, typically donors, but one stood out;

Pope John Paul II, of course.

After the baptistry, we went into the church. From my previous visit, I knew there was a church there, but I hadn’t realised what a wonderful facade it has.

Again, Ilaria provided huge amounts of information about the history and details that can be seen both on the outside and

the inside, which is very opulently appointed. The wooden ceiling was destroyed by fire, but was restored in gilded wood, largely with the help of money from the Medicis…

hence the Medici symbol on the coat of arms at the centre of the ceiling. There are many fine things to look at

and again Ilaria provided bewlidering amounts of detail on the history of the place and the provenance of the decor.

Our next visit was to the cemetery.

Along each side are galleries with what were once fine frescoes

but which have been badly affected by a fire caused by an accidental bombing by US forces during the second world war. The fire melted the lead in the roof, which destroyed much of the fresco work and scarred the marble floors; the ongoing restoration is a full time job for 30 people.

Above, you can see an example of the damaged fresco work as well as sarcophagi by the walls and tombs with identifying coats of arms on the floor.

Finally, Ilaria took us to the famous tower and gave us a short history of its construction. It was built in three phases. Even after the first phase, it was clear that the tower was leaning, and the developers of the second and third phases took this into account as they added storeys to it. The result is that the tower is not actually straight – it has a very subtle bend in it away from the direction it leans.

Again, it’s difficult to convey this photogaphically, but you might just be able to discern the bend in the photo above.

Ilaria also gave great detail about how the famous lean developed, shifted from left to right, became dangerous and was eventually tamed thanks to a proposed solution from an Englishman, John Burland, who suggested that the lean could be controlled by (carefully!) excavating the ground from underneath the tower. This was the solution which meant that the tower could be re-opened for people to visit it. So we did, of course. Caroline and I climbed the 251 steps, which run up the inside of the tower in a staircase just wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic. I have to say that it was quite a weird experience, as sometimes the steps tip you one way, sometimes the other; and the very final steps to the top are up a very much narrower spiral staircase, and are potentially quite trappy.

The tower is a bell tower, and there are still bells at the top, though it’s clear that there is no mechanism for ringing them.

There’s a decent view over the city of Pisa from the top,

but to view the church from the top required some awkward squinting into the sun

(Jane had decided not to climb the tower, and, sitting in the museum cafe, was able to take that photo of me trying to get this photo).

Since the tower is hollow, one can look up the central column, where a plumbline has been installed, to emphasis how much the tower leans.

Ilaria’s command of the details of the history and religious significance of the intricacies around the site was truly impressive; our time with her was very concentrated and I haven’t done it any kind of justice above; but I hope you get a flavour of the site.

We had only today in Pisa; tomorrow we travel on to Lucca, which has a reputation of being a very fine place to visit. I hope to be able to demonstrate that in these pages, so stay tuned to find out, eh?

* I couldn’t let this opportunity pass without reviving an old joke about a famous painting of a three-legged dog relieving himself against a lamppost. It was called “The Leaning Pee of Towser”. I’ll get my coat.

After the Camino, part I – Santiago

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Sunday 1 October 2023 – I hope you’ll forgive a couple of days of not posting updates, but I haven’t had a lot of time, what with having Nice Lunches and that. After finishing the Camino last Thursday, we had three nights’ stay in Santiago before moving on. The first day we had a guided tour of the city; the second was spent on a day trip that included two other key Camino destinations. This post is about our time actually spent in the city. The photos are selected from pictures taken on the evening after we finished walking, during our guided tour and after it; no particular order, no particular theme, but I wanted to try to give some impression of the city.

Which is quite overwhelming. Getting back to dealing (a) with life in a bustling city after six weeks in the wilderness and (b) the sheer amount of detail, history and massive religious buildings was quite tricky. But here goes….

Let’s start with some statistics. These were reeled off by our guide, Joaquin,

among a vast gout of information which meant that our brains were full after only about 10 minutes.

Despite its feeling of huge size, Santiago is by no means the largest of the cities we passed through. Burgos has 350,000 residents, and León has over 122,000. Santiago has just 90,000 residents, but receives 2 million overnight stays each year, of which over 300,000 are pilgrims. The resulting crowds, buzz and ubiquity of great lumps of religious masonry means that Santiago felt much the largest of the three to me.

At the heart of the city is the cathedral. It is massive, a very imposing presence across the city.

The above video shows it mainly from the west; in front of it you can see a large square, the Praza do Obradoiro, which is where today’s pilgrims tend to end their Camino. There are also squares on the other three sides: North, the Praza de Inmaculada, the historical end of the Camino, where we bade farewell to Susan and Bob;

with its stunningly intricate façade;

and Praza da Quitana, to the East (pay attention, now; we’ll be returning here later).

To the south of the main bulk of the cathedral lies Praza das Praterias and the cloisters, which we visited as part of our time with Joaquin.

One interesting fact came out of the welter that Joaquin deluged us with – atop one tower is a pyramid shape influenced by the architect’s visit to Mexico where he saw Mayan pyramids. The other tower around the cloister is similarly Aztec-influenced.

In the centre of the cloister courtyard is a huge stone bowl, made in the Romanesque style,

which used to stand in the square to the north of the cathedral – the historical end of the pilgrimage. Its purpose was to enable pilgrims to finally wash and purify themselves as part of their pilgrimage. There were four parts to the ritual:

Wash and purify
Burn the old pilgrim’s robes
Don fresh white robes
Finally wear the cockle shell that the pilgrim had acquired from shell sellers (in the city, rather than by the sea shore)

This then granted a “plenary indulgence” – forgiveness for all past sins. I’ll return to this topic later as well, so better keep paying attention, here.

The cathedral was built between 1035 and 1211, which is a pretty impressive feat of building when you consider the vast size of it. It has been renovated in the 17th and 18th century with the last titivation being in the baroque style. This means that if you look at the building through the eyes of an architect you can see a great mixture of styles: medieval, romanesque and baroque.

Inside the cathedral is probably the most impressive of the three great Camino cathedrals – Burgos, León and Santiago – at least to my eyes. The nave is large

whereas in Burgos, for example, the huge number of fancy chapels around the nave actually served to reduce its area and thus its impact. Notice the hortizontal organ pipes – these are are used for sound effects rather than musical notes. Horizontal pipes were once very common, but almost all other sets have been discarded over the years.

Behind me, as I took the above photo, is the Portico of Glory, the original, and very imposing, entrance to the church. Entrance to the cathedral can be free, but if you want to see the Portico, which has been very carefully and beautifully restored, you have to pay extra and join timed groups of a couple of dozen at a time to stand and marvel at it. That’s all you can do, since the buggers won’t let you take photos of it, or touch it (the sculpted Tree of Jesse bears the marks of millions of pilgrims in the form of the deep imprints of fingers and thumb – but one can no longer place ones fingers into that piece of history).

Another way that the cathedral parts punters from their money concerns the eponymous St. James – Santiago, you’ll remember. His statue forms part of the altar piece, and for an extra consideration, people are allowed to file down into the crypt to view the actual tomb of the Saint, then queue up

and climb up behind the altar to “hug the saint” and whisper their problems to him in the hope of getting inspiration, resolution or absolution.

There is, of course, a wealth of detail in the endless architectural flourishes inside the cathedral. A couple of things stood out for me: some of the original windows at the back of the church,

which predate glass – they are actually wafer-thin slices of alabaster; the original medieval baptismal font, the oldest item in the cathedral, which survived the destruction of the original medieval building by the muslim hordes;

and some of the various chapels around the side of the nave are used for taking confession in various languages.

In my post about Villafranca, I mentioned the concept of Holy Doors – special doors passing through which (along with other flummery) confers a plenary indulgence. The one in the Santiago cathedral is not hugely imposing.

However, if you look at it from the outside, there’s an impressive portal.

Peering through the bars of this portal reveals a dark secret – the portal is kind of a fake. Through the bars, you see

the back end of the original church building! This was deemed to be not impressive enough, and so the façade was put in place to gussy the whole thing up to give it more gravitas.

Another thing the cathedral is famous for is its thurible, which is vast – it weighs 60kg.

On holy days and religious festivals – and, yes, if one is prepared to stump up the necessary moolah – this incense burner, called the Botafumeiro, becomes the centre of a spectacular piece of theatre after communion has been taken at mass.

We were lucky enough to see this twice in one day – from the side, as above and, earlier in the day, from the back, by the Portico of Glory, which was better musically but not so impressive to see.

Joaquin got us into the cathedral early on in the day, which was good because one could take photos without there being too many crowds around. He also took us into the cloisters and the museum, where, as ever, he drowned us with fascinating facts which neither of us can easily remember. Taking of photos in the museum is not allowed (yawn), but I managed to sneak one shot of a prized item,

an alabaster-and-wood altar piece depicting the life of St. James. This is a pilgrimage offering from the 1456 Holy Year of Compostela carved in Nottinghamshire at the behest of “Johanes Gudguar” (thought to be the English priest John Goodyear from the Isle of Wight).

Outside the cathedral, as you can imagine, there’s an ongoing hive of activity, particularly on the huge western square, with pilgrims arriving, sometimes en masse, like this bunch of schoolkids who had just been on a one-day “pilgrimage”

There’s often a piper.

Bordering this western square,

are the Town Hall (on the left above) and the Hospital Real de Santiago de Compostela. This is now a posh Parador Hotel with an impressive entrance with bouncers an’ everyfink

but once it really was a hospital intended for pilgrims. It’s a regrettable fact that around half of pilgrims never made it to Santiago, having died en route, or been killed, or any one of a number of causes. Having arrived in Santiago, a surprisingly large proprortion of them fell sick and many of them died, too – hence the need for the hospital. Originally pilgrims might sleep in the cathedral – women upstairs, men downstairs – but this became intolerable (I’ve heard it said that the huge incense burner was a defense against the smell!) and the hospital took over the brunt of this care. Not all of them survived this care, so, conveniently next door to the Hospital is the Igrexa de San Frutuoso, which is where the bodies went – a funerary church.

Another interesting nugget from Joaquin was that pilgrims who had arrived safe and well often simply stayed in Santiago – I had assumed that they would just go back to where they came from, but this was apparently not the case. So there developed language-based communities of pilgrims across the the city, with French pigrims congregating in one part, Germans in another and so on.

One final piece of cathedraliana: the lightning conductors. There are three in the squares around the cathedral, and at street level they are lead into concrete posts. In the Quintana square (remember that one?) after dark, the street lighting leads to an interesting illusion:

called the “Secret Pilgrim”. See? It was worth paying attention, after all.

Other religious buildings that we noted included the Franciscan Church, just down from our hotel.

To the left in the picture above, you can see a remnant of the old city walls, with the church

therefore being outside the walls – no room for Franciscans in the city, it appears. On the other hand, just outside the cathedral and hence inside the city walls, is the Benedictine Monastery, Mosteiro de San Martiño Pinario. This is so huge that it took me some time to realise that the front, by the cathedral

and the side, considerably nearer our hotel

were actually both parts of the same complex. The monks were once very rich and influential. so between 1835 and 1837, a series of decrees from Juan Álvarez Mendizábal was published, which confiscated, without compensation, monastic land estates. Well, if the dissolution of the monasteries was good enough for Henry VIII, it’s good enough for anyone, that’s clear.

Another subject that Joaquin covered was the pre-Roman history of Santiago, which means Celtic. Something I hadn’t appreciated until walking the Camino was the extent of Celtic population and culture in Spain. Celtic presence may date back as far as the 6th century BC, until their influence was subsumed by the Roman Empire, starting from about the second century BC. There’s still evidence of Celtic culture in the presence of decorative materials (particularly jet) showing Celtic symbols

including a particular Celtic protective gesture to ward off evil.

Other things we saw included the market, Mercado de Abastos

the courtyard of the city library, which has a lovely cloisters

and features a statue of Alonso III de Fonseca, a Galician archbishop and politician and a major supporter of the university of Santiago de Compostela. He is depicted in a pose of deep thought

and not on his mobile phone, after all.

We wandered around other parts of the city, which is handsome

and quite busy in all the areas around the cathedral. We even tried some shopping, as we wanted to buy for friends some of the so-called “Santiago Cake“, the almond cake with the St. James cross outlined on it, which is ubiquitous in these here parts. Seeking out an artisanal shop, we were spoiled for choice

but were allowed a taste test, which was nice of them.

This has only scratched the surface of our time in the city. For example, we had two Very Nice Lunches (a major factor in me not posting before now), at Asador Gonzaba where they served us 95% of a cow, and Casa Marcelo, where they served us what they chose; both very fine meals from very fine establishments. And we walked around for some 12km, almost none of which was on the straight and level – it’s quite the uppy and downy place.

As well as wandering the city, we had, as I mentioned earlier, a day trip to, inter alia, two important Camino destinations. It was an interesting trip and I’ll post about it in the next thrilling instalment. I bet you can’t wait, eh?

Day 14 – Comin’ For To Carry Us Home

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Saturday 28 May 2022 – Rather surprisingly, the wedding didn’t prevent us from sleeping reasonably well. Come the dawn, there was time for a final cup of Twining’s finest Earl Grey as we got up, and another with a brisk breakfast, blessedly (for me) possible as my ulcers were finally beginning to cede control of my mouth back to me. We also got a reasonably close view of the starlings which are ubiquitous in Jordan and quite melodious. These two were making the most of the breakfast buffet.

Saeed, prompt as ever, came to collect us to take us out of the Dead Sea area. He gave us a parting present of some olive oil soap (first experienced at Feynan – it’s a good soap) and, bless him, some local variant of sage – the same herb that we believe had caused the ulcers that had bedevilled the last few days. However, his instructions were to serve it as tea, rather than just stuff it in your mouth, which will probably give a better result.

There followed a long, long climb to 600m above mean sea level (or 1km above Dead Sea level), past a ceaseless succession of big, big, heavy lorries, carrying mainly minerals from the Dead Sea area. The route goes through a very green area, fed by natural springs, and there were many cars stopped by the roadside as people took advantage of spring outlets of fresh, potable water, something that doesn’t come out of the taps in Jordan.

And then we were at the airport, saying goodbye to Saeed and thanking him for the truly excellent job he had done of looking after us for a fortnight, before coming back into the care of Edward (he who greeted us a fortnight ago, you’ll remember), which meant something of a canter trying to keep up with him as he took us to a fast-track side entrance and ushered us into the tender care of the Royal Jordanian airline Crown service.

The check-in process had much in common with the Virgin Upper Class check-in at Heathrow Terminal 3 in the Good Old Days when I occasionally managed to score this for business travel: a separate, private entrance; its own dedicated passport control; and its own dedicated security scan. You’d have thought that the security johnnies would be familiar with ostrich eggs as a concept, given their prominent role among tourist purchases in Jordan, but Jane had a bit of a struggle explaining the one she’d bought; and they insisted on swiping both her egg and my camera for traces of explosive, but at least the chap nodded and said “good” as he handed me back my Nikon. Nice that he approved.

(Parenthetical and post-factum note, here, penned later in the day with gin in hand. Prior to disappearing through the apparently wonderful, dedicated passport and security facilities, Edward had handed our bags over to two guys with a set of scales, checked us in with the desk and then told us to take those annoying long thin baggage tagging strips back to the two guys. We (rather trustingly) did this and they assured us that they would handle the tagging and passing on the bags. When we got to Heathrow, being Crown Class got us off the plane nice and quickly, and the passport gates were working, so we were the first two at Belt 7 in the T3 baggage hall, arriving there by about 16.45. Some 10 minutes later, bags started appearing in desultory fashion on the carousel. These included a succession of boxes, which were picked up by various different people. Wonder what was going on?

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As time ticked by, more and more people came to the belt, waited a while, eventually picked up bags and left. Eventually, there were fewer and fewer people standing by the belt, and still our bags hadn’t come through. An hour after the first bags had appeared, we’d just about given up hope and Jane had worked out where the “Lost Baggage” desk was – and then our bags finally appeared. Specially labelled “PRIORITY” – and, as far as we could tell, the last ones off the plane. Harrumph! Cost us an extra tenner for the waiting taxi, as well as an unwanted surge of cortisol.

Anyway, where were we? We were in the Jordan airport departure lounge…..)

We had to ask someone how to find the RJ Lounge, because the signposting at Queen Alia airport is less lavish than at other airports, but here we are and I need to update the blog, so an 0930 gin (we’re still on holiday, OK?) to fuel the creative flow seems to be acceptable. Yes, it is.

So, whilst waitin’ for the Dreamliner that is comin’ for to carry us home, we’ve looked over Jordan, and what have we seen?

A wonderfully heterogeneous culture, drawing on religious, historical and popular influences from the vast range of the different peoples who have come through, stayed to add to indigenous ways and maybe moved on. Yes, it’s basically an Arab country with Arab customs, but it’s also very diverse in its attitudes towards other mores. Given that 20% of its GDP is through tourism, this is just as well, really.
(Hand in hand with the above, Jane found it a comfortable place to be as an un-veiled (Western) woman, which is not always the case in the Middle East, in our experience.)
An astonishing history, contributing hugely to the way the world as we know it today works.
A very welcoming people. It seems that “Welcome” is the first word in English that Jordanians learn, they use it a lot and, by and large, seem to mean it.
Quite often, as a tourist, when you hear the word “Welcome” on the lips of someone in Jordan, it is followed, implicitly or explicitly, by a solicitation to talk, have tea, whatever – but basically to buy something. Although there are some very rich people in Jordan, there are also some very poor people; very rarely is an opportunity to earn a dollar or two spurned. There are two clear consequences: one is that contactless or card payments are taken in the most surprising places; the other is that people are grateful for tips. If you’re thinking of visiting and using services such as guide or driver, it’s a very good idea to arm yourself with a selection of 1, 5 and 10-Dinar notes.
A highly opportunistic entrepreneurial attitude, combined with a ramshackle retail experience. Wherever you go, there are people selling stuff – on the roadside (of a motorway, for heaven’s sake!), up a mountain, in a desert, often out of the back of a a ramshackle, probably Toyota, pickup truck. Saeed told us that he’d simply built up, over the years, a knowledge of which are the best places to go to buy cheese, or watermelons or mulukhiyah, or whatever.
A “long game” approach to property development. Similar to what we’ve seen in Spain and Portugal, there’s a developmental attitude to domestic and small business properties; this was something I’d meant to refer to earlier, but, well, didn’t: wherever you go, there are businesses apparently trading out of unfinished buildings, with reinforced concrete rods sticking out of the top, and houses, some apparently lived in, in the same state. The reason is that the family has built enough to go on with for now, and the next generation will come along and add the next storey. Or that they’re still waiting for money to complete the works.
A ridiculous driving experience. My strongest advice to anyone considering renting a car whilst being unfamiliar with the “Insh’Allah” roadcraft of the locals, the apparently negligent approach to road surface maintenance and the “this looks as good a place as any” speed bump placement philosophy on the part of The Powers That Be is – don’t. Just don’t.
An expensive currency. The Jordanian Dinar is currently worth more than a Pound Sterling and some of the prices charged might seem high relative to other places you’ve visited (particularly for booze and items that have to be imported). In your financial planning for a holiday visit, try not to compare the prices with, e.g. European norms, which will only cause you angst; be lavish in your estimates of cash needed and relax and enjoy the service.
A varied climate. If you hate the heat, avoid the peak summer months and the south of the country. If you hate the cold and wet, avoid the winter.
Overall, a great tourist experience – based, that is, on our limited statistical sample of one. Our particular priority has been seeing as much of a country as makes sense in one trip, and the size of Jordan is perfect for visiting a wide range of places over two weeks. But you can find intense concentrations of specific activities – hiking, diving, camping, sunbathing – if that’s your bag. We’ve had a fantastic fortnight and would unhesitatingly recommend it as a place to visit. Would we come back? There’s a good question. The answer is a probable “yes” – a bit earlier in the year, and with a more focussed plan – fly and flop to the Dead Sea; stay at Feynan – but better equipped, emotionally and packing-wise for the experience – and go hiking or experience more of the local culture; even (sigh!) go canyoning at Mujib or snorkelling in Aqaba. Whatever, as I bring this section of the blog to a close, we’ve had a blast and hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about it. Interested in Canada? Come back in August…..