Sunday at Lake Garda

Yesterday evening a fair few more kiwis arrived. They've spread us around three hotels so far - the idea being to mix it up with the other teams.

This afternoon the team went down to the "beach" at the lake front for a swim. The water is swimmable but pretty cold. They've had the standard 2 x trainings today. I went along to thisafternoon's training which is in a gym about a 15-20 minute walk away.

Here are some of the photos...



Cheers
Doug

Congratulations Mark and Carolina!

Mark Trotter and Carolina Dillen are engaged.

Mark spent weeks preparing and planning for this and popped the question in style at the Colosseum in Rome. He was greatly relieved when she said “Yes”!
Naturally they couldn’t wipe the grins off their faces for days – they’re just oozing “happy”.

We promised to keep “mum” until they had told their families.

If you’d like to send them a message, click on the comments link below this message and I’ll pass it on.

Watch my two blog sites

Just wanted to let you know that I'm now updating two blogger sites while in Italy:
This site - for coverage of the 2008 world cup
Doug Hanna's Photoblog - for personal photography stuff about the trip
So keep an eye out on both of them for the full story...
Cheers
Doug

Saturday morning training at Lake Garda

On Saturday morning (Saturday night NZ time) the team went out to train. We have access to a gymn in the late afternoon each day but for our morning training we have to find somewhere like a park. We walked around the waterfront and eventually found a concrete basketball court.

Here are the pics…

Rome to Reverto by train then bus to Reva Del Garda

Today’s trip north to our home at Lake Garda for the next 10 days was very relaxing.
We caught the underground for 2 stops to the main train terminal and were on our train in plenty of time. We had first class tickets and it was really roomy and comfortable.

For me the highlight was the view of the countryside and rural life in Italy as we travelled north. We had spectacular views. The train wasn’t super fast – we figured it was doing about 120k judging our speed vs the traffic on the highways.
However five and a half hours started getting to the team and they were getting a bit cabin feverish towards the end.

I lost my 10 Euro bet with Mark that the bus to collect us would be late. As he expected, the driver was at the station ready to take us to Lake Garda. After our pre-arranged lift from the airport at Rome failed to turn up I was not expecting great things. However, I figured I’d win one way or another either way!

We didn’t know how long this part of the trip was going to take and were expecting an hour or two but were rapped when the driver said it was only about half an hour’s drive.

We got in there at about three o’clock and after settling into our rooms we split to check out the town.

I took a few photos of my wander around the town for everyone back home. It didn’t take long to start getting cool. Because we’re nestled in the mountains, the sun disappears pretty early in the afternoon and with the lake right by us you can feel the temperature dropping. However, it’s now five thirty and it is warm enough inside to still be in shorts and t shirts. Outside you’d need to be more warmly dressed after 4.30is I reckon.

Sussed out the anticipated internet access for our rooms. There isn’t any :-(

If you’re reading this I hopefully negotiated a better deal than the NZ$7/half hour internet access the Hotel charge for access to their wireless internet which has a range of the Hotel Lobby and not much more. We’re on the 3rd floor and no sign of any wireless here. Sigh. I can’t stand not being on-line with what I want to do during the lead up and the tournament. The internet doesn’t seem to have hit Italy much yet… either that or the tourists aren’t demanding it.
Enough winging about that…. And about time I got this finished and on-line.

PS. It is now after dinner. The best we can do is 30 Euro (about NZ$70) for 10 hours which won’t be enough for the duration by a long shot. I hope you appreciate the updates. I’ll put my virtual busking tin out for your donations :-)

Cheers
Doug

Playing Tourists at Vatican City then more shopping

Everyone seemed to sleep well last night, so much so we were a little slow to rise with most of us making an appearance at about 8am.

Breakfast in Rome is very different to what we are used to. Typically it consists of a pastry and a tiny cup of strong coffee. The biggest latte I’ve been able to get (when asking for a very large one) is about the size of the average kiwi coffee cup. I’d kill for a latte in a bowl! So, forget the cereal and toast – it doesn’t exist. I looked in a small supermarket and the closest thing I could find to cereal looked like rice with fruit flakes. It wasn’t rice but some form of seed I guess. Those hungry go for a Panini or similar at a cafe for breakfast.

Next we took the underground to Vatican City. The underground is much more modern and better engineered than London or New York. I suspect Rome’s was built a lot later. The carriages are perfectly level with the platforms and they are really smooth to ride.

When we got to Vatican City we made our way into St Peter’s Square and a queue to get into the Basilica had formed and went right around the inside of the square. Again there are clear skies and the sun is harsh and hot. I'm trying not to complain because I know it is stormy back in NZ but man it is hot and gritty.

Fortunately the queue moved quite quickly and after ¾ of an hour or so we entered the Basilica. It was a visual shock to see such beauty inside a building after being outside in the harsh light and having spent yesterday looking at ruins.

Unfortunately they were preparing for a service and we could only mill around near the entrance before we felt we had to leave.

We left the square and queued to go to the Vatican Museum. The queued there for what seemed ages. It was a massive queue that would have stretched 400 metres long and 2-3 metres wide. We stalled for ages and Carl scouted ahead. We tried out the tiny radio telephones that I’d bought to use at the tournament which passed a bit of time. They seemed to work ok when the guys actually spoke English into them.

Jeremy and I decided we didn’t have the patience to spend another couple of hours in the queue and we decided that we’d just like to walk and check out some shops.
Apparently about 15 minutes after we bailed out the queue moved and they got into the Sistine Chapel... ce la vi.

Jem wanted to find the shop where I bought a present for Jan yesterday. He’d seen something there that he’d liked and hadn’t since found anything else. So, we had vague ideas where it was and set off. Found the subway and jumped off near the Spanish Steps. It must have taken us at least an hour of walking around to find the tiny shop we were after. We walked past it once without seeing it. We asked a policeman to show us where we were on our map... this was only about 10 metres from the shop! He could not show us on the map where we were... sheesh! Eventually we found it.

Fortunately Jem found something in the shop that he liked (oh and it is really awesome if you are reading this Kat). We might need another bag to fit it in though.

Back on the subway and back to our B&B by 3pm or so to chill out. Mark, Carolina, Richie, Jem and I chilled out for an hour and a half talking, looking at photos of the Honduras trip while the heat of the day passes.

The internet cafe is open again now and a few of the team have headed down there to check emails and send messages home. I guess we will soon too.

We must be near a hospital here because every 10 minutes or so an ambulance goes past with it’s siren on... I am so sick of sirens. Here they are just like leaving your horn on all the time with an additional wailing tone as well. On the other side of the square from us there have been preparations going on for some type of MTV rock concert. Hopefully it won’t be tonight.

Tomorrow morning we need to be up early, packed and off on the subway to the main train station for our 4 hour trip north to Rovereto. The high speed train leaves at 9am. We’re really looking forward to that... no walking and hopefully plenty of countryside to feast our eyes on!

Cheers for now
Doug

From Rome, the long Colosseum Walk

Today we must have walked 10k. We left at about 8.30am and got back about 4.30pm after walking the central Rome sights of (in Italian from the map):
Colosseo
Palatino
Circo Massimo
Foro Tralano
Fontana Trevi
And more

The ruins were amazing. Some 2,500 years old. It was good to get there early as wer were some of the first there and avoided queues and having too many people around.

Overall the street scenes are quite grungy. A big contrast to London. But I loved the atmosphere, the colours and textures and how old and worn everything is.
The streets are mostly cobbled with cut blue rock… the sort of cobbling that the rich in Auckland spend a fortune on for their expensive driveways… and yet it was everywhere here. It looked great where it was really worn.

It was incredibly hot and by the time we got back we were all pretty stuffed. Mostly from the endless walking + the heat + lack of food for most of the team who are trying to loose weight.

On the way back we did a bit of browsing in the street stalls and found a stall selling really nice fruit which tasted fantastic.

As I write this some of the team are downstairs practicing their patterns. After nearly an hour sitting here sorting photos and writing this I’ve finally cooled down to a comfortable level again.

Today I wore my only light T shirt and it definitely can’t be worn before a wash. What to wear tomorrow – now that’s a challenge.

Carl is the expert on the history and the sights and was great to have around today… especially as I know so little about ancient Roman history.

He’s planning on taking us to see the Vatican tomorrow. It’s miles away so might be a small challenge to get there.

Now to find an internet café to post this stuff up for you to see. We occasionally get a tiny teaser of access to an unsecured wireless network but it comes and goes (mostly it goes actually).

Cheers
Doug