On the "Free love Freeway" ..... to Slough

Case, these pics are for you ... but first let me set the mood:

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Free love on the free love freeway, the
Love is free and the freeway's long, I got some
Hot love on the hot love highway, ain't
Going home 'cause my baby's gone (she's gone)
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-- David Brent
(and people say he's just a big pair of tits)

What's this all about ?

Pics of London

London to Genova (via Paris and the Swiss Alps)

Aff and I have just returned from two weeks "in vacanza", starting from London, then Paris, and finally Switzerland. It truly has been one of the most memorable and exciting trips I have done.

From catching up with good friends in London (thanks again to the good folk at Balham Castle for putting us up for 4 nights!), to strolling the streets of Paris, before hiking in the most stunning alpine country I have ever seen in Switzerland, this holiday truly had it all. Of course, all the way, Aff and I were stuffing ourselves silly with beer, wine, cheese, bread, roasts of the day, cheese fondue .. not to mention Terry's "fabuloso" Indian feast on our last night in London. Basically, I made it my mission to eat anything that wasn't pasta, or pesto. Never has a cornish pasty purchased at a dodgy London railway station kiosk tasted so good.

Now we are back in Genova, with two months left before we head home. It was a strange sensation coming back to Genova after two weeks away from the place. I don't think Aff or I have reached the point of saying we feel like Genova is home, but there was certainly a nice sense of familialarity about the place when we got off the train and walked back to our apartment. While Genova is probably not a place I would want to live long term for a variety of reasons, it does feel significantly more comfortable than it did.

I plan on posting a lot of photos over the next few weeks, as we extract those worthy of showing. I also have a serious back log of photos to post .. so don't expect any order to things (which to be honest, is perfectly representative of what life has been like since we got here).

Summer in Genova

As usual, the frequency of posting on my blog is inversely proportional to the busy-ness of life at the moment. With internet access only at work, and a growing need to actually do work, while at work, it has been difficult to find time to post much. The short summary of life at the moment is, things are good. It's summer time, and even better, it's vacanza time! It's an interesting time because Italian cities really do seem to just empty out. In Genova, the traffic conjestion normally associated with Genovese people trying to get to work, is replaced by traffic conjestion in the opposite directio, normally due to those "f%&^ing" Milanese", as one friend told me, who come to Genova in their thousands to catch ferries to Corsica, Sardegna, Tunisia, Spain, France ... probably Australia for all I know.

It's a good time to be in Genova. With so many people on vacation, things feel calmer and more comfortable for people like Aff and me, who generally crave the quieter life. It's also good because I think Genova enjoys the best weather of any Italian city in summer. I was told that Genovese summer's can be quite brutal - particularly because of the humidity, which was described to me as stiffling. Things might be a little muggy here, but I really have not experienced anywhere near the discomfort that people told me to expect .. but then again, having spent some time in Singapore, I may have a slightly broader scale on which to assess humidity. In truth, Genova's weather is close to perfect. While the rest the country swelter's in 35+ temperatures, Genova seems to stick to the high 20's. At night it dips down to the low 20's - just cool enough to get some sleep.

As for travel, Aff and I have chalked up quite a few destinations over the last month. Lake Como, Cinque Terre (yes, again -- our 4th visit I think, but it is only an hour away), and Florence. All deserve there own report, or at least some photos (to come, I promise).

Aff is currently away in Sardegna on her own adventures until next week. After that, both of us take off for 2 weeks to London, Paris and Switzerland. Perhaps not typical summer locations, but with half the population of these places heading our way, they seem like good places to go.