Wednesday 19 September 2012

Holidays

We are about to depart for our annual summer holiday. This year we are going to try a walking holiday with a difference, a long distance walk (well, 60 miles or so) unsupported, walking from hostel to hostel or hotel, in the warm and pleasant (we hope) climate of Tuscany. This means we will have to travel light. I'm quite excited by the prospect of having to keep my entire packing for a 2 week holiday within the confines of what I can comfortably carry on my back for several hours at a time on a daily basis. It is also nice to know that we won't be incurring extra charges with Ryanair for putting stuff in the hold. And boy, I have to say, it is a great feeling to get through their booking process without having added extra costs on. To do that requires a fair bit of cautious navigating across screen after screen with tempting little boxes designed to trap, tempt or otherwise get you to spend more. However since their basic prices are cheapy cheap (compare their prices to Pisa with flights offered by other carriers to Florence!), it is well worth the effort.
The walking this year will be fairly undemanding in terms of heights or difficulty, but we like the idea of actually having to get going each day from one place to the next, and if the experiment is a success, we may try something higher and more adventurous the next time....  So, the Italian phrase book sits on my desk, and I learn little useful phrases like Quando apre la mosta? from time to time. I have no Italian, so this is going to be interesting. We will be walking through places which are not really on the tourist trail, so I don't expect that we'll get far with English. Thank you BBC Italian Phrase Book and Dictionary, small enough and light enough to carry in my rucksack. L'aqua e potabile?