York, the grand ole.

York is next on our agenda. The drives are long and I’m beginning to regret the trip I’ve planned to Scotland. We eliminate that section and change course for an extra couple of nights. We find the parking outside the city gates and head into the centre. York is a walled city founded by the Romans in 71 AD and has been named the most haunted city in Europe with its bloodthirsty history of villains and witches.

We’re staying at a cool hotel called Judges Court, which is where Judges stayed, obviously. They’ve done it up beautifully and we head out to check out the town. We walked through a beautiful park to our hotel with both Roman and medieval ruins. The city too is a surprise, beautiful little boutiques, ancient pubs, boutique gin and beer places.

That night the daughter has found a Thai restaurant which is wonderful as there’s no Thai in Italy and we are craving it.

The next day I rise early to get a photo of the oldest best preserved Medieval street in Europe. The Shambles is mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086 but most of the buildings date back to the 14th century. There’s hardly a soul there when I arrive so I get some photos of the quaint buildings with their second stories jutting out over the street supposedly to protect the meat they sold from the sun. Now it’s full of boutique shops, witchy stores, potions and unguents and cute cafes.

Next morning I'm on the search for a decent coffee and I find one!

When the daughter awakes we head for the strangely named The House of Trembling Madness named after Delirium Tremens or the DT’s. It’s set in an old Georgian mansion and is beautifully refurbished. I have the best Welsh rarebit to begin our day. Then we go our separate ways. Me to look at the architecture which is stunning, Tudor black and white buildings abound, everything slanting and a bit crooked.

The boutique shops in old spaces are sympathetically managed and the York cathedral towers over the city. A girl is singing in the square and it echoes throughout.

Beer shops abound. We have drinks at the Botanist bar and more Asian food!

Then because I changed our Scottish plans, we’re staying a couple of extra days here but we have to move and the taking of the car to the other side of town is nerve wracking, the tiny streets, the big Mercedes that they were so thrilled to upgrade me to free of charge, is a nightmare to park here but eventually we do. We’re close to the walls so after settling in, I go for a walk along them. There’s a bit of a drop to one side with no rail and it’s windy but I bravely walk into the town from there (there’d be signs everywhere in Australia if we were actually allowed to walk on an old wall). I find the best cafe to shelter from the rain that has followed after the wind, Partisan. And then I find something even better at the supermarket, a Twix bar flavoured with orange. The best if you’re an orange/chocolate lover.

The next day I go to a Bloomsbury art exhibition and then I wander around looking at the amazing selection of clematis flowers they have here. I’ve been trying to grow a single one in my garden and am all aglow when one pops up but here they’re luscious.

And then I find the cutest vintage cafe where I have a Dandelion and Burdock drink, just because it reminds me of English countryside fields.

We end our stay having breakfast at The Ivy which I think may have inspired The Grounds of Alexandria and I end up buying some organic fruit flavoured beer at the House of Trembling Madness shop. And then we’re off to Durham, another lovely surprise.

England - Searching for fossils.

The next day we leave for England and I close and lock the door on all the renovations and I am well pleased. We drop our hire car off outside Venice, there's no one to check for damage, we just park and drop the keys into a box. The daughter suggests we're close to Venice proper since we have the rest of the day to fill in and it takes me a while to process the change. It's strange that I'm suddenly thrown by the change of plans, we were going to hang out in the hotel and then suddenly this vista opens and I realise I am not good with last minute plan changes but I am determined to change that about myself so off we go.

Best decision ever! Even though the sudden heat of Venice assails us after the mountains, we sit by a canal and have a Cynar Spritz (artichoke digestive and prosecco) with some cichetti (little rounds of toast with gorgonzola, walnuts and balsamic cream) and life is good.

We arrive in England to a bustling airport and then we’re on the bus to get the hire car and three hours later, we arrive in Bath. We wander the streets but it seems decimated since we were here last, empty shops and a desolate feel whether from the pandemic or Brexit, I don’t know. We dine at our favourite Bills restaurant, which is a franchise here but although it looks beautiful, it used to sell beautiful biscuit tins and jam and doesn't anymore and my favourite shop of all time - Cath Kidston has shut down 61 stores here.

But we have a lovely B&B just out of the city centre and the owner tells us his family is Italian and comes from the Dolomites. The next day, after a good breakfast, we head towards the Botanic gardens, the daughter’s decision. I think we’ll regret it if it’s anything like the centre but it is absolutely beautiful. Full of flowers, flowering trees, squirrels, birds and the daughter finds a stone with a tiny shell fossil on a pathway of pebbles. Spring in England is magical. The grass is full of small pinkish white daisies where the squirrels pause to nibble on something they’ve found. We wander for an hour before the next 3 hour trip that we’re embarking on.

Lyme Regis is the focal point of the trip. We are on the search for ammonites. And they are in Lyme, in abundance, according to reports and of course, the movie itself. It’s a three hour trip according to the map but it seems longer. English drivers do the right speed, like the Austrians and I’m used to doing at least 10 over so as not to upset the Italians. But here the highways go quickly from one speed to another and it's usually to a slower one.

We stop off mid way at the beautiful little village of Stoke-Sub-Hamden where we have the best home made scones and homemade jam at Katy’s Bakes. It’s like stepping into a 1940’s movie set, Kate is even wearing an apron and she’s playing old songs. Next door they’re re-thatching a roof! I didn’t know it was still done and made of bundles of straw.

Next, on the way to Lyme we stop at a fossil beach, Charmouth. We know it is one, because fossil people are in isolated groups hunched over like birds, hammers in hand, checking for rocks. We find a place that probably thirty other people have vacated and have a dig around. Nothing. But we do find ammonites in huge rocks that sadly we have to leave and then we head towards Lyme Regis.

Lyme is a special place for me because of an old movie, The French Lieutenants Woman with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. It was an all time favourite and hauntingly beautiful and so I embarked on a trip to England just to go there and stand on the cob as they call the man made structure around the small port, where Meryl stood and gazed out wistfully across the sea. I’m so excited to show Venetia. But this time I see it differently, ammonites are everywhere, in shops, on the ground, in mosaics, in museums and shops. I think they're having their time again because of the other movie, Ammonite.

But how things have changed. A huge parking lot at the top of the hill, which is good as the narrow streets would never cope with the traffic. I remember coming here by bus and alighting and looking for a sign saying: Room to rent. And finding one up a narrow flight of stairs in the middle of the town with a lovely lady. Now we had a room booked which turned out to have a few issues and so did the parking as it wouldn’t accept our credit cards and the cash machine wasn’t working. So up and down the hill we went to keep checking on it.

Finally we headed for the nearest hotel for fish and chips and a gin and tonic. And then for a walk along the rocky beach with beautiful stones, the sound of the sea pushing them back and forth was mesmerising but equally noisy. Along the beach were the tiny little painted beach shacks and some of the very old houses had ammonites in the walls and one of them has a down pipe made of wood! We are enthralled. Even the street lamps are ammonites! I remember bringing the daughter back a few years ago and telling her about the ammonites and she was disinterested as a teenager, now we are both slightly obsessed.

Next morning we find a good cafe with excellent coffee just across from the Smugglers Way because Lyme, apart from it’s fossil history, was a place where contraband was smuggled and if a coastguard was spotted they could weight the watertight barrels and trunks with stones and drop them into the sea.

The next day we go to Seatown, a beach of red sand and cliffs, to check out the beach there but nothing. And then we head to the other end of Lyme, past the famous Cobb and wander along a bit and there are the ammonites, big ones but encased in even bigger rocks. I find them first and wave to the daughter only to find she has found a lobster that has been washed ashore and with her lobster skills (from watching people catching lobsters - as you do) is gently taking it back to the sea and encouraging it to swim away. Did I mention that apart from fossils, she loves lobsters?

Then she follows me and we see them everywhere. There is the sound of hammers and people squatting over interesting looking rocks. It is a veritable fossickers paradise. But we don’t find them here, we head across to another beach and we meet a man who has a pocket full of tiny ammonites, he shows us where to find them. Tucked away underneath the big rocks. And there we find gold - an ammonite turned to fools gold and lots of perfect little ones. It's windy and there’s a slight drizzle and we are slightly frozen but oh, so happy!

We return home for a celebratory expensive drink (drinks in England are double the price of the ones in Italy) and to the best Indian in Lyme at La Qilla and then down to the rocky beach where people are sunbaking and swimming and it's 15 degrees. Impressive. The rocks are beautiful colours and I sit and listen to the waves washing over the shingle, the sound is so loud as the stones are sucked back by the waves and delivered again to the shore.

In the footsteps of dinosaurs. Rovereto and Trento.

As a celebration of finishing the painting of the kitchen (and hoping it's the right paint that won't peel or scratch off), we head off to a place that has dinosaur footsteps. Of course we do, doesn't everyone? A three hour drive and we're in Rovereto, a medieval town on the Adige River. We arrive at lunch and walk to Ristorante La Terrazza sul Leno overlooking the water and have Eggplant parmigiana and the daughter has a ricotta, gorgonzola and njuda (a spicy sausage paste) calzone. It's folded over one end and therein lies the gorgonzola.

Then we go to a Futurist gallery, Casa d'Arte Futurista Depero. The Futurists started as a movement of speed, youth and dynamism in the early 20th century. It's in an old medieval palace and we go because when you stay at the hotels here they give you a card that allows you to go to the galleries and museums free of charge. But we love it, it's beautifully presented and Depero's work is stunning.

We walk back through the tiny car free streets of gelato coloured buildings. It's quiet and non touristy.

Dinner is terrible (which is rare in Italy!) so won't go into that but breakfast is served in a frescoed room which makes up for everything. And then we're off to Lavini di Marco to see dinosaur foot prints dating back to 200 million years ago and is the largest collection in Italy. Some of the footsteps belong to 5-10 metre long herbivores. We wind up into the hills and the road gets narrower and narrower and I ask the daughter how far it is and she replies: Not far. Then we reach a car park and we begin the dinosaur walk. I could have sworn she said it wasn't far from the car park but almost half an hour later, we seem to be high up in a wasteland and finally there is the sign: Orme di dinosauri. Only another climb up a slippery slope and suddenly there they are and may I say, it was worth the walk and also the perfect home schooling excursion.

This mountaintop was once a mud plain that became limestone and preserved the footsteps. The air is crisp and clear and the sun is out for us to take a photo of Rovereto below and other little towns scattered within the hills.

We return to go to the Science Museum (free) which is an extension of our dinosaur walk. It's a beautifully presented museum showcasing the history of the town going back to prehistoric times. That night the daughter researches a a fantastic restaurant preceded by a bar called La Crypta which was fantastic! We celebrated the dinosaurus moment with a Negroni the size of a very small dinosaur but large nonetheless. It came with olives, peanuts, chips and pineapple and with every sip, the daughter and I told tales to each other unheard of before. Needless to say, it was the best Negroni ever.

And then the restaurant was also in a crypt like structure where waiters were helpful and friendly and the food presented beautifully. I had gialleti (tiny hillside mushrooms), polenta and a thick cheese of the region that they fry. We made up for last night's dismal affair.

And then we went to Trento and there we fell in love. Once we got over the anxiety of finding a carpark for our car (you can't take cars into these old cities) and finding the hotel, we dropped off our bags and headed into the old centre. Nearly all the buildings had frescoes! And looking down, the streets were paved in ammonite stone both cream and red. Even the church walls were made of it and if you looked closely enough, ammonite shells hidden within the whorls of the stone. We didn't know where to look.

There was a huge market underway in the square with plants, food, clothes in all the little streets off the piazza and bus loads of school kids and older people doing tours of the church and later the castle. We went into the beautiful church that was sparse compared to many we've seen but majestic.

There were proper shops (Auronzo is a small town with very few stores) and we got caught up in a bit of retail therapy (Bath and Body Works! A huge one!) and then I went off to the castle leaving the daughter to shop and as I headed there, I went past the most beautiful cafe/bar, La Vie en Rose and I arranged to meet the daughter there after her shopping spree.

Castello del Buonconsiglio, built early in the 13th century as a garrison and transformed over the centuries into a beautiful palace, is incredible and huge! It's a museum as well with amazing prehistoric, Roman and Gothic finds. Just when you think it's finished it meanders into another set of magnificently decorated rooms. There's even a collection of beautiful old porcelain stoves for heating the huge rooms.

And then towards the end there's the Eagle Tower with some of the most important Gothic style frescoes depicting the seasons and what the rich and the peasants got up to and plus there is a fresco of snow, the first in medieval history (Sorry, forgot to take the photo of that one).

Ready for a drink, I meet the daughter at the bar that is all green and red and gilt laden, with paintings on the roof as well as the wall. We order drinks and they come with a platter of prosciutto and cheese and thin crispy bread and then a young boy in a suit wanders in, sandshoes on his feet and sits at the piano in the corner and we are serenaded.

We stay as long as we can, no one hurries anyone, people sit for ages over one drink. It's is aperitivo hour and it is sacred.

Finally moving on, we hear a band playing and wander down to check it out and then end up staying for half an hour. I looked to see if there was somewhere to leave money but there was nothing, they were playing for the love of it. It was fabulous! Haunting, romantic and crazy and the drummer...if only I'd been younger. But I digress. I think in those musical interludes, the daughter and I decided that we might just want to stay here forever.

But there's more. The daughter found Forsterbrau Trento, a restaurant and beer house in a beautiful palazzo. The restaurant has been in operation since 1906 and internally there are beautiful timber details and ceramic sculptures. We sit upstairs surrounded by more frescoes and they bring us tiny glasses of beer and a basket of huge pretzels with a honey mustard and a gherkin mayonnaise to dip them in. I ordered fish ravioli with white asparagus on the side and a green asparagus sauce. Delicious.

We wander back at nine and the streets on a Thursday night are full of people just getting started, no cars, just people on bikes, people at bars. People enjoying the spring evening.