A look at Villa D’Este as I continue my account of my Italian holiday.
Welcome to the latest post in the series I am doing about my recent Italian holiday (2-11 November). This post deals with the second part of the final Thursday, and will be dominated by photographs.
TIVOLI’S THIRD GREAT ATTRACTION
After being shown the hidden treasures of the Villa Sant’Antonio we headed into central Tivoli for a look at the Villa D’Este, the third major attraction in that part of the world (I featured Villa Adriana and Villa Gregoriana in earlier posts in this series). This villa is still in good c0ndition and also has extensive grounds, although I did not see much of those because I was worried about climbing back up from a longish descent. However, I saw enough to be extremely impressed.
Continuing my account of my Italian holiday, featuring Caravaggio, The Spanish Steps and a remarkable Pizza experience.
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my Italian holiday (2-11 September inclusive), which deals with the second half of the final full day in Rome before we moved on to Tivoli.
THE CARAVAGGIO
After finishing at Domitian’s Stadium we headed towards the Spanish Steps, and along the way we passed the church of Sant’Agostino, the main feature of which is a painting by the artist Caravaggio. It is very dark, and there is little light unless you pay 1 euro to have it briefly lit up. For obvious reasons flash photography is forbidden (I am in any case not keen on using the flash on my camera, so no hardship for me).
The Caravaggio painting – the first photo was taken with the lights off, the other two with them on.
Although the main feature of the church it was not the only one of interest, as this gallery, which covers from leaving Domitian’s Stadium to leaving the church should show:
THE SPANISH STEPS
We completed our afternoon’s activities with by walking to the Spanish Steps and then back to our apartment. There was, as always in Rome, much to see, as the gallery below indicates.
EMMA’S PIZZERIA
For that evening’s supper, our last in Rome before moving on to Tivoli the following morning, we were booked into Emma’s Pizzeria. I opted for ‘Bufala con prosciutto’, a pizza with buffalo milk cheese and prosciutto. It was a ‘white pizza’ – no tomato in the topping, which suits me fine. Roman pizzas have very thin and crispy bases, which I also approve of, so all in all this was a great success (indeed we had lunch there before heading to the airport for our flight home at the end of the holiday, and I made precisely the same choice).
My beer and the pizza
I end as is my custom with these posts with a waterfall video from Tivoli:
This trip occurred on Boxing Day, and my sister was not able to accompany us, so the party consisted of my parents, my nephew and myself. This meant that we got discounts on all tickets, due to my parents age and membership, me being classed as disabled and therefore my nephew counting as my designated companion for the trip. The car park is a fair distance from the house itself, and the walk is not flat, although the slope is fairly gentle. Only some of the house was open, but definitely enough to make it worthwhile.
THE HOUSE
As one approaches the house one first goes through a gate house set in a surrounding wall the principal value of which is decorative (the gate house actually started life as a hunting lodge, before the big house was built). The house is a very impressive building indeed, and the inside (such as we were able to see of it) lives up to the outside. The kitchens are separate from the main house, with a brief trip outside forming a natural break in ones exploration. There are also apparently some very fine gardens, but this being winter it was not a time to be exploring there.
We have reached the Sunday of my Cornish holiday. I am going to cover the day in three sections for reasons that will become apparent as the post develops.
SUNDAY MORNING
From my point of view most of this day was taken up with editing my pictures from the previous day’s excursion (see here and here), but Fort Picklecombe also provides regular opportunities for taking photographs, and I also took a number of these opportunities.Â
We were going out for Sunday lunch, and at about 12:15 we got ready to leave. We were lunching at an establishment that doubles as an art gallery and is located in a set of Nissen huts in a village called Maker. Here is their Sunday menu:
In the event we did not have starters, and each of us went for a different main course – I went for the slow-roasted pork shoulder, my father for the beef and my mother for the hake. It was a long wait to be served, but that was because they were cooking the vegetables from fresh. The pork was excellently cooked, with crackling that was both crunchy and flavoursome, and the vegetables were excellent. The roast potatoes however were not as good as they would have been had I cooked them – the potatoes had been peeled but not chopped, hence were very large and therefore somewhat lacking in the crunch factor. Overall, considering all factors, I rate this meal at 7.5/10. Here are the rest of my pictures from lunchtime:
A good picture of the Nissen hut in which we ate.
Our table.
A bad picture of a Nissen hut (as you will note not much of the art on display here could really be considered good).
Then it was back to the fort, and back to photo-editing, although in between editing pictures from the previous day I captured some…
The second post in my series devoted to Heritage Open Day – this one covers King Street, starting from the Tuesday Market Place end and finishing at the Custom House.
INTRODUCTION
This is the second post in my Heritage Open Day series, and takes in King Street, virtually every building alon which had opened its doors for the occasion.
BEHIND THE ARTS CENTRE
There was some remarkable stuff on display between King Street and the river, accessible from two directions.
Rachael, one of my companions for the day looking closely at this curio.
WHEN TWO BECAME ONE
The premises of Kenneth Bush solicitors does indeed consist of two buildings that were joined together to become one. It also had fine garden, in which stall selling homemade cakes and biscuits.
A CONCEALED TREASURE
When you first appoach them, the premises of Metcalfe, Copeman & Pettefar don’t look like they are going to be massively impressive, but you soon discover that on the inside you are looking at a Norman building…
The attic, not accessible, but those beams are very impressive from below.
This mirror was working rather too effectively – you get the photographer as well the photograph!
This view is not pretty – I include only because it is Baker Lane car park, and just out of sight to the top right as you look is a set of iron stairs which lead up to an intermediate level outside space up from which a spiral iron staircase leads to my own outside space.
INSIDE THE ICON
The ground floor of the Custom House serves as King’s Lynn’s principal tourist information office, but beyond that there is a mini museum, which was accessible that day, and as our next planned activity was watching a Napoleonic era militia in action nearby we decided to have a look to fill the last few moments before that started. Custom House marks the end of King Street, after crossing the lower Purfleet the road bifurcates, one fork becoming King Staithe Square and then the quayside and the other Queen Street which feeds in to the Saturday Market Place. Here are some final pics from the Custom House…
I had to darken this considerably to get the text to stand out.
It isn’t only Lord’s that has a Long Room! (I concede that this one is not quite so impressive as theirs!)
Walter Dexter’s painting of the Custom House in his day. Later for comparison there is a photograph taken by me on September 6th 2015.
As well as my title piece, which refers to yesterday’s fourth ODI between England and New Zealand I have some links to share and some photographs from today at work. I hope you enjoy it all and will be encouraged to share.
TRENT BRIDGE THRILLER
Although in the end this cannot be described as a close game, since England won by seven wickets with almost six overs to spare, the word thriller is nevertheless well merited – it was one of the best games of cricket I have ever been priveleged to see or hear.
A New Zealand total of 349 appeared to present England with a very serious challenge, especially given that the previous biggest successful run chase by an Engalnd team in one day international was 306 to beat Pakistan in Karachi. However, the new (this series) opening pair of Jason Roy and Alex Hales launched a blitzkrieg that yielded 97 off the first ten overs of the reply. After both openers were out in a short space of time Joe Root and Eoin Morgan then shared an all-comers record for a third wicket partnership in an ODI at Trent Bridge of 198 before Morgan holed out just after completing an extraordinary hundred. Then, with the game already well and truly in England’s grasp Ben Stokes came in and provided some late fireworks to put yet more gloss on an already sparkling victory.
This result leaves the series level at two matches all, and given the cricket both sides have produced and the spirit in which the series has been contested I for one would say that the appropriate result for the final match up at Durham would be a tie, as neither side deserves to lose this amazing series.
What makes this series all the more remarkable is of course that only a few months ago English ODI stocks were at all time low, following a performance in the world cup that can only described as atrocious (with all due disrespect to the abysmal 1996 ‘effort’ surely the worst ever world cup for an England team).
Because yesterday was a public holiday the bus company were running a Sunday service, and because yesterday was a Friday it was a working day for me. Therefore, I got the first bus of the morning (the 9:25) to Fakenham and was able, all the essential work having been accomplished, to get home on the 15:35. Before I move on to details of the imaging I was doing, I have a fabulous selection of links for you to follow.
There were just the three of us at James and Sons yesterday, me and my colleagues Chris and Andrew. The two most senior members of staff were at a collectors fair. I had some bulky stamp lots and a couple of pictures to image first up, and then got the really fiddly stuff (old car logbooks and collections of bookmarks) to image later.
I started with the pictures because I wanted to get them stowed out of harm’s way quickly. Pictures, especially if they have a protective covering of glass, can be tough to image, but I reckoned these two came out OK…
The stamp lots were not especially inspiring, but there is one that I think worth sharing…
Just for completeness sake here is a single example of a logbook lot…
This is a composite image showing both sides of the logbooks
These two are the individual images that combined to make the other.
I have no idea how much collections of bookmarks will make at auction, but they were fun (if a bit fiddly) to image, and there were many that appealed to me (given my tastes there would have been a big problem had it been otherwise!)…
I will end this post, as day two of the Classic FM Hall of Fame begins, with my personalised “Why I am voting Labour” graphic…
http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/04/02/are-zero-hours-employers-committing-electoral-fraud/Â Rumours have reached Mike Sivier that some of the unscrupulous bosses who use zero hours contracts have been threatening those on such contracts with dismissal if they dare to vote for anyone other than the conservatives. If these rumours are true, they are prima facie evidence of criminal activity.
Before moving on to today at work here are some pictures that will feature in the printed catalogues…
This one, unusualyy is not 100% my work – it is my photography but my colleague Andrew’s editing.
IMAGING
A combination of factors made today a bit of a tough day, but at the end of it I had accomplished a good deal, and had imaged some very interesting items. By the end of tomorrow the imaging for April’s auction should be complete. Meantime, here is a selection of interesting images from today…
I have had a very productive day at James and Sons. I spent the morning imaging for our next auction and the afternoon working on the stock database for the same.
As a result of this work I have some good images to share with you, leavened with some not work related…
As I was inserting these pictures, I got details of a small victory for the Living Wage Campaign, more info at: 
aspiblog 
