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Isola d’Elba!! Though I am half Italian, I never knew that this little archipelago off the coast of Tuscany in the Mediterranean Sea even existed!! The shame, I know!!! Thankfully my dad did as he suggested a weekend trip there to explore the little land and its numerous beaches!! From his house outside of Florence it took about 4 hours to get to the dock at Piombino where we drove on to a ferry-boat (called MOBY) and headed to the port in Portoferraio on the island of Elba. Though the weather had been very sketchy for several weeks prior to our trip, and though it even rained on the ferry ride over, we got two full days of sun on the island and only had cloudy days on the day we arrived and the day we left:) Seriously lucked out since it was toward the end of summer/early fall that we went to begin with!

Our hotel (hotel Gabbiano Azzuro- hotel Blue Seagull) was located in a town called Marciana Marina on the North Western section of the island. The town itself is a cute little quaint place with the usual shopping, restaurants, beaches, marinas and hiking trails from here to there. The hotel, while really not terribly impressive inside offered quite a delicious breakfast including some of the best brioches I’ve personally ever tasted! They were filled with Bavarian cream… YUM!!! Just looking at them however pretty much capped my daily allowance of sugar intake… lol!! I should probably clarify that the hotel itself was quite clean, the people very nice, the location an easy walk to/from the town center, but the rooms were not that big and while they boasted that each room had a private balcony, the majority of those balconies looked on to an abandoned building and you could only see a sliver of a nice view. However, we were not there for the hotel… we were there for the BEACHES!!!

As far as beaches are concerned, I seriously didn’t think the ones in San Blas could be topped but the ones on the Island of Elba sure do give them a bit of a run for their money!!! The colors of the water surrounding the island at the various spots are out of this world beautiful! I found myself literally taking the same exact picture 3 or 4 times over just to make sure I was properly capturing the colors!!

The beaches are quite different from one another and some were even different from any I had previously been on before. While I’ve mainly been used to beaches with sand, many of the beaches on Elba consisted of stones!! I wasn’t expecting this aspect at all!! The stones are like river stones, therefore not sharp in any way, but smoothed out from years of sea water sanding them out. While they weren’t that comfortable to lay out on, they weren’t completely terrible either and it was due to these stone beaches that the colors remained so crisp and lovely, even when in the water!

Needless to say, after mapping out several beaches for us to visit, the next few days were spent just going from one beach to the next, sunning and tanning, swimming and snorkeling and generally just loving the water and life! It was a great and relaxing time to be sure!! Even more of a bonus was that we were still in Italy so dinners were to die for!! I Love Italian food!! The last day was spent driving almost all the way around the island, taking several pictures along the way before heading back to the ferry and then home.

Pictures:

On to Return to Treviso

Back to Europe

While there are lots of place to wander around and sight see in Glasgow (Buchanan Street for shopping, the Royal Exchange Square where the statue of the Duke of Wellington somehow always has a street traffic cone on his head, George Square which is the principal civic square and is named after King George III, the Clydesdale Amateur Rowing Club where we met Anna’s friends then went for drinks at West nearby, and the People’s Palace and Winter Garden which boasts the World’s largest terra-cotta fountain out back!) perhaps my favorite was the Necropolis…

I’ve always enjoyed a good cemetery, and this one was not disappointing! It literally went on forever!! One could seriously spend the entire day trying to see all the tombs and plots!! I’m just kicking myself for not having brought my camera though!! While not every tombstone was hugely impressive, there was one of a person who was obviously involved in theater that still sticks in my mind… His tombstone was so well decorated and huge!! It literally looked like you were in the audience of a theater ready to watch a show! The curtains were drawn, you could see the side balcony areas where the seats for the wealthy were located. There were the classic faces of comedy and tragedy adorning the top, and a lovely and lively poem written across the curtain… Like I said, it was really impressive because even though I didn’t have my camera, I still remember those details today!

I was joined at the Necropolis by two of Anna’s friends, Davie and Markie. Anna had to work that day so she gave me her phone and I ended up making plans with Markie to meet in town and go to the Necropolis. Davie just happened to be joining, but it was just as well because though he has lived in Glasgow for a long while (he may actually have been born there) and he had been to the very lovely church nearby the Necropolis, he had never actually been to the Necropolis!! Funny how we never take advantage of our surroundings where we live… It’s the same with me too though, I’m not any better for when I was living in Costa Rica, even though I was literally across the street from the beach, I actually went to the beach maybe a dozen times a month!! Terrible, I know! But you all know what I’m talking about!!

Anyway, the rest of that particular day was spent wandering around Glasgow on foot. We ended up walking past Davie’s house so he was dropped off there and Markie and I continued our tour. We came across a little park where there was an older gentlemen and three blue heelers (aka Australian cattle dogs). It was obviously a training session and it was by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen!! You could tell immediately which of the three dogs was the most experienced and which was the least… They were all in a large field, the older man standing on one end, the three dogs laying side by side down a way from the old man. Suddenly the man would shout out a command and a name and one of the dogs would shoot up on all fours, race around in a large circle, then come to a resting crouch in front of the man. The same command was called with another of the dog’s name and off he/she went! Finally the last would be called (the least experienced) and often times during his/her turn the command would have to be called several times or she would have to do it again, lol!! It was just so amazing!! With no leashes, lines, treats, gimmicks, etc, these three dogs were at absolute attention and focus! It was obvious they enjoyed their tasks and I believe that the more experienced dogs were really the ones helping to train the less experienced dog! It was just such a treat for me to watch these dogs in action! I was in complete awe!!! Needless to say those dogs and their training session were gaining quite the audience from people walking by!!

On to Loch Lomond (Conic Hill)

Back to Glasgow

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