San Gimignano and Pisa

After lunch at the farmhouse, the next stop was San Gimignano, a medieval hill top fortressed town. There used to be over 70 towers as the rich would build them to live in to show how rich they are. The taller and the more you have, the richer you are. (So something haven't changed.) Most towns in Tuscany did this but San Gimignano is one of the only where most (~40) have survived. 

Another view over Tuscany

 Entrance to the town.

from the top

The town has another claim to fame - it is the home of the world's best Gelateria (won twice in the last 10 years). And it was good. I tried the eggnog and it was seriously good. 

Word's best ice-cream - eggnog

Town square center.

Towers.

The final stop of the day was Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. It was getting dark when we got there but the view was still good.

The baptistry.

Cathedral.

The leaning tower.

Really does lean

The cathedral is oddly quite a distance from the town centre so there wasn't much to do there other than take some photos and visit the gift shop, where they had the usual array of tacky tourist bits but also some very nice things.

We got back to Florence at about 7pm and were knackered so just went to a restaurant round the corner from our hotel, which was so good. To be fair, every where we went for food was amazing. If I lived in Italy, a diet would be needed.  

Preston

I spent this weekend up in Preston, visiting Katherine, Philip and the gorgeous little Joseph who is growing up way too quickly. On Saturday, when Philip was at the cricket, the rest of us went to a pottery place in Walton-le-Dale where you can paint your own pottery. It was brilliant. If I was back up there, I would do this every week!

Happy faces.

"More!" paint required

Sticking his tongue out at me.

You can choose your own pottery and colours. I choose a reindeer tea light holder (ready for my christmas decorations) and Katherine choose a super cure giraffe. I will post another picture of the final thing when I get it (Katherine will have to post it down as they need to fire it).

My "masterpiece"

Katherine painting the cutest giraffe

After the pottery (and a bit of clean-up) we had lunch and headed to Worden Park. Joseph fell asleep in the car and didn't wake up when Katherine put him in his buggy. He just assumed a pose and carried in sleeping.

Tough life

 We walked around the gardens and did a bit of shopping (more christmas presents sorted).

300 yr old Cedar of Lebanon 

We decided not to go in the maze (I am really not a fan as I hate being lost) so carried on to the woods (and got lost there instead). 

Super roots.

Joseph finally woke up and helped us in our walk, pointing all the things we might have otherwise missed. :)

Shy

Tickles

 The long walk was rewarded with an ice-cream, happily received by all.

Ice-cream 

Enjoying life

 Then off to the playground.

Hiding 

Playing shop 

Woohoo!

Sadly we stayed too long on the playground and missed the train (it finished for the day) so headed back and enjoyed watching Despicable Me and playing.
The adults chilled out that night with pasta, wine and a movie.
Today, the weather was not so good. So we did a bit of shopping in Preston and checked out the new places and developments before I had to get the train home. 

Last week at NOTHS

So last week was my last working week at NOTHS. I start my new job on Thursday! Very excited.
We had a hackathon the last 2 days. With the weather being mazing, the company got an ice-cream truck to come in and free ice-creams!

Most of the evenings were spent on the green with drinks and snacks from nearby pubs and Sainsbury's.  We had to keep moving as some love the sun (like myself); others, not so much. 

We had some leaving drinks on the last day. There were 2 other people also leaving that day so there were a lot of people out. My group sat inside (we had a lot of the sun haters) and just relaxed. And I am happy to report I didn't get drunk! :) Though mainly because I had to be up early the next day to meet some friends form the States. 

Quiet leaving drinks.

Puerto de la Cruz

On Sunday I had a bit of a lazy day. I wandered around town and the botanical gardens for a few hours but also managed to sleep in. Much needed.

Puerto de la Cruz bay

The town

The gardens were ok but honestly I think there are better things to do in Puerto. They are by the road so not very peaceful and quite small. But if you have a few hours to killed, not bad and cheap.

Taking over

Big tree

After the gardens I tackled the stairs again. I hurt my knee earlier last week and it is now an interesting shade of blue and black. And stairs (and yesterday) did not help. It was killing me by the time I got to the bottom. But thankfully there was a ice-cream place at the bottom to cheer me up. Though it turned out a little bigger than I was expecting.

Enormous ice-cream

The beach is ok in Puerto. And popular with the surfers. Not sure I would try surfing there considering the number of rocks in the bay.

The beach

Because of said rocks, they also have a very nice looking pool area which was mostly deserted when I was there but then the wether was not really swimming/sunbathing weather. 

Pool

I walked/limped around for a bit, mainly trying to find the trim stop for Loro Parque for the next morning. It is pretty place and worth a visit.

And another beach

Feeling Christmassy now

I wimped out and got a taxi back to the apartments. And then begged the lovely lady at the pool bar for a bag of ice. I spent the set of the afternoon, reading on the balcony with the ice on my knee. I also managed to find real fresh milk! I have only been able to get long life which works in tea but is just not good to drink. I drank so much milk with weekend.  :)

Chilling out.