Montserrat

On 18 July 1995, the dormant Soufrière Hills volcano burst into life on the island of Montserrat. This was the first of several eruptions that ultimately destroyed Plymouth, the island’s capital city. Almost two-thirds of Montserrat’s population were forced to flee, many relocating to the United Kingdom. By 1997, fewer than 1,200 remained on the island.

In the years since, much of Plymouth, including its central business district, has been progressively buried under ash and debris from repeated pyroclastic flows. These events have resulted in it earning the nickname, “Pompeii of the Caribbean”. The volcanic activity continues, generally affecting the vicinity of Plymouth, and the island's eastern side, which once housed its airport. The old airport was buried by flows from the volcano's most recent eruption in 2010. 

However, despite 16 quiet years, the volcano is still active: ground inflation and volcano-tectonic earthquakes are still being recorded and sulphur dioxide spews steadily from still hot fumaroles on its lava dome, forming a gas plume that descends towards the coast. Consequently, the southern part of the island is, to this day, considered by the authorities as uninhabitable and unsafe.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve wanted to visit Montserrat and see the buried city of Plymouth. In fact, if I’m honest, its inclusion on the cruise we booked definitely influenced our decision. Most cruise companies give it a miss as it lacks a wharf suitable for large cruise ships. The island can only be reached by tender, thus restricting access to smaller vessels like our ship, the Silver Shadow. 

Montserrat didn’t disappoint. Our boat dropped anchor shortly before 8:00am in Little Bay on the island’s northwest coast. After breakfast, Garry and I joined a minibus tour that took us down the island to Plymouth. Our route took us through several new settlements established to house the former capital’s diaspora, including Brades, the territory’s interim capital and the township of Salem.

In the hills above Salem lies the Montserrat Volcanic Observatory (MVO). This slightly jaded white semi-circular building was our first stop of the day. It was officially established in 1999 to monitor the restless Soufrière Hills volcano, assess its many volcanic hazards and risks, and attempt to forecast its future behaviour. It also offers an uninterrupted view of the mountain from a safe and relatively protected location.

Getting to the observatory was an adventure itself. The northern end of Montserrat is incredibly hilly. As a result, the road constantly climbed hills and dropped into deep ravines. The road from Salem was particularly hairy. It was incredibly steep, featured hairpin turns, and was paved with uneven, heavily weathered (i.e. potholed!) concrete. 

Sadly, the volcano’s summit was shrouded in low clouds during our entire time on Montserrat. However, its gently arcing flank was clearly visible from the MVO, as were remnants of its most recent pyroclastic flows. Below is an image of what we saw along with what you can see on a good day. The observatory screened a short film about the 1995 eruption and subsequent destruction of Plymouth. This neatly set the scene for our next stop. 

Currently, the island is divided into a series of hazard zones. Zone 1 is considered safe to live in, while zones with a higher rating are considered progressively more hazardous. Zone 5, encompassing the island’s entire southern end, is currently an exclusion zone. Visitors aren’t normally permitted to enter it. However, authorised local guides can take visitors briefly inside if MVO staff grant approval on the day. 

Luck was on our side. Our minivans were given permission to visit Plymouth. To get there, we drove along Friths Road, over the Belham River, and around the base of Garibaldi Hill. Whenever Zone 5 is deemed too hazardous to visit, tourists are restricted to visiting a lookout on the hill. Apparently, sand is the island’s largest export earner as the local sand is perfect for making quality cement. As a result, the area bordering Zone 5 is a hive of activity, supporting several sand quarries. Our group passed several laden dump trucks and conveyers pouring freshly mined sand into large mounds. 

Before we knew it, warning signs marking the exclusion zone’s boundary came into view. I couldn’t believe I was about to tick off another bucket list experience. For the next three kilometres, we made our way to the coast through dense vegetation. Dirt banks on either side of the road were a stark reminder of the nearby volcano. Our guide reminded us that these were actually overgrown ash and pyroclastic deposits.

Our route into Plymouth took us past the town’s former technical college towards the remains of its main jetty. As we drove, ruined buildings would come into view, some cloaked in vegetation growing in a layer of ash up to half a metre deep on their concrete roof. As we approached the coast, the scene became progressively more surreal.

The Molyneaux Building was one of the more surreal sights we encountered. This four-story building was built in 1989 as the corporate office for Cable and Wireless and the Government’s Audit Department. It’s built entirely of concrete and was the island's tallest building. These days, only its top two floors are visible. The rest of the building lies under almost eight metres of mud and ash. That’s it in the final image above.

The jetty was nothing to write home about. That is, until our guide pointed out that it once stretched more than 50 metres into the harbour. These days, thanks to the volcano, less than ten metres of jetty stands in open water as pyroclastic flows progressively create new land. Our guide shared images of the town before its destruction and spoke of fleeing with his child as a dark and deadly volcanic ash cloud descended on his home. We later learned that he once managed the island’s old airport before it was inundated by volcanic debris.

Looking back towards the volcano, we could see it gently rising away from the town. The smell of sulfur permeated the air. A large boulder field was visible in the distance. Our guide explained that the boulders were more than three kilometres away, making them appear deceptively small. They were the size of a small house or a large bus. Then he pointed out the misty veil moving below the clouds that hid the volcano’s summit. That mist wasn’t cloud; it was steam and haze venting from the caldera. 

Once his presentation was completed, we returned to our minivans for a drive through the western edge of central Plymouth. The experience was truly mind-blowing. We drove by buildings filled to the roof line with mud and debris. We were driving on a flat road, which meant level ground was once several metres below us. This realisation was brought into stark relief as we passed the Flora Fountain Hotel.

The hotel, built in 1984, consisted of two adjacent buildings. The ground floor of one building housed Angelo’s Supermarket, distinguished by a series of arched windows. A second circular building housed a fountain in a central courtyard, hence the hotel’s name. The internet is filled with images of Angelo’s supermarket buried to the top of its arches. You can see my version of these above. 

Above you can see the upper floor of Arrow’s Manshop Store, a ruined building noted for its yellow window frames and two semi-circular wings. Nearby was an elegant office building, with arched windows still intact, but buried partway up to its second floor. Further on, more roofs appeared at ground level. At times, everyone on the bus audibly gasped as we passed one buried building after another.

Our guide saved the best for last. We stopped briefly outside St Anthony's Anglican church. Sitting on higher ground,  slightly north of the town centre, this area was never buried. Instead, a concrete-like layer of ash has settled on everything. Our guide invited us to step outside and take a few photos. He then invited a couple of us to follow him down the road. He took us around the side of a boundary wall surrounding the church, up a shallow dirt bank (more ash deposits!) and along the side of the building. 

Suddenly, we found ourselves standing in a doorway looking into the ruined structure. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Daylight broke through the gutted ceiling, revealing abandoned wooden pews and dramatic colonnaded arches lining its central nave. Splashes of vibrant vegetation gave the entire scene a surreal post-apocalyptic feel. It was a magical moment. Hopefully, my photos have done it justice. I’ve also included an archived image of the church in its heyday.

 

The tour returned to Little Bay, where Garry caught a tender back to the ship. I decided to visit the local museum located on the edge of the island’s new cricket ground. Sadly, it was closed. However, the walk gave me a closer look at the island’s new white-walled, red-roofed Cultural Centre that opened in 2007. The island’s long-term plan is to transform Little Bay and the surrounding district into the island’s permanent capital. These new facilities, including a deep-water jetty, are being constructed progressively in support of this vision.

With little else to see, I caught a tender back to the ship for lunch. That's another item successfully ticked off my bucket list. I can finally say I’ve visited both the original Pompei and its modern replica. The destructive power of nature is certainly a sight to behold, and just a little humbling. Although I did joke later in the evening that I really must stop visiting active volcanoes!

Christmas done and dusted

That’s Christmas done for another year. This year’s festivities took place at Nicole and Jason’s in Rouse Hill. As we did last year, Garry and I slept over on Christmas Eve. We also took time out to see Mitch’s new apartment. It’s an impressive investment. I’d be happy to live there.

Thankfully the weather played its part. It was stinking hot out West on Wednesday, but dawned cooler on Christmas Day. Once mandatory present unwrapping was completed, the rest of the day was spent relaxing outdoors, including a late lunch on the patio. We even squeezed in a traditional game of cricket with some quirky backyard rules.

In the lead-up to the big day, Garry and I have been busy preparing for our extended overseas trip. On Tuesday, we went shopping at the DFO Outlet Mall in Homebush. What was meant to be an hour-long excursion turned into a four-hour shopping frenzy. We’re now well stocked with clothes, underwear and shoes for our cruise. Jon and Colm then came over for dinner on Tuesday. It was another one of our memorable late night catch-up sessions.

As always, Christmas Eve was a last-minute flurry of activity, preparing for Christmas Day and our forthcoming flight to New Zealand. We did some final grocery shopping, wrapped gifts, ironed clothes did the laundry, and got a haircut, before driving to Rouse Hill for the night.

Last night, after returning from Rouse Hill, four friends came over for Christmas drinks and leftovers on our balcony. The last guest finally departed around 11pm. Today we’ll be packing our bags and completing final preparations for our overseas adventures. We flew around the world once a year while living in London, so these lengthy trips aren’t anything new. However, this year's round-the-world trip has required more planning and preparation than normal. It’s been a little stressful to say the least. I guess we’re out of practice.

Counting down the days

We can finally use the fingers on one hand to count down the number of days until our Round the World extravaganza begins. Five days from now, we'll be boarding an early morning flight to Auckland. This is the first leg of two flights that'll get us into New York for a series of business meetings.

However, it's the 14-day Caribbean cruise that follows that's got me most excited.  Above, you can see the awesome itinerary. We'll visit a total of 12 ports (11 nations) by the time we're done. This is something that Garry and I have talked about doing for decades.  It's hard to believe we're about to make it a reality.

Venice for the first time

Venice is a magical place. There’s something about this aquatic city that instantly captivates every first-time visitor. It's like walking into a fairy tale. Elegant Byzantine marble facades greet you at every turn. Picturesque cobblestone pavements and gracefully arched bridges tempt you down shaded lanes and along water-side paths. As for its iconic canals, they churn with vessels of all descriptions in constant motion. Venice is simultaneously static, timeless and alive.

I visited this former mercantile city-state for the first time while backpacking through Europe in 1990. At the time, I was travelling with Dean Keiller, a Victorian sheep farmer, on a Eurail Youth pass. We arrived in Venice in the late afternoon on 7 September after travelling from Munich via the Brenner Pass.

For five days, we stayed at a campground in Fusina, a coastal town on the edge of the Venetian Lagoon. It was by far the cheapest option, with a nearby ferry wharf providing quick and easy access to Venice. Every morning, we took the ferry to Zattere, where we disembarked onto Rio Terà Foscarini, a street leading directly to Ponte dell'Accademia, one of three bridges crossing the Grand Canal.

The image opening this post was our first sighting of a canal in Venice. We literally walked around a corner from Calle Larga Nani, a side street off Rio Terà Foscarini, and stumbled upon this truly iconic view of the Cannaregio Canal. This is exactly what Venice is like. Around every corner lies something unexpected that either inspires or delights. The photo above shows the Grand Canal at sunset. Just another of the numerous Instagram moments we experienced.

According to the guidebooks, Venice comprises 116 islands, 177 canals, and 423 bridges. Dean and I filled our time exploring as many as we could, walking from one end of the city to the other. Along the way, we took in all manner of traditional tourist highlights, including the elegant white marble arch of the Rialto Bridge and the majestic Piazza San Marco, also known as St Mark's Square. Like all good tourists, we visited St. Mark's Basilica, the city’s famous 12th-century cathedral, admired its pilfered bronze Byzantine horses and ventured up its landmark red brick bell tower.

Getting into the bell tower required some planning. Our first attempt was thwarted by a queue stretching out the door and through the plaza. We decided to beat the crowd and returned first thing the following morning to purchase a midday tour ticket. As you can see above, the view was well worth the effort. The red-tiled roofs were breathtaking, as was the unobstructed view of Basilica Santa Maria della Salute with its stunning white marble dome.

We both loved Basilica Santa Maria della Salute. It’s a baroque-style church with a unique octagonal design decorated with 12 works by Titian. You’re also treated to a spectacular view of the Grand Canal, St Mark's Square and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore from Fondamenta Salute, a promenade that marks the start of the Grand Canal.

As penny-pinching backpackers, we decided against taking one of the gondola rides relentlessly touted to passing tourists. Instead, we spent our days catching the city’s vaporetti, or public ferry boats, which traverse its canals like buses on a city street. A Vaporetto literally took you anywhere you wanted to go. As a result, we visited Arsenale di Venezia, the city’s Byzantine shipyard; Murano, the island of glass-blowing artisans; and Lido, the barrier island that protects the lagoon.

Venice was a surprisingly expensive location. We discovered this very early on after retracing our steps one afternoon to grab lunch at a quaint restaurant we’d spotted earlier in the day. It was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall venue with concertina doors opening onto a cantilevered canal-side balcony. However, waterside dining does not come cheap. We took one look at the menu posted outside and decided a local pizzeria would do just fine.

The experience of retracing our steps was eye-opening. Dean and I had spotted this restaurant mid-morning while wandering its lanes and canal-side paths. An hour or so later, we decided it would be the perfect lunch venue. I then retraced our steps, lane by lane, from memory until we reached the spot where we’d originally seen the restaurant.

Dean was flabbergasted that I could recall every twist and turn of our walking route. Until that moment, I’d never appreciated that this was a unique skill. I naturally assumed anyone could do what I had just done. Sadly, my short-term memory is no longer as sharp, and so this navigational talent now eludes me. What is it they say about youth being wasted on the young?

As a once-powerful city-state, Venice is filled with all manner of ornate and imposing churches. Dean and I visited plenty of them, marvelling at their decadence and ostentatious excess. However, every so often, a venue would surprise us. San Giorgio Maggiore Church was one of them. Its grand white marble façade hints at decorative overkill inside. 

However, the interior, while grand and imposing, is relatively minimalist in nature. I loved it. The photos above were taken when Garry and I visited the church with Garry’s parents in April 2007. Every other image posted here comes from my Kodak-era photo album.

After five days of pounding the pavement in Venice, Dean and I packed up our pup tent and headed west. We caught a local train to Florence on 12 September, ready to kick off our next backpacking adventure, which included an impromptu gig as a fake Contiki Tour inspector. I'll reveal all in a future post.

Terrorism next door

At approximately 6:45pm this evening, we started hearing police and ambulance sirens going off around the neighbourhood. It was clear that a major incident was unfolding somewhere in the inner city. Within half an hour, reports of a mass shooting event at Archer Park, a grassy area at Bondi Beach, began coming in.

At 10:00pm this evening, the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Mal Lanyon, confirmed that at least 12 people have died in a terrorist attack and 29 others have been transported to various hospitals around the city. The injured included two police officers who are in serious condition. A car containing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has also been found parked in Bondi. In the last hour or so, a massive police raid has taken place on a property in Western Sydney.

The police have confirmed the involvement of two shooters. One is dead, and the other is in a critical condition in the hospital. Video footage broadcast this evening indicates that a third shooter may have been involved. Police have yet to confirm this. Sirens continue to race through the area as I write this post. The noise has been relentless since 6:45pm.

Without a doubt, a major terrorist attack took place just six kilometres from our home this evening. The Jewish community was the intended target. More than a thousand people were celebrating the first day of Hanukkah, an ancient Jewish candle lighting festival, at a beachside event in Bondi when the shooting began.

It’s the second such incident in the Eastern Suburbs in the last two years. In April last year, a deranged man killed six people in a Bondi Junction shopping mall. This evening's live coverage is showing locations along the seaside promenade that are all too familiar to Garry and me, including an arched pedestrian footbridge I've walked across many times. Once again, just as in July 2005, we find ourselves living in a city under attack. It's senseless, shameful and insane.

UPDATE: 7:45am, 15 December

The confirmed death toll is now 16 people. This toll includes one of the gunmen and, tragically, a ten-year-old child who passed away at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick last night. 42 people have presented with injuries at hospitals, including four children who have been transferred to Sydney Children’s Hospital. 

Police have confirmed there were only two gunmen involved, a father and his son. The father died at the scene yesterday, while the son remains in critical condition under police guard in the hospital. The father was a licensed gun owner and had been for at least a decade.  This is Australia's worst mass shooting since the tragedy that unfolded in Port Arthur almost two decades ago.

UPDATE: 8:25am, 15 December

The lives of yesterday’s victims are being steadily brought to light. One story has moved me deeply. Alex Kleytman, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor and native of Ukraine, was attending the event with his wife, Larissa Kleytman. He died shielding his wife from bullets. 

Garry and I toured Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2019. The experience was profoundly moving. It breaks my heart to think that Kleytman survived this monstrous place only to have his life cruelly taken by anti-Semitic violence decades later. Australia is not Nazi Germany. He should have been safe here. The BBC claims Australia has more Holocaust survivors than any other nation outside of Israel. I had no idea.

UPDATE: 18 December
It didn’t take long for politics to enter the fray in the aftermath of last weekend’s massacre. In a stunning, and clearly politically motivated, act, former Prime Minister John Howard held a press conference on Tuesday to disparage the current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese's call for gun reform. Until now, John Howard has kept largely to himself since leaving office in 2007. 

I’m dumbfounded by his actions. In April 1996, in the wake of the Port Arthur tragedy, both sides of politics rallied behind Howard as Prime Minister in a bipartisan effort to reform Australia’s gun laws. Fast forward two decades, and when similar tragic events engulf our nation again, he chose not to express a reciprocal measure of grace and goodwill towards the prime minister of the day.

Without a doubt, gun law reform is required in the wake of last weekend’s events. Therefore, it astounds me that Howard would actively strive to undermine any bipartisan initiative by describing calls for gun reform as a diversion. His comments strike me as Machiavellian and politically motivated.

I am by no means endorsing anything the current Government has done or failed to do. I’m simply noting my disappointment that the one man who benefited from bipartisan support in the wake of a similar atrocity chose a different path when the roles were reversed. Howard has done many great things as a leader, and our nation is the better for them. However, this week’s press conference isn’t one of them. 

To quote former Astronaut Frank Bowman, a failure of imagination enabled the events of last weekend to occur. In other words, there's work to be done in the weeks and months ahead to learn from last weekend and make lasting changes that keep our nation safe. This requires constructive debate and bipartisan support, not political point scoring.  Naturally, the debate will be fueled by high emotions.

For example, yesterday's blistering statements from Josh Freyenburg, while superficially sounding like a political play, proved authentic when challenged. He angrily hit back at television host Sarah Ferguson, who asked the former treasurer if his call for stronger action on antisemitism by the prime minister was politically motivated.

The former politician said his motivation comes from his daily life as a Jewish citizen and the simple fact that there are armed guards outside his kids’ school and police cars outside local Jewish sporting clubs.  

“Why should we live with this? If I’m not going to speak out, who is? If not now, when? If not me, who?” he told Ferguson on 7:30, the flagship ABC program.

While I don't endorse some of his rhetoric, I certainly respect the real-world experience he and his family have endured. Like all peace-loving Australians, I want our Jewish community to feel safe and embraced. It’s the same experience I sought for our nation’s Muslim community in the wake of the horrific Christchurch Mosque massacre six years ago, and for the LGBTQIA+ community during the same sex marriage debate in 2017.

Antisemitism is evil. Islamophobia is bigotry. Injustice is injustice, no matter who the victims are. Our modern nation has been built on the notion of a fresh start for people fleeing or being forcibly removed (just ask the convicts) from their home nation. Dear John, let’s keep it that way.

Pompeii and Pisa

It's retrospective post time again. Back in 1990, a Eurail Youth pass was an incredibly inexpensive and effective means of travel. Overnight trains, including sleeper trains, were common, and trains linked major cities with surprisingly high frequency. As a result, you could reach almost any European location with a railway station with ease and schedule your travel to maximise the ground you covered without compromise.

Dean Keiller and I used a 15-day flexi pass to explore Europe in the Summer of 1990. You could use these days whenever you wished on almost any train within three months. The pass also included conditions that offered incredible flexibility. For example, you could board a train in the evening to another city, and only the following day would count as a ticketed travel day. I don’t recall the details, but I imagine this flexibility was limited to trains departing after a certain time.

Likewise, you could get off a train at an intermediary stop and spend time sightseeing before continuing to your destination. The only caveat was that you had to arrive before midnight to avoid using a second day on your Eurail pass.

I made good use of this flexibility several times. For example, we got off the train between Stockholm and Copenhagen to explore Gothenburg, and again between Copenhagen and Munich, where we spent several hours exploring Hamburg. However, my scheduling skills came to the fore while traversing the length of Italy.

First, on 19 September, we squeezed in a half-day exploring the buried city of Pompeii while travelling to Brindisi to catch an overnight ferry to Corfu. Then, upon returning to Brindisi, on 25 September, we stopped for several hours in Pisa while en route to Zurich. I timed our stopovers to perfection. Dean and I later agreed that we’d had ample time for everything we’d wanted to see in each location.

Pompeii was fascinating. As we all know, the city was buried under metres of volcanic ash and pumice during the eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Its deadly covering preserved the city for the next two millennia until a major excavation in the 1950s. Pompeii was a wealthy town containing up to 20,000 residents at the time it was destroyed. As a result, its ruins offer a unique snapshot of Roman life at the very moment it was buried.

To get ourselves oriented, Dean and I walked Via dell'Abbondanza, the main street in Pompeii, marvelling at its truncated marble pillars and abandoned buildings. A visitor’s map helped us locate many of the paved thoroughfares’ popular attractions, including preserved mosaic tile floors and walls decorated by frescoes in some of the wealthiest homes.  The streetscape above was sourced from the web.

The final image of Dean above was taken in the Basilica, a covered complex that acted as the local law court, and possibly a mercantile trading exchange. It sits on the edge of the city's expansive Roman Forum piazza. According to archaeologists, the Basilica was a hive of activity with large numbers of people bustling about their daily business. Evidence of this is visible in the hundreds of examples of graffiti, including some particularly vulgar expressions, scratched onto its walls. 

Without a doubt, a highlight for both of us was the remains of residents who'd been buried by the ash. I’d heard so much about these uniquely preserved bodies. Curiously, these crude statue-like figures aren’t actual bodies. They’re plaster reproductions created by filling cavities left in the hardened ash long after the original corpse has decayed. 

I was surprised by how few victims were on display, only three or four at best. Likewise, their condition was equally disappointing. We stumbled across them without any fanfare, stored in a rather dusty building housing all manner of artefacts, including rows of clay amphorae. In the decades since, if online images are accurate, the archaeological park has dramatically improved the quality of these exhibits.

The Amphitheatre of Pompeii was also particularly memorable. It is one of the oldest surviving Roman amphitheatres in the ancient world. It once seated 20,000 spectators. Unlike many earlier stadiums, it was built entirely of stone, rather than timber. The amphitheatre was first partially excavated in 1748. It was later completely excavated between 1813 and 1816. 

However, even today, much of its tiered seating remains partially overgrown by soil, shrubs and grass. As a result, you feel like you’re an explorer stumbling across an ancient ruin for the first time. Interestingly, much of the vegetation we saw has been excavated in more recent years.  I count myself lucky enough to have seen it in a more atmospheric state. The first image shown above was taken by me, the second was pulled from the Internet.

Our return journey via Pisa proved equally memorable. Like all good tourists, we disembarked at the main train station and made our way across the Arno River to Piazza del Duomo.  The walk along Via Rome takes about half an hour. For the most part, it’s a fairly unremarkable walk until you reach the Duomo.  I still recall how excited we were upon entering the piazza and seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa for the first time. Its collonaded white marble facade looks exactly as it does in all those iconic photographs.

We were equally stunned by the carefully manicured lawn surrounding the piazza's three main buildings. Elsewhere in Europe, the entrance to a church was typically marked by a paved plaza. However, on this occasion, the vivid green expanse that greeted us was the perfect foil for these dazzling white buildings.

However, we didn't climb the famous bell tower. It had been closed to the public nine months earlier as a major engineering project designed to stabilise the structure and prevent its collapse got underway. According to Wikipedia, more than a decade was spent carefully removing 38 cubic metres of soil from underneath its higher end. The tower's tilt was ultimately reduced by 45 centimetres. The tower eventually reopened to the public in December 2001 and was declared stable for another 300 years.

Naturally, we took an obligatory image of us diligently propping up the bell tower.  That's the image of me which opens this post. Dean and I also took time to explore the neighbouring cathedral and the baptistry. The piazza was largely crowd-free thanks to some rather damp and overcast weather. While it was great to experience Pisa without the crowds, we never did see the famous white marble facades glistening in the sunlight. I'd finally see them on a sunny day, almost two decades later.

One final observation. It took some careful planning to get to Pisa. We initially caught a long-distance train from Brindisi to Bologna, then transferred onto a regional train to Florence, before transferring a final time onto a local train bound for Pisa. Once our sightseeing was done, we retraced our steps to Bologna and rejoined the long-distance train to Zurich. Remember that all of this was planned while we were on the road in an era before the Internet or personal computing devices. Instead, we used nothing more than a printed DL-sized timetable book, a folded map, a notebook and a pen.

With Pisa ticked off our bucket list, it was back onto the train for a journey back through the Alps to Zurich. Follow this link to learn more about our time in Switzerland.