A week in Pisa and Lucca that we didn't think would happen

Somehow, despite all the travel restrictions, cancelled flights and general covid-induced chaos, our trip to Italy at the end of July was still possible. A couple of months ago I was convinced it would all get cancelled. But fast-forward to a two weeks before the trip and our plans were still intact, so we packed our bags, put on our face-masks and headed for Pisa and Lucca.

You've probably heard of Pisa, it's got that big wonky tower in the middle of it. Lucca is another city in Tuscany, about half an hour from Pisa by train and a great place to eat yourself into a pizza/pasta induced coma if you fancy it. It's packed with great cafes, restaurants and bars scattered throughout its old town area.

Pisa was probably a lot quieter than usual at this time of year because of coronavirus, which meant Piazza del Duomo where the Leaning Tower is located was less packed with people than it would be normally. Climbing the stairs of the leaning tower cost a slightly exorbitant €18 but it seemed foolish to visit one of the most iconic buildings in the world and not go up it.

Lucca is Pisa's quieter, more laid back cousin and you can spend hours just walking round it, losing yourself down various narrow streets and seeing which part of the city you re-emerge in. All while eating delicious gelato or stopping off for a coffee, of course.     

While travel is certainly possible at the moment, it's different. It was very noticeable in Italy how much more on the ball they are with wearing masks than we are in the UK. Walk into a shop, museum or hotel and you put your mask on straight away or you're not allowed in. Same goes for airports and train stations. Yes it can be uncomfortable in the heat of summer but if it means businesses can stay open because people are following the rules, then that's fine by me. 

I suspect this won't be the only trip abroad I take that requires a face-mask until the magic vaccine comes along and sorts out the coronavirus situation. Ah, what a strange time we are living in right now. The keys, wallet and phone check before leaving the house has become keys, wallet, phone and mask. Well, if that means we can travel more safely then it's a very small burden.

Stay safe, help each other out and remember things will get back to normal eventually. And in the meantime, why not gaze admiringly at the photos below. 

It does lean a bit doesn't it? Someone should probably fix that.

Who knew holidays in 2020 would include wearing a face-mask everywhere? The Leaning Tower of Pisa decided to take it one step further, by issuing visitors climbing the tower with a buzzer you wear around your neck, which goes off if you stand too close to someone else. But that included people in your party, so it went off all the time and was probably a bit of a waste of time and money for the tourism board if you ask me. 

I was challenged to take an 'ironic' leaning on the leaning tower picture. I rose to that challenge.

Keith Haring went to Pisa in 1989 and painted this huge mural on the side of a building near the train station.

Rose and Harriet in front of a door in Lucca that's clearly much too large for them. Or perhaps they are too small.  

A view along the waterways of Lucca. Can't really call it a canal as you couldn't fit a boat along it, more of a walled river I guess.

Lion statue that watches over Lucca. 

The church of San Michelle in Lucca dates back to the 795AD and was rebuilt in 1070. So it's pretty old. And just behind it is an excellent pizza place called Pizzeria Pellegrini that has been going since 1972. Not quite as old but still pretty good going. 

Touristing hard around the walls of Lucca on a four seater bike/wagon. Fun way to spend an hour. 

That's Manel on the front, he is Portuguese but also speaks Italian and English because other countries are much better at learning languages than us British and Irish folk.

The gardens of Villa Garzoni in Collodi. Collodi sounds more like it should be a rural town in Ireland but is in fact a town near Lucca which also contains Pinocchio Park, an attraction much-loved by the Irish contingent on our trip.

A section of Piazza dell Anfiteatro in Lucca. The buildings go all the way round it like a large amphitheatre, hence the name.  

I think this building is the Institute of Botany in Lucca but don't quote me on that. It's in the botanic garden anyway so it's got something to do with plants. 

Ate a lot of gelato on this holiday. I'm not normally one for getting ice cream in a non-edible container but I wanted to pour some coffee onto the ice cream and do a DIY affogato. Because I'm classy. 

Back in Pisa and a view along the Arno river. It's only now, writing this caption that I have realised this is the closest we came to seeing a sunset in Italy. And I bloody love a sunset. You don't have to get up at the crack of dawn for it like a sunrise and you can probably have a drink too. 

We walked the walls in Pisa and once you get beyond the main square you don't actually see much. However I did like the staircase at the exit, so that exposed walk in baking sun was probably worth it.

Piazza Cavalieri (Knight's Square) in Pisa. 

9 days in Slovenia and a taste of Trieste

Welcome back for another installment of my travel blog. I've been writing this for long enough that I probably should be an 'influencer' by now. But for some reason there aren't any companies getting in touch asking me to flog products for them on my Instagram account with 200 or so followers. Must try harder.

This trip took in Slovenia, starting in Ljubljana, where we hired a car and headed to lakes Bled and Bohinj for a bit of hiking. Then northwards to the Vrsic Pass, an amazing mountain road that reaches an altitude of 1,611 metres. Back down the other side of the mountain to Bovec for a bit of white water rafting, followed by the Skocjan Caves, Portoroz and Piran. Then home from Trieste.

Joining me for most of this trip was my parents' second-born, Jason (also known as my brother). Other than a trip to Bruges for our mum's 60th, we've never really been on holiday together, so it was time to put our sibling relationship to the test and see if we could handle several days on the road together.

Highlights of the trip included:

• Wandering around Ljubljana and it's pedestrianised Old Town, stopping for a coffee here or a beer there
• Eating a horse steak in Lubljana. Very tasty and barely distinguishable from beef, so I can see how that whole horsemeat "scandal" happened in the UK a few years ago. The only scandal is that I didn't know how good horse tastes until now
• Exploring the area surrounding Lake Bohinj despite a day of nearly non-stop rain. It's much less crowded than Lake Bled, which has built a lot of hotels and restaurants around the lake
• Driving over the Vrsic Pass in Triglav National Park. Non-stop incredible scenery for a couple of hours. Saw a few people cycling it too, crazy bastards
• The Skocjan Caves in south-west Slovenia. Enormous cave network with a giant canyon running through it. Looks like something out of Indiana Jones or that place the goblins live in The Hobbit. They won't let you take photos down there, which is actually quite refreshing and it's so dark they probably wouldn't come out well anyway
• Renting an e-bike in Portoroz and cycling along Slovenia's small stretch of coast to Izola and Koper
• Exploring Piran and getting caught in a massive hailstorm while at the top of the town's clocktower

If you're thinking of visiting Slovenia yourself, I'd definitely recommend it. Ljubljana is ideal for a long weekend break and if you have the time to go further afield, the lakes at Bohinj and Bled are only about an hour's drive away. If you go in April like I did, it helps to have flexible plans if rain makes exploring the great outdoors more challenging!

Ljubljana Castle sits on top of a big hill overlooking the city. It's free to have a wander round the castle and its walls, you'll only need to pay if you want to see the museum inside.

The slightly terrifying door of the Church of St Nicholas. Looks like the bishops are coming out of the door at you.

Continuing the theme of doors, this one caught my eye in the Old Town, just by the river. Ljubljana's a great city to wander aimlessly around if you're in a picture-taking mood. 

Multi-coloured buildings on the northern side of the Ljubljanic River which dissects the city.

Bled Island in the middle of Lake Bled. This is about as close as we got on a very drizzly day, although boats were taking plenty of umbrella wielding groups out to the island. In my opinion, Bled's a bit too built up with hotels and various ways to extract money from tourists, whereas Bohinj is a bit more relaxed and nature-y. (Don't try and tell me nature-y isn't a word, I'm a journalist.) 

It's hard to get that 'hey look at me in front of a waterfall shot' when the waterfall is running so powerfully (caused by snow melting and rainfall) that you get soaked standing anywhere near it.

A fisherman trying to catch some dinner on the shores of Lake Bohinj. We got so wet that day we might as well have joined him in the lake. 

Jason goes for a wander near the top of the Vrsic Pass in Triglav National Park. I do have a photo where he's facing the camera but I'll spare you the horror in case you're eating dinner while reading this. 

 The Russian Chapel on the way up the Vrsic Pass, which was built by Russian prisoners of war during WW1.

With the steel cables and metal posts you'd think this bridge was pretty solid but you'd be wrong. Some of the wooden planks looked like they'd give way to a heavier man than myself. Pretty though.

This is the small town of Kanal, which spans the Soča River, about an hour south of Bovec. Don't know if there's much here other than a photogenic river and bridge. The milky-blue colour of the river was certainly something I hadn't seen before.

Salt flats at Strunjan near Portoroz. Back in the days of the Romans, Piran and Portoroz made their money exporting salt and are still doing so today. There's also a much bigger salt farm at Secovlje with a museum, spa and shop if you're a big salt enthusiast.

Nice little courtyard in Izola on the coast of Slovenia. It's a small town that probably gets overlooked in favour of Koper or Piran by a lot of tourists, but definitely worth a detour.

An olive grove near Portoroz. Some areas of western Slovenia are covered in vineyards and olive trees, which makes sense as it borders Italy and shares a similar climate. It also means that in some places you can get a glass of good wine for €1. Yes please. 

The town square in Piran. If I'd visited in the traditional summer months, I'd have got a lot more blue sky in photos but then it would also have been heaving with visitors, so on balance the mixed bag of weather probably wasn't such a bad thing.

Climbed the clock tower in Piran to get this photo just before a full on hailstorm kicked off. Thunder, wind, the lot. Made for some very dramatic views until the weather got so bad I had to abandon my position and head back down to shelter.

A video illustrating just how much rain and hail there was. According to Google Translate,  Slovenian for 'raining cats and dogs' is 'dežujejo mačke in psi'. (Chances are it doesn't actually translate into Slovenian and that phrase is gibberish, but I'm trying to educate AND entertain).

Old guy fishing on the end of a small pier in Piran after sunset. In case you can't see his fishing rod and it looks like he's just staring wistfully out to sea, I can assure you he was fishing.

Piazza Unita d'Italia in Trieste. Only got to spend a day here but it seemed like there was plenty to do if I'd had more time. Loads of good restaurants for a start, plus museums, galleries and the nearby town of Prosecco.

The famous Irish writer James Joyce lived in Trieste twice back in the early 1900s, so he must have been charmed by it. The city claims he wrote part of Ulysses here, but then every cafe in Edinburgh will tell you JK Rowling wrote part of Harry Potter there, so believe what you want to believe.

Fun fact: Slovenia was my 52nd country. I use an app called Been to keep track of where I've been - you can get it for Android here or iPhone here. Because, for some unknown reason, I'm still not an influencer, I won't be getting any money for telling you about Been but you might find it helpful too.

Three days in Budapest leaves me Hungary for more

Budapest is one of those cities I feel like I should have visited ages ago but just hadn't got round to. It's like that list of films everyone has that they haven't seen yet, but feel like they probably should have. For example, I've never seen Gremlins or Gone With The Wind... there, I've said it. Don't judge me.

I flew in from Copenhagen (after a three-day work trip there) and made my way to a slightly shabby but excellently located Airbnb right in the centre of Budapest, about five minutes walk from the Danube. Historically, Budapest is two cities merged into one, Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other. Pest is where most of the action is for tourists, with St Stephen's Basilica, the Jewish district and all the best bars and restaurants.

It also has the Széchenyi thermal baths, the highlight of my visit. Around 30 or more pools of varying sizes and water temperatures, it's a wonderful way to spend a few hours in Budapest. I took the advice I was given to get there early (6am-10am) or late (6pm-10pm) to avoid the crowds in the busiest part of the day, and I was relaxing in one of the larger outdoor pools by 8.45am. Let's face it, I wasn't going to get there for 6am, this was a holiday after all.

On my first morning in the city I went full tourist and joined one of the free (but not really free because you tip the guide afterwards) walking tours. It's one of the best ways to orientate yourself in a new city, learn a bit of history about the place and spot some things to go back to later.

I was only there for three days and could easily have spent another day wandering about the city. But on the other hand it was enough to be left wanting to back again to check out the things I didn't have time for and eat some more tasty Hungarian Goulash.

Budapest's not a bad looking city at night, especially down by the Danube, with bridges and buildings on both side illuminated. This is Széchenyi Chain Bridge.

The Hungarian Parliament Building. The spotlights used to light up some of the buildings attract loads of bugs/moths, which in turn attracts a lot of birds who want to eat them. That's what all the white dots above the building in this photo are.

Standing in front of the Parliament Building.

Matthias Church, over on the Buda side of the river. Photo taken from the Fisherman's Bastion, one of the shortest tourist attractions I've ever paid for. A quick walk round a wall and you're done.

Can't remember where this was (somewhere on the Buda side of the river) but I liked the look of it.

Central Hall Market is busy but you can get some proper Hungarian Goulash in there for a few quid, as well as endless stalls selling paprika-related gifts. Hungarians love the paprika.

I tried out Airbnb 'experiences' and went to see the Secret Swing Concerts of Budapest, with a band that played swing jazz and a lot of Django Reinhardt. Would absolutely recommend if you're in Budapest on a Thursday night.

One of the outdoor pools at Széchenyi thermal baths. There are plenty of thermal baths to choose from in Budapest, and I heard the Gellert is good too, but this is the most famous one.

Another shot of the baths. It was warm and sunny when I was there but the baths are open all year round. It would be cool to go back again on a colder day and see the steam rising off the water.

Chimney cake - a Hungarian speciality. A long cone-shaped cake sprinkled with cinnamon.

The Liberty Statue was erected under Soviet rule in 1947, but when Hungary gained independence in 1989 the locals decided they wanted to keep it.

Shot of Budapest at night from the Liberty Statue's viewpoint, on the Buda side of the Danube.