Down the Road to Lowestoft

Monday 19 August 2002. We are staying in Great Yarmouth for a week and after a relaxing day in the town yesterday, we wake on Monday morning ready for a bit of exploring.

So we set off after our customary trip to the beach hut for coffee and make our first stop of the day at Lowestoft just down the coast. It is the most easterly town in the United Kingdom and consequently the first town to see the sunrise every day. Well... on the days when the sun isn't blocked by clouds, rain, fog, snow, and vast alien space ships... The photo shows the East Point Pavilion from where you can sit in complete dry and strain to see the sunrise through the clouds, rain, fog, snow... (I may have exaggerated about the vast alien spaceships...)

As with many seaside fishing villages, the harbour has turned more into a marina for pleasure craft owned by people who rarely visit and even more rarely actually take them out to sea.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club. Founded in 1859, the clubhouse of 1902-3 superceded an earlier one of 1866 that the club quickly outgrew. Meetings and races are held both at sea and on the easily reached Suffolk and Norfolk Broads, the nearest of which - Oulton Broad - we shall see in the next article.

Me, wistfully wishing I could afford to buy a boat and moor it and ignore it here... The yacht club does advertise its membership and mooring rates as competative, so I really should look wistfully at more exclusive marinas, perhaps in Monte Carlo or Portofino. At least I've now grown out of looking wistfully at the Marina in Stingray...

Lowestoft railway station. Opened as Lowestoft Central Station by the Great Eastern Railway in 1847, it was the eastern terminus for lines from Ipswich to the south and Norwich to the north west. A second station, Lowestoft North, was closed along with the direct line from Lowestoft to Great Yarmouth in 1970. It is now a residential site - Beeching Drive.

The station is half a mile from the main centre of town and they were originally separated by green fields along a cliff top. We walked through today's streets to the main shopping street.

In fact we walked up the shopping street further into the town than we had on previous visits and found the old part of the town. Here we found the old High Street with buildings kept in the character of the old town.

Narrow alleyways known as "scores" led from the High Street to where the fishermen had their huts in the old days. The name here suggests the brewing of beer may have taken place somwhere near! Malsters Score twists and turns - turning to the left at the far end of this photograph. In the past because of these blind turns, it was known as a dangerous place to walk at night and there were instances of robbery particularly of sailors using the score to return to their ships.

Spurgeons Score has no such twists and turns, but starts as a stepped alley and continues today down a long straight street. In the past dwellings would be much more crowded than they are today...

South Flint House is faced with knapped flints, a feature of many older buildings in this part of the UK. This one goes back to the 1500s.

Here and there what is obviously a building of greater age sits amongst the more modern box-shaped shops and whilst this is no different to almost every town in the country the sight of a more attractive and less severe building does make you wish that modern architects could apply a little more creativity into their work these days.

Inside the old pharmacy. The old shelving had been retained and preserved but had, of course, modern-day products on the shelves. I suppose most of us buy liquid soap these days, but I can still get nostalgic about a sudden whiff of Cusson's Imperial Leather soap bars and was amazed once in a "living museum" at the familiarity of cakes of pink carbolic soap that I wouldn't have smelt since early childhood in the 1950s at my grandparents' house. Not that I'd particularly like to go back to living like that, but it brought back memories of Mum scraping a cake of dark green Fairy soap on collars and cuffs before putting shirts in the washing machine.

Great Yarmouth 2002 Index

Getting a Bit Lost in Genoa

Tuesday 28 August 2007. The Island Star arrives at Geoa, Italy. It sails past the industrial area of the port and right into the city waterfront where there are moorings for cruise ships and ferries.

It is an old city, spoiled a little by an elevated roadway running right across the waterfront. Some of the buildings look a little tired and run down.

A huge quayside building, the Stazione Marittima leads from the wharf to a pleasantly spectacular piazza, the front of the building telling of past glories. It was well maintained and truly impressive. Excursions were being offered to Milan and Portofino amongst other places. We had opted for doing our own thing today and hopped innocently onto a free city shuttle bus. This took us on a very roundabout journey, passing through a couple of tunnels before dropping us off in the middle of the city. I had no idea at all in which direction the port was or how far away it was!

Well, we have a good choice of directions to go in, so we just set off. You never know - we might find our way back to the ship... This cafe looked familiar. Our favourite Blackpool cafe (we live there) has this same Elvis figure sitting in its window! I saw a sign for a Tourist Information office and we were able to get a street map and sort out where we were.

We were on a hill. Going up led to the medieval part of the city and going down led back towards the waterfront and through a maze of alleyways. We headed uphill, coming to this magnificent gateway through the old city wall. Then a few steps down and we came to a small piazza to our right, almost every inch of which was covered with parked scooters, Lambrettas, Vespas - the Italians like their scooters. I don't think there was a single motorbike amongst them!

On our left side was this wonderful ruin about which I know nothing whatsoever. I could go off searching on Google, but then I know that a few of my readers like these little challenges, so if you know what this is called, how old it is, who built it, whether it was used for worship, games or sacrificing grasshoppers - please leave a comment or get in touch!

And now we have a look at the small building next door... This was labelled quite clearly and proudly as Christopher Colombus's house. He was born here in fact, although when we called he had gone out... I don't know what it is with us and Italy, we are just unlucky in this way. We went to see Vesuvius one year and that had gone out too...

We left the birthplace of Christopher Colombus and passed once more through the medieval gate, heading eventually into the dark and slightly seedy alleyways leading to the waterfront.

Some of them are well lit and filled with shops and neon light. Some are alleys in the truer sense of the word, dark with six-storey buildings on either side, concealed doorways and smoking men looking at you suspiciously. A chap walking alone in front of us was accosted by a prostitute. He waved her away irritably. She didn't take offence.

I even found a guitar shop in one of the alleys, though I thought perhaps I might have problems getting it on the flight home. We were looking for a tobacconist as Fran had some cards to post. I haven't a clue what stamps is in Italian and when we eventually found a tobbaconist we went in warily and I said a tentative "poste?" The tobacconist tutted (in Italian) and said in perfect English: "Post office - next door!" Ah...! Well, for Heaven's sake - it's yellow! Red! That's the colour post offices should be! We have some more wandering to do before we return to the ship, but once we were back we got into a conversation with a couple who said "We were walking through some alleys and ran into some Carabinerie police. They said it was too dangerous for tourists to be in the alleys and they escorted us back to the waterfront!"

Return to Mediterranean Explorer Cruise, 2007 Index

Taormina

Monday 7 July 2008. As we came away from the amphitheatre we were starting to feel the effects of the sun and looking for a drink found something called a granite which was like a strawberry slush that was just right - as long as you didn't suck at the straw too much and get a brain-freeze!

We leave the amphitheatre and start to walk back along the shopping streets.

Every bit of shade is welcome but highly sought after as the temperatures are climbing steadily.

I reckoned it was time to apply more suntan cream. We sat on the stone steps to the right of the photo to put it on and, two scorched bums later, we got up rather quickly. Phew those steps were hot!

The main street had lots of shops and there were plenty of antiques shops amongst the more usual tourist knick-knack places. Some of the side alleys (on one side they went up and on the other side down, due to the town being on a hillside) had some delightfully narrow but quite colourful shops and displays.

Fran had seen these marzipan fruits and whilst wondering why people would eat the stuff rather than an actual fruit, it still made an interesting display!

Side streets and alleys going down to our left...

Side streets and alleys going up to our right...

Balconies everywhere. Stone balustraded ones, others with railings. This one with a face on the middle corbel!

It's always an uneasy feeling walking amongst so many shops... Luckily Miss Franny seemed ok with just looking...

We had been sauntering along and weren't sure how far we had gone, or how far it was to our meeting place.

But then we came to it with three quarters of an hour to spare. We met up with another couple from the boat that we had met at dinner the previous night. We agreed to go sit outside a local cafe bar and order a couple of beers! This is the life...

We walked through the archway and found the perfect place.

When it was turn for me to order I did so in Italian and gratifyingly the waiter immediately said "Si Signor!" and brought more beers which caused the guy we were with to cough and splutter in surprise! "Eh, the people we meet on holiday!" he said to his wife as though I were some sort of freak...

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