Italy - Day 2, The Amalfi Drive

It was Saturday and today was the first of our trips; the famous scenic drive all along the coast from Sorrento to Amalfi and very efficiently and right on time the coach picked us up and the driver headed out of town. The bus went south and after only a short while we out of the busy town and heading through lemon groves towards the coast with tantalising glimpses of the sparkling sea ahead of us.

The corniche provides one of scariest but most scenic motoring experiences in the world as coaches veer vertiginously around the jagged granite edges of the Lattari Mountains, twisting and tunneling and hairpin-bending, providing vista after stunning vista of gorges and bridges. Cliffs plunging without warning into the glassy Thyrrenian Sea, and sudden improbable villages tucked picturesquely into the landscape.

The journey was punctuated with frequent stops to admire the panoramic views and the precipitous drops, which I was sure was just to remind passengers just how precarious the route really was. To the west in the perfect azure blue sea there were rocks and islets all of which seem to have a story attached to them. There were islands that were favourites of the Roman Emperors and a group of rocks called the three sisters that supposedly lured sailors to their deaths, and there was one proud outcrop which we were assured that when viewed from a particular angle resembled Garibaldi. I spent some time looking for the profile of the biscuit before I realised that it was Giuseppe Garibaldi one of the heroes of Italian unification! Actually you have to look very hard indeed and even when you think you’ve got still have a very vivid imagination.

Back in 1976 when I first went to Amalfi coaches drove in both directions along the route which led to long hold-ups and required enormous skilled and dexterous driving to choreograph a passage without falling into the sea below because there is a nerve jangling absence of barriers. To give you some idea, John Steinbeck, who used to visit here in the 1950s, claimed that the Amalfi Drive was "carefully designed to be a little narrower than two cars side by side." These days because of its winding nature and seriously limited width, the road only carries coach traffic one way, from Sorrento to Amalfi and to return to Sorrento it is necessary to take a more sensible but less scenically breathtaking inland route inland route back home.

On the way to Amalfi the coach stopped to admire the view of the town of Positano that clings improbably to an almost vertical cliff with buildings tumbling chaotically from the top right down to the black beach at the bottom. Transport in Positano is only possible on foot but it looked well worth the effort as it boasted the most picturesque pastel villas adorned by pink bougainvillea and pots of boiling red geraniums and sweet smelling Mediterranean herbs. Positano was a relatively poor fishing village in the first half of the twentieth century but it began to attract large numbers of tourists in the 1950s, especially after Steinbeck published his essay about the town in Harper's Bazaar in 1953: ‘Positano bites deep’, he wrote. ‘It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone’. And having seen it I like to think that I understand exactly what he was saying!

The coach stopped at a little bar and souvenir shop with a perfect view over the town and we sat on the roof terrace and admired the views and had had a first glass of lemonade made from the juice, the pulp, the seeds, the skin and even the leaves of the "Amalfi Sfusato", which is the local lemon fruit. It has supposed therapeutic properties; it fights infection, stimulates the immune system, relieves stress, is an aid to smokers, stimulates growth and retards the aging process and enhances athletic performance. These lemons are so unique that they have a prestigious European Community Geographic Indication Protected Certification under the name of the "Amalfi Coast Lemon". It was so good that we had another while we waited for everyone to use the restrooms and then get back to the coach.

And then we continued on our journey and on the way best of all, in my opinion, was the village of Vallone di Furore, a narrow fjord where steep rock walls sheltered an enclave of fishermen's houses and a tiny harbour with a beach littered with small hard working fishing boats all resting for the day.

Amalfi was a beautiful town, but the traffic was horrendous and parking is a real problem. The coach operators have to book a slot in the main car park and there is a constant queue of vehicles waiting for their precious turn to set down their passengers. Once through the approach tunnels and finally inside it is a lovely town with a grand cathedral and lots of sprawling back streets with interesting shops and restaurants. While we were there we took an interesting boat trip with which provided views of the homes of famous film stars including Sophia Loren, Roger Moore and Gina Lollbrigida, who was said to be the most beautiful woman ever in the world and who had the lettuce called the lollo rosso named after her famous curly red hair.

The patron Saint of Amalfi is Saint Andrew whose relics, it is said, were brought to Amalfi in 1206 from Constantinople shortly after the completion of the town's cathedral. It is dedicated to Saint Andrew and contains a tomb in the crypt which, if you believe it, still holds a portion of the relics of the apostle. During Mass on holy days, Saint Andrew's relics are said to exude a liquid called ‘St. Andrew's Manna’ and people are anointed with the liquid, and many believe it to have miraculous qualities. If it is true it sounds rather messy to me and I imagine the chemist shops probably think it is miraculous when they sell gallons of hair shampoo for what must be a massive clean up after these sticky events!

When we left Amalfi we carried on for a few kilometres along the coast to Majori where we finally left the picturesque road and headed inland for the return journey. After a while we stopped in a charming little town which was just waiting to ambush tourists returning from the drive and in the busy main square there were an assortment of little tourist shops, cafés and bars. We looked around but Jonathan was feeling quite poorly now so we sat in the shade and waited for the appointed time to return to the coach for the last stage of the journey back to Sorrento.

Jonathan rested and went to the shop for some beers and some medical supplies and then sat on the balcony in the last of the afternoon sun and enjoyed a couple of bottles of Pironi. Later we had a second disappointing meal and then with Jonathan burning up had an early night and hoped that he would be better in the morning because we were due to visit nearby Pompeii.

Italy - Day 1, Come Back to Sorrento

There is a famous song called ‘Come back to Sorrento’ that finishes with the lines: “Then say not 'goodbye', Come back again, beloved, Back to Sorrento, or I must die.”

When I first went to Sorrento nearly twenty years earlier the plane landed at the military airport base near to the city of Naples and we were firmly warned against taking photographs. It wasn’t an especially welcoming sort of place as we passed through a rather austere passport control and baggage reclaim hall both decorated in drab grey and in dire need of a welcoming makeover. By 2004 it had been spruced up a little but it was still not a red carpet sort of place and we progressed through customs control and baggage reclaim as quickly as we could and made our way through to the coach that was waiting for us.

The coach nudged its way through the noisy morning traffic and then the twenty-five kilometre drive to Sorrento took about forty-five minutes along a busy road running alongside the Circumvesuviana railway and on the way we got our first look at Mount Vesuvius, which towers up perilously close to the city. Naples, we learned, was dangerous for a number of reasons and most obvious of all is its perilously close proximity to Vesuvius, which looms large over the city. The volcano has a tendency towards unexpected explosive eruptions and has a major eruption cycle of about two thousand years and as the last one was in 1946 the next one is overdue.

It is difficult to be precise but scientists think that Vesuvius formed about twenty-five thousand years ago and today is rated as one of the most dangerous in the world not because of its size but because of the proximity of millions of people living close by and if it was to go off again with a similar eruption to the one that destroyed Pompeii in 79 then it is estimated that it could displace up to three million people who live in and around Naples.

The Italian Government and the City of Naples have emergency evacuation plans in place that would take nearly three weeks to evacuate the entire population to other parts of the country but as Pompeii was destroyed in less than three days or so they might want to work on speeding that up a bit. Many buildings exist ludicrously close to the summit in what is called the red zone and there are ongoing efforts being made to reduce the population living there by demolishing illegally constructed buildings, establishing a National Park around the upper slopes of the mountain to prevent the erection of any further buildings and by offering a financial incentive of €35,000 to families who are prepared to move away.

Then as we swooped down around the Bay of Naples we could see the Mediterranean Sea and the Island of Capri. When the coach arrived in Sorrento it started dropping off the passengers at their various hotels and it finally drove to Sant’ Agnello which is a town next to Sorrento and those guests staying at the Hotel Parco Del Sole were invited to leave the coach. This was our stop and we were immediately impressed with where we would be staying and we congratulated ourselves on a good choice.

It had been an early morning flight and it was still only late morning when we checked in to the Parco Del Sole, which was a four star traditional Italian hotel with attractive gardens at the end of a long narrow driveway that at the top of which was a beautiful fountain. It was a friendly sort of place with a marble floored reception and a cavernous lobby with stairs up to the rooms. Ours was at the back of the hotel with a good view of the mountains behind the town and on account of facing south had a gloriously sunny little balcony. Best of all there was a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine in an ice bucket on the table.

We stayed long enough to unpack, change, drink some of the wine and admire the view over the hills beyond the town and then we went outside to explore. At the end of the drive was a busy main road that went straight to the main square in Sorrento and we followed it for a while before heading off down a side street in the direction of the sea that we reached after a few minutes. We walked a little way along the cliff tops looking down over the small beaches of black sand and the wooden bathing platforms built out into the sea and the colourful fishing boats bobbing lazily on the occasional gentle wave. On the balustrades were plant pots full of gaily-coloured geraniums and every few metres there were seats to stop and sit and admire the views.

Finally we reached the town, which resembled a racetrack because Italy has some different driving rules to the rest of Europe and the traffic was murderously hectic this morning. Traffic lights are a good example of these different rules because each set resembles the starting grid of a formula one Grand Prix. At an Italian traffic junction there is an intolerant commotion with cars impatiently throbbing with engines growling, exhaust pipes fuming and clutch plates sizzling whilst behind the wheel the driver’s blood pressure reaches several degrees above boiling point. A regard for the normal habits of road safety is curiously absent in Italy so although the traffic light colours are the same as elsewhere they mean completely different things. Red means slow down a little bit, amber means go and green means carnage!

According to EuroStat, in 2004, there were thirty two thousand, nine hundred and fifty-one road deaths in the European Union and five thousand, six-hundred and twenty-five of them were in Italy. That is about 17%. In the ten years up to 2004 the Italians slaughtered sixty-five thousand, one hundred and twenty five people in traffic accidents so it pays to have your wits about you when crossing the road and why if you want to be sure of avoiding death on the highway in Italy it is probably safest to visit Venice.

After negotiating the road we stooped at the Bar Ercolano, ordered some beer and sat in the warm October sun and watched the people and the traffic going backwards and forwards through the main square. Afterwards we walked back to Sant’ Agnello and took the coastal path all the way until we came to the Hotel Mediterraneo where I had stayed twenty years earlier with dad. It looked smarter now with a fresh coat of paint, smart green shutters and a refurbished interior. Opposite, the little bar where we used to drink was still there but it had changed as well, gone were the plastic chairs, the cheap aluminum tables and flimsy sun umbrellas to be replaced with modern canvas parasols and cane furniture. We stopped for a drink of course and this brought back memories of that previous visit.

It was late afternoon so we went back to the hotel to buy some trips to Amalfi, Pompeii and Herculaneum and then we sat around the pool for a while before going back to the room to finish the sparkling wine and get ready for dinner.

This turned out to be a very disappointing affair with a poor choice of food that wasn’t especially tasty so we ate it quickly and then went back into Sorrento to find a nice bar for the evening. We didn’t stay out late because Jonathan wasn’t feeling so good and anyway we had an early start tomorrow to do the famous Amalfi drive.

Kefalonia - Days 6 and 7, Lazy days in the sun

With the car returned we spent the last full day and the last part day waiting to go back to the airport much as we spent the first day of the holiday. On the beach and around the pool, walking into the village, drinking at the friendly Italian bar and ocassionally watching the European football. On Thursday it was my forty-sixth birthday so I spent a bit more time than usual in the Italian bar that day but the evening soccer match was a dull 0 – 0 affair between Sweden and Turkey.

During the week the weather had warmed up and the last two days were very hot and we spent a lot of time lying on sunbeds and looking out over the haze of the Adriatic with the ocassional green silhouette of an island to be seen as though it was floating by. It was fun to snorkel in the warm calm waters of the secluded bay and then just sit around and let the days slip through our fingers.

I like all things about Greece and have returned every year since but since 2002 always to the Cycladic Islands to the east of the mainland , which are very different in character. Because they spent so long under Venetian control the Ionian Islands are more of a mix of Italian and Greek and with its grey limestone mountains and forests, Kefalonia has a feel of the Croatian Islands further to the north. I have been to the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos and these have a Turkish influence but the rugged little Cycladic Islands feel totally authentically Greek to me and I have to say that they are my favourites.

This was also the last time that I went to Greece on this sort of holiday, next year, also in Kefalonia we skipped the full board arrangements and after that we graduated through bed and breakfast up until 2005 through to full do your own thing back packing in 2006 and currently plans are being made for the 2009 adventure.

Just a few weeks later at the end of July we were back in Greece but unfortunately not all together. Due to a minor family disagreement we went to Skiathos on the other side of Greece without mum and dad and a few weeks later they went to Skiathos on the other side of Greece without us. Dad liked going on holiday and I am glad we spent this last one together almost a quarter of a century after our first European holiday together in Sorrento in 1976.

On the day I went back to work a meeting was called where it was announced that there would be cut backs and a redundancy. The boss was a horrible little man called Tom Riall who was a public school ponce and a self opinionated ex army captain who didn’t like me very much (and I didn’t like him either) so I knew he was looking in my direction. It was going to be difficult to select me ahead of some of the others and he wasn't nearly as clever as he thought he was and so because I had had enough of him and of Onyx UK I waited as long as I dared and then with perfect judgement volunteered to go. He was so pleased that he must breathed a big sigh of relief and gave me a very generous pay off and within a week or so I had got a new job doing what I like doing best and I was about to move to Lincolnshire.

Kefalonia - Day 5, Fiskardo & the north

The north part of Kefalonia is the most wild and rugged and at the very northern tip is the town of Fiskardo which was the only place on the island that wasn’t flattened by the earthquake. We set off straight after breakfast and after by-passing Argostoli drove through the village of Farsa, which was desperately unremarkable and would have been completely unrecognisable to poor old Captain Corelli. The road continued towards the narrow northern peninsula and as it did so the road began to rise up and down and twist first one way and then the other as it clung to the side of a mountain that tumbled precipitously into the sea and looked down on beautiful beaches and azure sea.

Eventually we arrived at Myrtos, which is the most famous of these beaches, a major tourist attraction and an automatic inclusion in any top ten beaches of Greece list. I don’t know about that but it has won several awards including ‘Best beach in Greece’ for several years running and third ‘Best beach in Mediterranean’. Myrtos is the beach all the brochures boast about and the island’s postcard pinup and from the roadside high above the scene was nothing short of breathtaking. A crescent of delicious white pebble beach, gentle surf and brilliant blue water and nothing was going to stop us making a perilous descent down an incredibly steep road to the long ribbon of gleaming stones backed by pale yellow, vertical cliffs.

Although it was hot it was very pleasant but in the high season there can be days of crippling heat as the bleached west facing stones, pale cliffs and turquoise sea combine to turn the entire beach into something resembling a slow roast oven. Actually once at the bottom it didn’t feel as special as it should have when compared with the view from the top. The pebble beach dropped very sharply into the sea, the stones were rough and there was a lot of tar about, which Jonathan managed to step in and then transfer the sticky mess onto his white shorts. We walked along the length of the beach to the naturist end but there was nothing remarkable to see so we returned to the car and made the tortuous return journey back up the stupendously steep hill.

Before we left mum washed the dirty shorts out in the sea and then tried to tackle the tar as we drove along but there was no shifting it and the harder she tried she only succeeded in smearing it around and making a much bigger mess. Jonathan began to show off and sulk. Eventually we arrived at Fiskardo and he had worked himself up into such a temper that he refused to leave the car and I eventually had to bribe him with the offer of purchasing a replacement pair. We had to park the car outside the village and walk in and he complained all the way down as though it was my fault that he had ruined his shorts. We found a little seaside shop and once we had selected and bought a new pair we put the dirty ones in a bin and left them behind and he cheered up immediately.

As Fiskardo is the only place that escaped the damage it is consequently the only village to see examples of the old Venetian architecture. The buildings around the harbour however had had a very heavy makeover and didn’t feel especially genuine but those in the back streets leading off the harbour were much more authentic.

The waterfront was awash with gaily-painted houses and the narrow streets away from the cobbled sea front were lined with tourist trinket shops and all-in-all Fiskardo felt more up-market than the other villages that we had visited. To go with this impression also went the prices and a simple round of drinks at a waterside bar cost considerably more drachmas than we had become accustomed to spending. We watched the fancy boats coming in and out of the bay and the harbour and then as Fiskardo is only quite a small place and it was getting crowded we left and headed back down the twisting coast road again through the rugged wilderness of the north-west coast and towards our intended destination of Assos.

Some places have an unreal beauty that completely lives up to the brochure descriptions and Assos is just that sort of place a place. There was not a hint of disappointment there. The approach to the village was especially spectacular down a spectacularly steep and winding road that snaked down into the village and all the while providing fabulous views over a rocky outcrop topped by the ruins of a Venetian castle. The village itself is tucked inside the narrow neck of a peninsula and it oozed perfectly placid charm with attractive buildings and a few small tavernas overlooking a small enclosed bay. The 1953 earthquake reduced the original village to rubble of course but the French helpers took to Assos and it was their funds that helped rebuild it in a style largely sympathetic to the original buildings.

For me this was the best location on the island, it was mid afternoon, hot and languid and we idled along the quayside and selected a small taverna overlooking the small bay to stop awhile and soak up the atmosphere. There were no cars in the village and so it was perfectly peaceful as we watched the boats and listened to the gentle lapping of the water as the whole place basked lazily under the sun.

Assos was the capital of northern Kefalonia for a few years after 1593 when the castle was first built but today is in ruins and we didn’t fancy the long tiresome walk to the top. The fortress was in an idyllic spot and was used for almost every sunset scene in Captain Corelli's Mandolin and it was also the spot where over one thousand Italian soldiers were murdered in the reprisals.

On the drive back mum explained that dad always liked to buy her a gold ring whenever they went away on holiday so it would be good if we could find a jewelers shop. I think this must have been news to dad who was sitting in the front seat next to me and I didn’t really get the impression that was as enthusiastic as mum about this and this put me in a tricky position. We got all the way back to Lassi before we spotted a jewelers and she insisted that we stop but dad showed little eagerness to leave the car and go inside. Eventually we did and mum spotted the one she rather liked and dad attempted a bit of battering. I have to say that looking for a 50% discount did seem wildly optimistic and predictably he was turned down flat. He offered a tiny bit more but was still rejected so without further ado or consultation he promptly left the shop and returned to the car. At this point Jonathan and I weren’t absolutely convinced that mum had got the ‘dad wants to buy me a ring’ bit completely right. There seemed to be a massive difference of opinion here.

Dad sat in the car, mum was upset and it looked like this might spoil the day out so I had to suggest to him that perhaps he did want to buy her a ring after all and after a bit of persuading he went back in, made a sensible offer this time and made the purchase. Phew, crisis averted!

Jonathan and I dropped mum and dad off at the hotel and then we returned the jeep to the car hire office and on the walk back stopped off at the Italian bar to have a drink and to giggle about the incident. When we returned again later there was an evening of great excitement when Italy beat Belgium 2 – 0 and there was a predictable Vesuvius like eruption in the bar.

Babysitting

Today has been another milestone in my grandad journey as I had the babysitting responsibility of looking after lovely little Molly. Sally is a schoolteacher and has returned to work and we have had to organise a family rota to look after Molly. She seems too small and precious to send to people we don’t know to look after her (and it is ludicrously expensive as well) so we are coordinating our diaries to include babysitting duties.

Of course I had been looking forward to this because here is my chance to have her all to myself for a few hours and I really did enjoy my day. It is a long time since I had played at Mary Poppins or Father Goose of course so I wondered if their might be some tips on the internet and I found this amusing site, http://www.superbabysitting.com/ and a journal at http://superbabysitting.blogspot.com/ which I read with interest but which only really confirmed to me that I didn’t need any help like this because I had done it all before.

Molly’s pace of development is now incredible and physical advances are coming fast and furious. Propped up by cushions she is sitting up for a few moments, when she is on her back she tries to raise her head to look around and when she is on her tummy she tries hard to move around. Her hand to eye coordination has improved and she is looking for things and searching out for them. One of her favourite playthings right now are her toes and she delights in reaching out and grabbing them to put in her mouth

Although five month old babies cannot express their emotions in the same complex way that adults do she is beginning to let us know how she is feeling with an extending range of sounds and noises. She likes company of course and when we do the silly things that we do with babies she is beginning to get the joke because she will laugh at funny expressions or faces and she gives them back to try and make us laugh as well.

Babysitting started at eight o’clock and it really wasn’t a chore at all and even the nappy changing bit wasn’t so bad. In actual fact trying to put stuff in the other end was a whole lot messier! In the morning we played together and then had elevenses, Molly had a little sleep and then when she woke I dressed her and we went out for lunch and I took her to the pub because she likes it there. I especially like it when the pub is full because I like to see how people react to a baby coming in. Before my grandad implant it used to really piss me off when parents brought babies into pubs especially when they sat near to me so knowing this I like to have a bit of fun. I deliberately walk through the entire place looking for somewhere to sit and looking threatening if anyone starts to look even the slightest bit alarmed at the prospect. I can spot them a long way off because they have that look in their eyes that says ‘please keep walking’ or they start to shuffle along the seats to take up more room than they really need. I really enjoy this part of pub visit.

No one needs to worry really because Molly really is exceptionally well behaved and just so long as she can sit at big people level and see what is going on she spends all lunchtime in a most contented fashion. After lunch we went for a walk to the local shops and I got to use the fancy pushchair again. It seemed strange to be doing this again twenty years or so since I used to do this with my own children. It is a brilliant pushchair, much better than the ones we used to have. It is so manoeuvrable and just seems to glide along the pavements. The old things used to rattle and have some difficulty turning around sharp bends especially down shopping aisles but this one is a pure delight. At one point I remember we had a double buggy for Sally and Jonathan but that was a nightmare to push around so we disposed of that as quickly as we could by selling it on to some poor unsuspecting victim. This was probably the worst purchase they ever made!

The afternoon shift went by very quickly and we repeated all of the things that we had done in the morning and at about five o’clock I was relieved and passed the responsibility back to grandma. It had been a good day and I had enjoyed it and am looking forward to my next turn in about four week’s time.

Kefalonia - Day 4, Captain Corelli's Mandolin

On the next day we drove back to the east of the island this time to visit the island’s main port town of Sami. On the way we stopped in the middle of the morning to visit some underground caves that featured prominently in the island guidebooks. We started first at the curious limestone caves of Drogorati and after paying the modest entrance fee made a suicidal descent down one hundred and twenty almost vertical concrete steps through a steep tunnel and into the cave chambers that bristled with stalagmites and stalactites. The main cavern is thought to be around one hundred and fifty million years old but was only discovered about one hundred years ago and developed for tourism in the 1960s. Over the years earthquakes have caused damage and part of the roof has collapsed. With its constantly cool temperature and excellent acoustics, concerts are often held in the cave with audiences of up to five hundred people.

I quite like going down into caves and I enjoyed the descent below ground and walking around the caverns and the tunnels but it was a bit cool so after a short while we returned to the surface and back to the warm sunshine. Just arriving in the car park was a full coach tour so we glad of our timing that had allowed us to enjoy it without crowds of other people.

At nearby Mellisani, which means the Blue Cave, boatmen ferry visitors around what was once an underground lake but thanks to the 1953 earthquake now has a collapsed roof. From the entrance we walked to the lake down a long, dark tunnel and the closer we got to the lake light poured in from the hole above and illuminated the brilliant aquamarine water below and this reminded me of the Blue Lagoon on the island of Capri that dad and I had visited together in 1976.

We took what turned out to be a quite short boat ride that simply circumnavigated the lake with a guide that pointed out the likeness of the twenty thousand year old stalactites to the shapes of various zoo animals and famous people in the way that guides down caves generally do and in some cases we really had to call upon all of our imagination to see what he was trying to show us. The lake is ten metres deep and a beautiful turquoise colour that as we rode across it reflected a full range of blue shades and hues onto the walls of the cave as the pool of sunlight dropped through the roof and was soaked up into the still water.

Being underground is good fun but when the sun is shining I prefer to be on the surface so after we left the caves we continued on our journey to Sami. Just like Argostoli the town was destroyed by the 1953 earthquake and has been rebuilt with wide streets and prefabricated cement homes in the same way. But we were lucky today and got to see a Hollywood reconstruction of Argostoli because our visit here coincided with the filming of the film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Sami was being used as the location to represent the wartime capital.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin, by the English author Louis de Bernières, is how most people will recognise Kefalonia and is believed to be based on events that occurred in the picturesque village of Farsa, just outside of Argostoli. The complex love story is set before and after the Italian Acqui Division massacre by the Germans, during the Second World War

The slaughter is one of the most shocking stories of the war because surrendering troops were summarily executed without trial. In World War Two, Kefalonia was occupied by Axis powers. Until late 1943, the occupying force was predominantly twelve thousand Italian troops supported by two thousand Germans. The island was largely spared the fighting, until the armistice with Italy concluded by the Allies in September 1943. Confusion followed on the island, as the Italians were hoping to return home, but German forces did not want the Italian munitions to be used eventually against them. As German reinforcements headed to the island the Italians resisted and, eventually they fought against the new German invasion. The fighting came to a head at the siege of Argostoli, where ultimately the German forces prevailed, taking full control of the island, and six thousand of the nine thousand surviving Italian soldiers were executed as a reprisal by German forces.

Like Argostoli, Sami has as long cement-paved seafront promenade broken by a succession of fairly pleasant pavement tavernas where we sat by one of the principal film sets and watched painted fishing boats bobbing in the harbour. All of the stars of the film were staying in Sami and as we enjoyed lunch heads were turning as man strolled along the front and selected a table at an adjacent taverna and began to study the menu. It turned out to be the actor John Hurt who we were told was in the habit of just popping into the village in this unselfconscious way in between filming. I looked out for Penelope Cruz but there was no sign of her and the bar staff said that Nicolas Cage wasn’t very friendly either.

After the holiday I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which I have to say I didn’t find terribly thrilling and in 2001 I went to see the film when it came out and played spot the locations that we had visited a year before.

After we had finished lunch and looked around the unremarkable little town for a second time we returned to the car and left the town on a little road that climbed into the mountains and as it did so past a large house with a security guard on the gate where Nicholas Cage was staying. I don’t particularly like Nicolas Cage so I wasn’t desperately sorry that he wasn’t there to say hello. All around Sami there were deserted villages destroyed by the earthquake and we drove through some of them as we headed inland and back across the island to Argostoli and Lassi.

Then we did the same things again except in the evening we made sure that we didn’t keep dad waiting for his soup again. After dinner we went to the Italian bar to watch England in the football but left disappointed when they lost 3 – 2 to Portugal.

It was half way through the holiday and we were enjoying our time on Kefalonia where everyone seemed friendly, the weather was perfect and there were lots of things to see and tomorrow we planned to drive to Fiskardo in the north of the island.

Kefalonia - Day 3, Mountains and Villages

After breakfast we collected the car from the car rental office and set off for a day in the south of the island. It was unusually overcast first thing but it didn’t take long for the clouds to break up and very soon we were enjoying the sun as we drove through little villages in our white open top jeep.

We drove south past the airport and the further we got away from Argostoli and the tourist strip of Lassi the more we saw the devastation caused by the earthquake. All along the road there were abandoned villages and houses and buildings that were destroyed by the quake and just waiting for time to take over and their turn to fall over completely. The 1953 disaster caused huge destruction, with only regions in the north escaping the heaviest tremors and that is the only part of the island where houses remained intact. Six hundred people were killed and damage was estimated to run into billions of drachmas, but the real damage to the economy occurred when residents left the island. An estimated 100,000 of the population of 125,000 left the island soon after, seeking a new life elsewhere.

Moving on we reached the Kastro, or St. George’s fortress, which was standing proud at the top of ridge and as we took the winding road to the top the engine of the Suzuki growled as we negotiated hair pin bends in low gear. Unfortunately like many places in Europe on a Monday it wasn’t open so we just stayed awhile and admired the views out to sea and then went all the way back down again. I have been caught out by that Monday closing thing several times and it really is most annoying.

We kept to the coast road and to the west of Kefalonia's highest mountain, Mount Ainos, with an elevation of one thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight metres, which is nearly three hundred metres higher than Ben Nevis. The top of the mountain was quite green because it is covered with Abies Cephalonica, or Greek Fir trees, and is a declared natural park. Forestry is important on the island and its timber output is one of the highest in the Ionian Islands. The trouble with forests in hot countries however is that they can easily catch fire and forest fires were common during the 1990s and the early 2000s and all along the route there were black scars on the hillsides and these were going to take a long time to heal. In terms of natural disasters I wondered just how unlucky can one little island be. Fires continue to pose a major threat to the Kefalonia and in 2007 whole parts of the island had to be evacuated in a summer of fires across all of Greece.

We carried on to the town of Skala at the very bottom of the island and it was lunch time so we parked the car at a little square with its neglected centre piece of a sculpture and had a quick look round. Once again it was unattractive and functional with lots of concrete and tarmac along a couple of busy streets and, despite strict planning laws, what looked like a lot of unregulated development, there were a few shops, some tavernas and a bar where we stopped for a lunch time drink. Before we left we walked for a short while along the pine fringed beach next to the water that sparkled with reflected sunlight and watched little boats going backwards and forwards to a little harbour in the somewhere in the distance.

I must have liked Skala because we returned there just a few months later in August 2001 and there was football that time as well and I can remember well sitting in the garden of a taverna and watching England beat Germany 5 –1 (yes, 5-1) in a World Cup qualifying match. It was brilliant.

After we left Skala we drove past around the eastern side of the island and around the other side of the mountain to Poros. The roads were narrow and I had to pay attention while driving and negotiating winding roads with sheer drops down grey limestone mountain sides into deep ravines hundreds of metres below. There was a lot of driving today because Kefalonia is a big island, the largest of the Ionian group, and there are long distances between villages. Poros was nice and we stopped for a short while to stretch our legs and have an afternoon drink and then we cut straight across the middle of the island as best we could on difficult roads back in the direction of Argostoli.

This took us through the agricultural part of the island where the primary occupations are animal breeding and olive growing together with some grain and vegetables. Because most of the island is mountainous and rugged less than a quarter of the land is arable but we crossed through some bits of farmland on the return journey. One thing I had never seen before in Greece (or since for that matter) is snakes, but all along the roads there were dead squashed ones where they had been run over while basking in the sun.

Greeks don’t like snakes and that probably goes back to the myth of the Gorgons and Medusa, they are afraid of them and they will go out of their way to kill them, especially when a snake is seen lying in the road. It is apparently not unusual to see people in a moving vehicle, crossing sides on a road just to run over a snake! I know why they are so frightened because there is a nasty type of poisonous snake in Greece and that is the adder. It is a small cousin of the rattlesnake and in the early summer they come out of hibernation and warm themselves up on the hot tarmac of the roads and that is where lots of them end their poisonous little lives.

Paradoxically Kefalonia has an annual Snake Festival every August and the Church of the Virgin in Markopoulo is famous because snakes are taken to the church in bags or jars and deposited in the church near the silver icon of Panagia Fidoussa, the Virgin of the Snakes. Pre-earthquake stories say that thousands of harmless baby snakes used to appear at the beginning of August and disappear into the church by the altar but nowadays because of road carnage the snakes are picked up and deposited within the church at the same altar spot that was rebuilt after the quake. The snakes slither and wriggle all around the icon and then promptly disappear. Apparently this is a true story although I cannot verify this because this was June and we didn’t see it for ourselves.

We returned to Lassi via Argostoli across a causeway built by the British and still standing (satisfying!) and without stopping went straight back to the hotel and our end of day routines.

Kefalonia - Day 2, Argostoli & earthquakes

After the day of inactivity yesterday we decided today to get out of the hotel and see some more of the island so after breakfast we set off for the capital, Argostoli, just a short distance away. We could have caught a bus but took the easier option of a taxi instead for the ten minute ride to town where we were dropped off at the deserted main square. Argostoli, it has to be said, was an immediate disappointment. Old photographs show that it was once bursting with stylish Venetian mansions, leafy squares and elegant bell towers, but first the Germans dropped incendiary bombs on it during World War Two and then an earthquake in 1953 reduced what was left to a wasteland of rubble and only two houses and a bridge survived.

Kefalonia is just to the east of a major tectonic fault, where the European plate meets the Aegean plate at what is called a slip boundary. A series of four earthquakes hit the island in August 1953, and caused major destruction, with virtually every house on the entire island destroyed. The third and most destructive of the quakes had its epicenter directly below the southern tip of the island and took place on August 12th with a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale. An earthquake that big is very messy indeed and the equivalent of about fifty megatons of TNT going up, it would certainly make a large bang and leave a lot of devastation behind. You certainly wouldn’t want to be standing too close!

Argostoli was completely destroyed and in the years of post war austerity not a great deal of attention was paid to style in rebuilding it because it is a town of boxy cement houses and buildings and it lacks the mazy streets and interesting little alleys that are to be found elsewhere in Greece. Being generous the grey cube buildings might be termed utilitarian, but to be brutally honest they are squat, ugly, dreary and drab. The harbour promenade was lined with palm trees and had been laid with cheerful mosaics to resemble waves and a variety of different boats bobbed about in the water. In the middle of the town there was a large featureless flagged square and all around the edges there were outdoor cafés and tavernas but they didn’t look especially cheery or inviting especially on account of this being Sunday morning, it was still quite early and the place was strangely deserted.

We looked around a little while and ventured up and down some side streets but each was as dull as the last so we cut our visit short and went to the ferry port at the quayside where a small boat crosses the bay to the town of Lixouri on the other side of the bay and we took the trip really just for the sake of going for a boat ride. It was a very pleasant morning and as the ferry crossed the bay we were joined by two dolphins swimming along side. I had never seen dolphins in their natural habitat before and as they followed the ferry the skipper obligingly turned the boat in a full circle to extend the crossing time so everyone could enjoy a better and longer view.

Lixouri was much the same as Argostoli because it too had been destroyed by the earthquake and the rebuilding had been a very hasty international emergency operation that built things as quickly and as cheaply as possible. After half an hour or so we returned to the quay and the boat took us back to Argostoli but there were no dolphins to accompany us this time.

It was really quite hot by this time and Argostoli had cheered up a bit so we stopped at one of the bars with nice cane furniture and canvas umbrellas and had a beer and a lunchtime snack. Argostoli was a nice enough place but lacking real heritage it was most unlike other places I have visited in Greece. I felt sure that there must be more to it than this because Kefalonia has a rich and varied history. During the middle Ages it was ruled first by the Kingdom of Naples and later the Venetian Republic. From 1797 to 1798, the island was part of the French départment Ithaque and after that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. After a second brief period under French control it was liberated by Britain in 1809 and became part of the British controlled United States of the Ionian Islands until 1864, but there was no real evidence of all of these different cultures because they had been swept away by the earthquake.

I couldn’t help wondering why they didn’t rebuild it in the old style rather than in this utilitarian way but I suppose the answer is that if they are going to be flattened again then why bother. In fact there have been more earthquakes since our holiday there. In 2003, an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale caused damage to business, residential property and other buildings in Argostoli and in 2005, an earthquake measuring 4.9 shook the western side of the island, especially near Lixouri and its villages. Two years later there was a 5.0 point quake in August 2007 and another a year later.

After a bit more wandering about here and there in the sunshine there were some taxis waiting at the edge of the square so we bundled into one and returned to the Mediterranee. There we spent the rest of the afternoon on sun loungers by the pool on the terrace outside the dining room until it was time for dad's rest and our walk into the village.

First of all we arranged a hire car for the next day and then we went to the Italian bar where they seemed really pleased to see us. It was an afternoon kick off in the football match and it already started, the bar was full and noisy and we found a table and settled in. We didn’t plan to stay for the whole match but we got caught up in the excitement of it all and stayed right to the end. Italy won 2 -1. On the way back to the hotel we met dad who was looking for us and he seemed rather agitated. It was nothing serious; he was just worried about being late for dinner because he claimed that if you didn’t get there first then the soup gets cold.

He was wrong of course because there was an endless supply of fresh hot soup but we didn’t argue with him, he marched us back to the dining room and we just sniggered and pulled faces behind his back and then ribbed him about this for the rest of the holiday.

Kefalonia - Day 1, the delights of doing absolutely nothing

In the first half of 2000 work was getting onerous and less enjoyable and I was beginning to lose my enthusiasm for working for a company that was financed by public taxes but was providing an ever deteriorating level of service. I needed a holiday so at the beginning of June I went to the Ionian island of Kefalonia with mum and dad and Jonathan. As it happened it turned out to be the last time that I went away with dad because he became too ill to travel soon after that.

I had been to Corfu in 1984 but with an area of three hundred and fifty square miles the island of Kefalonia is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece. The island is named after the mythological figure Cephalus, who was the head of a great family that included the hero Odysseus and there has been recent speculation that this may well have been the actual home of Homer’s mythical warrior hero and archeologists are now busy trying to prove it.

We arrived in Kefalonia and this being a package tour we were met and transported the seven kilometres to the four-star Hotel Mediterranee in the holiday resort of Lassi. It was a big modern hotel were with an entrance down a driveway off the busy main road and past some tennis courts where some guests were making hard work of a sluggish match under the hot afternoon sun. Inside there were marble floors and lobby furniture for sitting and chatting, lots of people looking more important than they really were and, once checked in, a nice enough room but without a sea view. Outside there was a large swimming pool and a covered sun terrace with a view over the bay towards the town of Lixouri and beyond that there was a private pine fringed sandy beach, crystal blue waters and most important of all a well stocked beachside taverna.

Lassi was the first resort to be developed on Kefalonia and tourists have been going there for several years and being the largest resort on the island it is also the most commercial. It is one of those tourist ribbon stretches that develop wherever there is a sandy beach nearby. There is no village as such, just a narrow stretch of road flanked by tavernas, rent-a-car outlets, tourist shops and the odd mini-market. The two beaches at Lassi are Makris Yialos, which means long beach, and Plati Yialos, which means wide beach.

Even though it is the biggest resort on the island this was not a problem because this didn’t mean that it is a heaving, noisy, lager lout sort of place and although it was a bit scruffy in that untidy Greek sort of way and wasn’t terribly thrilling it turned out to be really rather nice. After we had found our way about the hotel and walked around the pool in that conspicuous pasty legged sort of way that new arrivals do we set about doing the usual things that you do on the first day of a holiday and we went back up the entrance road and out onto the main village road.

The main street also happened to be the main route from the capital Argostoli to the airport and the south and was therefore rather busy and all week we had to keep an eye out for blood sport motorists every time we crossed the road. The street had bars, shops, restaurants and tavernas (that we wouldn’t need because we were staying half board at the Mediterranee) and we made an inspection both to the left and the right and made a mental note of the likely looking places for a drink later on. A shop at the end of the hotel drive had cold beers so I filled a carrier bag and took them back to the hotel for pre dinner drinks on the balcony.

The evening meal was adequate without being exciting and we finished the day with a quiet drink in the village where the bars were preparing big screens for the start next day of the European Football Championships that were being held in Holland and Belgium. We didn’t stay long and after we walked back to the hotel we had a final drink on the balcony of the room before going to bed.

Saturday was our first full day and we didn’t plan to do a great deal except go to the beach and later to the terrace swimming pool. This didn’t take a lot of planning. After buffet breakfast we walked through the gardens and past the pool, down some steps and through the beach side taverna and onto the beach. We were quite early so we got to pick a spot that suited us best and selected sun-beds near the sea where there was a gentle cooling breeze and we settled in for a day of doing absolutely nothing except for the occasional swim in the water to cool down and a little walk to the taverna for a top-up Mythos and then walk awhile and cool off in the shade of the nearby pines and cypresses and underneath the slender holm-oaks and the statuesque aloes.

The beachside taverna served a good lunch and Jonathan, who was still a bit of a fussy eater at thirteen, had his favourite combination of French fries and strawberries (yes, very strange) while the rest of us had our first Greek salad. We didn’t really do a lot else except for a bit of snorkeling and a swim in the pool and then when dad went for his afternoon nap the three of us went back to the village for a late afternoon drink. Unknowingly we had established the routine for the rest of the week. We had found an Italian bar/taverna that had already become our favourite and we went back there again after dinner where the atmosphere was getting lively in anticipation of the football. We watched while the hosts, Belgium, beat Sweden 2 -1 and when we left the barman told us to be sure to come back tomorrow because Italy was playing Turkey and there was going to be a party!

Spring - an early morning walk

There seems to be some confusion about when spring officially begins but never mind the squabbling about the calendar I think it started this weekend. The evenings are getting lighter and the birds are singing longer, the moles are making bigger hills and are getting ready for their once a year shag and the daffodils are flowering in the fields.

Around and about I have spotted two things this year that I think are different from the last few years. Firstly there were an awful lot of snowdrops everywhere and I don’t know if that has had anything to do with the harsher winter but they have certainly been very noticeable. Secondly, rooks, there are hundreds of them, I have never seen so many. Wherever I drive in Lincolnshire they are everywhere in great big flocks digging around for worms and grubs in the fields and road verges. They are gregarious creatures and live and work together communally in rookeries in the tops of trees and there is a lot of twig gathering activity at the moment as they repair old nests and build new ones.

This part of Lincolnshire is well known for vegetable growing and all around farmers have been ploughing the fields ready for planting up. Last week I watched a tractor and plough at work and admired the endeavour of the seagulls as they followed excitedly and gorged on the worms and leatherjackets as they were turned to the surface.

I am also certain it is spring because I am waking up earlier. Today I was up before six and it was such a beautiful morning that I took a drive down to the sea. The Wash is a vast estuary that stretches for over one hundred square miles running from Skegness in Lincolnshire to Hunstanton in Norfolk. It is fed by the Rivers Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse and is one of the largest estuaries in Britain. The outstanding coastal wetland is made up of huge intertidal banks of sand and mud, salt marshes, deep channels and shallow waters and the mudflats and sandbanks are full with wildlife, feeding on marine life.

At seven o’clock there wasn’t a soul in sight and I had the place to myself. It was very cold but there was a big blue sky and I watched the seabirds getting ready for the day, disturbed a magnificent Barn Owl as it flew attentively along the dyke looking for breakfast and on the way home saw a Sparrowhawk just sitting by the side of the road.

In the garden all of the usual birds drop by for food and even the Thrush has been back. I have never lived anywhere where there have been so many birds. Yesterday, sadly, there was a murder in the garden and there was evidence of a Sparrowhawk kill quite close to the house. Over the last two months a pair of Jays have been dropping by quite regularly and they make a welcome colourful addition to the garden. There are more and more Collared Doves and I have to confess that I really do rather like them.

The story of the Collared Dove is an interesting one. Only a hundred years ago, the species was found primarily on the Indian subcontinent, although its range extended slightly into Europe but certainly no further than Turkey. In the early 1900s, however, the species began significantly expanding its range and colonised as far as France, the Low Countries and Denmark and then in 1953 reached it the United Kingdom when it was spotted in Norfolk for the first time. Today, Collared Doves are living above the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia.

The spread of Collared Doves across the United Kingdom has been very rapid. From the first breeding report in 1955 the species was subsequently reported breeding in Kent and Lincolnshire in 1957, with birds also seen as far north as Scotland. Two years later Ireland was colonised and by 1970 there may have been as many as twenty-five thousand pairs in Britain and Ireland and between 1972 and 1976 the population increased five fold

The Collared Dove, it turns out, is one of the great colonisers of the avian world. After it was introduced into the Bahamas in the 1970s it managed to spread to Florida in the United States by 1982. Its stronghold in North America is still the Gulf Coast, but it is now found as far south as Veracruz, as far west as California, and as far north as British Columbia and the Great Lakes.

Collared Doves are quite big birds and have a buff grey colour that makes them quite conspicuous. Although on first site they may look uninteresting they are really quite attractive with the half collar marking on the back of the neck, a pinkish flush on the chest and really fantastic black eyes with a red ring. This is a picture of the visitor to my garden so you can see just how close he will let me get to him (or perhaps her, because actually I can’t tell the difference).

USA 1996 - Day 4, Deserts and cowboy country

Next day we had another big breakfast but we did it very quietly as we drank lots of fruit juice and shared out the paracetomol supplies between us on account of the very heavy hangovers

It was a glorious day and we had a lot of it at our disposal because we weren’t due to fly home until much later so after partial recovery we checked out, packed the bags into the vehicle and headed off south into the desert. We were taking the road towards Tuscon but it was a long way so we had to abandon any thoughts of getting there and back in time for our flight.

Today Arizona was very different from the trip north to the Grand Canyon and we could see exactly why the State is a land of contrast. There was no snow down here and no mountains either just miles and miles of dusty desert with long straight roads and small towns along the way. Arizona is a good name for a place but there is some disagreement over the origin of the name, some believe the name is an abbreviation of the Spanish phrase arida zona, or ‘dry region’, but others argue that it comes from the Basque phrase aritz onak, or ‘good oaks’, The name Arizonac was initially applied to a silver mining camp, and later, when it had been shortened to Arizona to the entire territory. Both versions sound plausible I suppose but either must depend on whether you are in the north or the south of the State.

We stopped at a desert recreational area and took a walk amonst the cactus trees but became understandably nervous when we read a warning sign about rattle snakes and we remembered Mike’s gruesome stories of painful venomous deaths so we didn’t stay very long. I liked the snake tips on the sign which advised:

‘If bitten by a rattlesnake do not open the wound and try to suck out the venom’ (Acually, I wouldn’t do that even for a Playboy centrefold!)

‘If bitten by a rattlesnake do not use a tourniquet because this will cut off blood flow and the limb may be lost’ (good recommendation, you don’t want your leg falling off as well!)

And my favourite piece of completely unnecessary advice: ‘Avoid rattlesnakes altogether. If you see one don’t try to get closer to it or catch it!’

After a while we came across an out of town shopping mall with shops and restaurants and Dave and Allan wanted to do more souvenir shopping so we parked up and while they went off to the outlet stores for cheap denim jeans the rest of us found a little bar and had the first of the day. Shopping over, the others returned and Dave declared it to be lunch time so there was a final burger and fries before we returned north the way that we had come and went directly back to the airport for the flight back home.

It was the same arrangement with an internal flight to Dallas, a much shorter time to wait this time and then the big journey home to Heathrow. It was a night flight and we were all very tired after a busy three days and an awful lot of alcohol so most of the eight hours was spent sleeping and we weren’t nearly so boistrous on this leg of the journey. Back home we said goodbye and promised to report back to Percy on the potential of the vehicle and then we all went our separate ways home.

This had been a really good trip and on reflection I decided that refuse vehicle manufacture was actually rather interesting after all. We posted the report of our visit (missing out the drinking bits of course) and offered our availability for any similar official trips in the future. This was a good move because the following year I was sent to La Rochelle in France to look at Semat refuse trucks and later in the same year I went to Milan to see the Brivio factory. It’s amazing how interesting refuse trucks can suddenly become when there is an all expenses overseas trip involved. Later the Company set up a centralised procurement unit that saved the best gigs for themselves and that was the end of the factory visits and the overseas travel but believe me I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering, the company never did buy a Heil sideloading refuse vehicle, they were absolutely useless for use in the UK, but I have to say that they were brilliant at hospitality, it was a pity that they folded and went out of business just a short while afterwards!

USA 1996 - Day 3, Dustcarts, Baseball & Snakes

Thankfully there was a later start planned for today so there was no great rush to get up in the morning and after a night on budweiser and gin this was most welcome. The motel was a middle of the range business class sort of place and it had a buffet breakfast table to make your eyes water. It had everything you could possibly want and the tables groaned under the weight of the food on offer. American obesity rates are the highest in the world with 64% of adults being overweight and looking at the breakfast bar it was easy to understand why. There were various breads of course, oatmeal, porridge, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs or omelette, bacon, ham, sausage, hash browns, biscuits, toast, pancakes, waffles, bagels, French toast, cornbread, muffins, croissants, and doughnuts, fresh, stewed fruit and dried fruit of various types and to drink, coffee, tea, milk and a full range of juices. We kept Keith away from the eggs and I felt sure that with all this food this would surely satisfy Dave right through to evening meal.

At ten o’clock Mike picked us up from the lobby and drove us to a prearranged destination to see a vehicle demonstration. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature was rising quickly. After a while we located the vehicle and the crew and they set about showing us exactly what the vehicle could do.

Now, you don’t have to be an expert to in refuse collection to understand that one of the main problems crews face is the amount of parked cars along English roads and streets that makes the job very difficult. Here there were none, domestic estate roads were as wide as the M25 and every house had a driveway the size of a small council car park so there was nothing to stop this monster clanking machine and its crew from going about its work. It was a typical American truck full of levers and chains and it was immediately apparent that this vehicle was completely unsuitable for refuse collection in England but as we had been brought all this way to see it we had to make appropriate encouraging noises. We asked how something this big would manage in a cul-de-sac but they had no idea what one of these is and a glance at the city map with roads laid out in a straight line grid system confirmed what we already knew. We wouldn’t be recommending Percy Powell to place an order for one of these! After a bit of head scratching our hosts thought they had identified what we were looking for and took us on a long journey across town to the only cul-de-sac in the entire city, and that was wide enough for three trucks to turn around in all together so it was really a waste of everybody’s time.

After the street demonstration Mike took us to the Heil factory where they make the things and we had a tedious tour of the workshops and a boring lecture about the technology that meant nothing to me whatsoever and all the while I could see through the windows that the sun was shining and I just wanted to be outside. This might sounds a bit ungrateful but I just wasn’t enjoying this part of the trip, I preferred the Grand Canyon excursion, but I suppose it was the real reason for the visit and I tried as best as I could to try and stay focussed and show some interest. Finally we got to go outside and Dave and Ben played with the trucks and the bin lifts and I wandered around waiting for it all to end.

Finally the visit was over and the Managing Director gave each of us a bag of corporate gifts which included a polo shirt and baseball cap, a swiss army knife and some unusually high quality pens. We left the factory and Mike drove us to a restaurant for lunch in downtown Scottsdale on North Drinkwater Boulevard. It was a very nice restaurant indeed and we had a buffet lunch at a table that was overlooking the Scottsdale Stadium Baseball Park. Despite the full breakfast Dave managed a hearty meal but the rest of us selected something lighter and I had a rather nice seafood medley with some Californian white wine.

After lunch Allan and Ben talked business with Mike and so wandered outside into the sunshine and tried to follow a ball game that was in progress on the field. Scottsdale Stadium is an eleven thousand seater baseball field that was built in 1992 and although it wasn’t full there were quite a lot of spectators watching the game. Baseball is basically primary school rounders but Americans don’t like to admit this and they have added all sorts of rules to make it completely incomprehesible to anyone who is unfamiliar with the game. Baseball makes the rules of cricket look simple. I have no idea who was playing I only knew, because Mike told me, that the stadium was the home of the Phoenix Firebirds of the Pacific Coast League. As a matter of interest the Firebirds moved out a year later and in 1998 this became the home field for the National League's Arizona Diamondbacks.

By mid afternoon business was concluded and I was totally confused by the ball game when Mike and the others collected us up and took us back to the motel for some free time. Although it was November it was really warm and so we made straight for the swimming pool and the hot tub and had an enjoyable hour or so swimming and relaxing. Although we found it warm, compared with November temperatures in England, this did surprise some of the American guests several of who remarked how foolhardy we were to go swimming when the temperature was barely 20º. Later we were going out with Mike and the sales team again so this was a good opportunity to rest a while before the drinking started again.

We waited in the bar for Mike to pick us up and after a couple of beers he arrived and drove us south for a short distance out of the city to a cowboy steakhouse restaurant called the Rustler’s Rooste. According to legend the original site of the restaurant was on top of a butte in the foothills of South Mountain and it was a hideout for cattle rustlers and outlaws. The South Mountain recreational area is claimed to be the largest municipal park in the world and it has a commanding position overlooking the city. Mike parked the people carrier and we stood and admired the views over the city that was stretched in front and below us like a scene from that Robert DeNiro film Heat.

From the outside Rustler’s Rooste looked disappointingly functional and not especially exciting but inside things were really buzzing. Through the doors we walked over an indoor waterfall and then to get to the dining room there were two options, the stairs were the traditional method of getting down, but there was also a slide that curved around a central stage area and which was both quicker and more exhilarating. We took this option of course and one by one were deposited swiftly into the dining area that had two large plate glass windows that provided a magnificent view of the city lights.

Rustler’s Rooste served cowboy food and a sign on the door said ‘Better come hungry’; so it was a good job that we had Dave and his reliable appetite with us! There was a fabulous menu with an extensive choice of food including rattlesnake as a starter. None of us had ever had that before so we just had to have some but although it sounded dangerous and exotic I seem to remember that it tasted rather disappointingly like chicken. After that we had the full cowboy meal that consisted of crispy shrimp, barbecued chicken, cowboy beans, seafood kebabs, fries, barbecued pork ribs, corn on the cob, and a big juicy beef steak. It was all cooked perfectly and I suspect rather better than a simple cowpokes meal out on the open range and the cowboys wouldn’t have had the nine layer chocolate cake to finish either, I’m certain!

The best thing about the Rustler’s Rooste was the entertainment because there was live music playing all night as two bands took it in turn to play good old country music which had people line dancing and playing cowboy in between the courses. My favourite part of the evening was when a man brought a live snake into the room and then, in a carefully rehearsed way, dropped it and it slithered about the floor scattering diners in all directions. We were assured later that it was not a venomous variety and perfectly harmless of course but it did scare the shit out of an awful lot of people at the time. It turned out that Mike lived out of town on the open range and he knew an awful lot about rattle snakes and he amused us with serpent stories all the way back to the motel.

As it was the final night we made straight for the bar and Dave set about finishing off Allan’s trip expenses budget and we drank beer and gin until very late and very drunk and then back in Allan’s room Dave tuned in to every available adult channel just to spend the extra $10 a movie. I thought that was a bit mean and taking things a bit too far!

USA 1996 - Day 2, The Grand Canyon & cowboy dining

Thoughtfully the organizers of the trip thought we might need a day to rest after our long flight so the next day was free of any official engagements and ours to do as we pleased with so Allan decided that we would drive to the two hundred mile journey to the far north of the State to see the Grand Canyon. This seemed a good idea but involved a very early start before it even got light and we were off and away before I had time to check to see if I had a hangover and even before the breakfast bar was open in the restaurant. The route took us along a highway that went first north and then west around the city which was sensible because Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the USA and suffers notorious congestion, and then we picked up Interstate 17 which according to individual preference is called either the Black Canyon Freeway or the Arizona Veteran’s Highway and we started to drive north.

As we had skipped breakfast it was inevitable that Dave would be the first to crack and declare his hunger and he predictably started to nag about a food stop after only a few minutes. After about thirty miles Allan could stand it no longer and at the next available intersection left the Interstate and headed in an unknown direction towards the municipality of New River. I will never know if this was just a major stroke of luck or pure inspiration because I was convinced that he had no idea at all where he was going but just as I was wondering where this dusty road was going to lead Allan swung into a car park of a diner called the Roadrunner Restaurant and declared it the perfect place for breakfast.

It turned out the place was quite famous; the Roadrunner was established in 1964 and the story goes that its first bartender was only six years old because when the original owner arrived with his new liquor license and a celebratory bottle of whiskey, he appointed the only non-drinker present at the time to pour the first drinks.

Inside there were plenty of cowfolk enjoying huge plates of food and we all agreed that Allan had made a very good choice indeed. After we had settled down at a table the waitress brought coffee and menus and we set about making our selections. When she returned Keith went first and she enquired how he liked to take his eggs. Now, Keith was an easy going, mild mannered sort of chap but this simple question seemed to trigger an Incredible Hulk type transformation, ‘Eggs!’ he said in his distinctive Norfolk drawl (and it works better if you can try it with the accent) ‘I aren’t eating eggs, I aren’t eating something that’s been squeezed out of a chicken’s arse!’ We really didn’t need the graphic details of a chickens reproductive system and neither quite frankly did the rest of the diner. There was stunned silence all round! This uncharacteristic behaviour took us all by surprise, the tables went deathly quiet and needless to say the outburst seemed to alarm the waitress who after all was only doing her job and would have been wholly within her rights to decide for herself that he probably liked his eggs simply cracked and served raw and runny all over his head. Between us we managed to smooth over the situation and we were careful after that to keep Keith well away from eggs for the rest of the trip. We had a nice filling breakfast and made sure that we left a generous tip.

Outside, the sun was up now and there was a big blue sky with little wispy white clouds on the horizon but as we travelled further north it stared to get colder and the highway verges were piled high with snow where the ploughs had cleared the carriageways of a recent fall. Arizona is best known for its desert climate with exceptionally hot summers and mild winters, but the high country in the north features pine forests and mountain ranges with much cooler weather than the lower deserts and we were beginning to approach them right now. We passed by Black Canyon City, climbed through the Prescott National Park and somewhere around Flagstaff we crossed the famous old Route 66 without realising the significance of the event. Finally Interstate 17 came to an abrupt end when we reached a junction and we selected a route across Coconimo Plateau through a Navajo Indian Reservation and continued north to the Grand Canyon South Rim visitor centre.

We arrived at the entrance, Allan paid the entrance fee and we parked the car in an almost deserted car park and walked the short distance to the rim of the canyon, which has been created over a period of six million years by the erosive action of the Colorado River cutting down through the plateau. The canyon is four hundred and fifty kilometres long, up to thirty kilometres wide and reaches a depth of more than one and half kilometres and is one of the most magnificent natural wonders of the World. This is a very big Canyon indeed and it is almost impossible to get a true sense of scale as you stand and look down into the abyss below. I had been here barely twelve months before but it was different now, it was a little later in the year and there were fewer people and there was a lot of snow on the ground.

After we had had our fill of the natural wonders of the Canyon we eventually made our way to Grand Canyon Village which is located on the south rim of the canyon, right in the National Park, and whose only real function is to accommodate visiting tourists and it seemed to consist mostly of motels and helicopter landing pads. The origins of the village trace back to the railroad built to the canyon in 1901 and many of the buildings in use today date from that period. As we drove through Dave spotted a MacDonalds and as it was sometime after lunch he insisted that Allan make a high risk manoeuvre across a busy six lane highway to negotiate our way to the drive thru window to get the midday burger fix than no-one really needed.

Two hundred miles was a long way to drive but it really was worth it and now it was time to turn round and go all the way back. There was no real alternative but to follow the same route and so for the first fifty miles we headed south east back along Highway 180 and through the volcanic Red Mountains. The road snaked through what is part of the San Francisco Volcanic Field on its way towards Flagstaff and about half way to the city we stopped off at the visitor centre and took some photographs of the mountain brightly illuminated by the late afternoon sun. Later along the route in the Navajo reservation and Allan insisted in stopping several times to get ripped off at roadside Indian souvenir shops to purchase various bits of junk jewellery to take back home to his family as gifts.

From Flagstaff we picked up the Interstate and returned directly through the pine forests to Phoenix in an uneventful journey except that Allan had a habit of driving very close to the verge and Ben complained about that constantly. Somewhere along the route as we dropped down from the mountains the snow disappeared and sometime before we got back to the city it had completely gone.

Time was getting on so there was only time for a quick change and a drink in the bar before we were collected by the sales team from Heil Engineering, who were partners of Jack Allen and manufacturers of the vehicle that we had come to see and assess. A man called Mike found us in the bar and collected us up and drove us away for dinner at an out of town restaurant.

It was dark and so we had no idea where we were heading but fairly soon we were out of the city and into a wilderness area with not a lot of promising activity until suddenly Mike swung into a car park and there was a wooden shack with bright lights in front of us. Outside there was a hitching rail with horses tethered and drinking from a trough and as we walked across the car park two dusty cowboys approached on horseback from out of the gloom and tied up their horses in a lazy, end of the day sort of way, dusted themselves down as best they could and went inside just ahead of us with chaps flapping and spurs jingling just as though we were back in the old west.

Inside it was traditional and functional with bench seats and tables with red checkered table cloths and western memorabilia on the walls. Mike introduced us to the rest of the Heil team who had arrived earlier and immediately ordered pitchers of beer for the table. I liked that! This was an authentic western cowboy restaurant and the waitress supplied us with a menu that consisted of very little choice except steaks and boiled potatoes. No french fries and no salad and no vegetables either, this wasn’t the place for vegetarians let me tell you. So we ordered our steaks and when they arrived they were so huge that I had no idea where to begin. To be honest there was far too much for me and I was only about a quarter way through before I had had enough. I kept going as best as I could but I’m sure that I left at least half of it, still, I suppose they had a dog around the back who enjoyed the other half later!

We had an excellent night at the cowboy restaurant and at the end of the evening Mike drove us back to the motel at the end of a very long day. Allan and Keith were too tired for last drinks but I was up for last orders with Dave and Ben and we stayed far longer than we planned largely on account of an exceptionally attractive and persuasive barmaid and a seductive bottle of Bombay Sapphire.