Hotel Pallotta - Assisi - Umbria - Italy

A brief post just to update my readers here and very unusually for an Italian location, which normally I restrict to News From Italy, but circumstances have dictated otherwise today. 
Last weekend we went away to Umbria for the weekend to celebrate our Ruby Wedding Anniversary.  We visited a number of the beautiful hill towns en route and spent a couple of days in Assisi.  Since our return home I have been having computer problems, resulting in a complete failure that meant it went away to be repaired. I was told it would probably require a new hard drive, but no the computer engineer told us he had managed to sort it without replacing. It worked for about half a day, then started misbehaving exactly as before.  My husband has managed to reset it yet again and I am frantically trying to post on the blogs,before it crashes yet again. 


A taster of our trip to Assisi then today with a few photos of the views from our hotel both over the city in one direction and from the other side over the surrounding plains.

Views over the city from our room.

Views over the rooftops to the surrounding plains from the other side of the hotel.

Interior hotel views.

The Hotel also has a very pleasant Trattoria in the town where we had a couple of excellent meals. More details can be found by visiting the hotel's website for which I have included the link below.


Hotel Pallotta Website

I will write a full post about Assisi for my News From Italy blog once the computer issues are sorted.


It looks like I shall be taking a forced blogging break while these problems are sorted out. I may be away some time as we also have a few busy weeks ahead of us in real life, with Birthday celebrations and friends visiting to look forward to.

I will be back as soon as possible with more Travel Tales. 

Kowloon and The Star Ferry - Hong Kong

Until I started writing this post I had not realised how long ago it was that I had written about our last trip to Hong Kong, last December when I shared photos of Pacific Place.  Time for sure then to continue with some more Travel Tales from Hong Kong.


One morning we decided to head for Kowloon and visit one of the museums that are worth saving for a rainy day, which it was. So far we have only visited one The Hong Kong Museum of History which was fascinating, we learnt so much about the history of Hong Kong and the exhibits are very well presented.  I highly recommend a visit if you are in Hong Kong wondering about what to do in the rain!  Unfortunately no photographs as my camera decided to give up on me that particular morning. Luckily there are many photography shops in Kowloon so we were able to buy a battery charger for the camera as our travel charger had packed up, hence our discovery that we had no life in the camera battery whilst at the museum!


We also purchased an extra battery so were able to take photos that afternoon as the weather had brightened up. Kowloon  is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon located north of Hong Kong Island and south of the mainland part of the New Territories.  Together with Hong Kong Island, it contains 48 percent of Hong Kong's total population.


We took a stroll along the harbour side, where in the late afternoon we took The Star Ferry back to the island.

You might spot the subject of a previous post amongst these photos. The Peak - Hong Kong as I have included buildings on the island viewed from the Kowloon side of the harbour.  Did any of  you recognise the statue, as Bruce Lee?

A trip on The Star Ferry that plies the harbour between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon is a definite must do for anyone visiting Hong Kong.  To read more about the history I recommend a visit to this link, but briefly The Star Ferry is one of Hong Kong's most famous attractions which provides an inexpensive way of crossing the harbour and enjoying some spectacular views of the harbour, Kowloon waterfront and Hong Kong island  at the same time.  The service has been in existence for over 130 years and currently 12 ferries operate on two routes, plus harbour tours on the boat in the photo at the start of this post.


Central (Central Ferry Pier 7) to Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon Point) - 9 minutes journey 

Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon Point) - 8 minutes journey 

Finally on our walk back to our daughter's appartment we passed the Apple Store and a bus that reminded me of a famous British brand, now sadly I believe out of business.

.If you prefer to view the photos in the individual formats you are welcome to visit my album Travel Tales - Kowloon and The Star Ferry - Hong Kong  at Flickr.com.


For more information the following links are worth visiting : The Hong Kong Museum of History, The Star Ferry and Kowloon - Wikipedia


With thanks to Hong Kong Extras Website and Discover Hong Kong for some of the information included in this post.

Debenham - Teapot Factory - Suffolk

When we left my sister's we drove across from the west coast of Wales across England almost to the east coast where we spent a few days with friends who live in Suffolk, not far from the Norfolk border.  When we are staying with them we usually have a day out to visit somewhere in the local area, previous visits to Southwold, Diss and Norwich I briefly mentioned on News From Italy ( here and here) when I was still including our travels on that blog.

                                                   
This year we visited the charming medieval Suffolk village of Debenham where we enjoyed a walk around the village and a visit to the Teapot Pottery which was absolutely fascinating.

                                                 
Debenham Parish is situated just over eleven miles north of  Ipswich and consists of 3,271 acres in the administrative area of Mid Suffolk District Council.  Records indicate that the population for Debenham in 1801 was 1,215; rising to 1,629 in 1831, but by 1901 had reduced to 1,182. The resident population of Debenham, the 2001 Census, was 2,076 residing in 878 properties.  Debenham has a very long history extending back to the Iron Age more details can be found on the Debenham Local Website


As you will see from my photos, the village is full of delightful residences.

Carter's Teapots - Collectable Teapots
Tony & Anita Carter set up their pottery in the beautiful village of Debenham set deep in the Suffolk countryside over thirty years ago in 1978 to be precise.

The pottery mainly designs and makes collectable teapots, each one being carefully cast and painted by hand, resulting in no two teapots being exactly the same. On the underside of some of the full size pots you will see it is numbered, relating to the year of design and its production. This of course adds greatly to their uniqueness and collectability. The pottery is known as one of England’s leading makers of handmade collectable teapots, supplying shops and stores throughout the UK with over 70% of the pottery/output exported throughout the world.

To read more about the pottery and see the Teapot they have designed for Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee this year, please visit the Website.

My photos are of teapots that were on display the day of our visit, earlier this year.  Which one would you chose?  I would have found it very difficult to decide if I had been going to buy one!

                                                

My mosaics and photos will enlarge if you click on them, however if you would prefer to view the photos individually, you may do so in My Flickr.com album entitled. Travel Tales - Debenham - Suffolk, also on the following website there are lots more photos of the village. Suffolk Photographs


For further information I direct you to the sources I used myself, Diss - Wikipedia, Norwich - Wikipedia, Southwold Website  Debenham - Wikipedia, Suffolk Photographs, Debenham Local Website, and Carter's Teapots - Collectable Teapots.


With thanks to Suffolk Old Maps for the image at the top of the post.