So we slept late, had breakfast a bit late, relaxed in the room a bit longer, and only set out around 10 to go to a local shopping mall. I say local, but actually it was almost in the country, outside the limits of the standard bus fare. Luckily you only have to validate your ticket as you get on, not when you get off, so the bus didn't know we'd gone too far, but we had to buy a more expensive ticket to get home again later.
We went to a bog-standard shopping mall, not particularly big even by Christchurch standards. It felt just like going into Northlands, and the shops were the same style. It was about 1/4 the size of most Westfield malls, or those in District 7. It only had one level, for a start. This meant it was nice and easy to shop in. Up one side, lunch in the food hall at the far end, come back the other side. There were, as always, some upmarket shops that only sold tiny sizes, and a few that were a bit more down-market. Stephen got some of what he wanted, and although some shops had some specials to get rid of their summer stock, I only found one top worth buying for myself.
We were home by 2 to have a rest. Lovely. We had a cup of tea later in the afternoon to get ready to go out for a walk. I went into the dining room to ask if we could have some milk, and when the landlady (?? - What do you call them - proprietor? manager? owner?) turned round I found myself totally confused. This woman is incredibly like our landlady in Vietnam: same facial features, same voice, same busy persona and brusque manner. And suddenly I couldn't remember what language to use. Vietnamese came to mind but I knew that was wrong, because the face I saw was after all Caucasian, and I knew English wasn't right but because I was thinking of Ms Thuy I couldn't speak any Italian either. It was an odd moment. I think it came out in Italish in the end.
We had some drama as we woke up also. Our house sitter Skyped us to say she hadn't seen the cat for two days. He hadn't eaten his breakfast, and now it was night-time over there. She insisted he hadn't gone out the front door because they kept the doors closed, but when Stephen suggested he might have snuck out the top door while she was hanging out laundry, she went a bit quiet. She thought she'd been vigilant and he couldn't possibly have gone out, but we've both thought that in the past, and gone up to find Whittaker locked out. He's a sneaky little blighter sometimes, and he likes going out on the roof. So Hoai said she'd go and check, and a couple of minutes later messaged back to say he was right there, waiting. Whew! We still have a cat, yay! And now it will be several weeks until he even tries to go out. It'll take him a while to forget that episode, I'm sure.
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| If you zoom in you might see the hexagonal brickwork |
Soon after this was resolved, and we had had our cuppa to get over it, we went out for a walk. We found a shop with a backpack that would work for our purposes, and then we followed the map to go outside the historical centre and into the modern edges. We crossed the river and went looking for what seemed to be a fairly major park, according to the map: it was a wide expanse of green, with some long skinny rectangular blocks in it. After a while we approached a gate that might have been it: it was a narrow entrance, old and tatty and somewhat tumbledown, but this was indeed what we were looking for. It turned out to be the Arsenale, and is in the process (fairly early stages, I would say) of restoration. But it was interesting in that much of the stonework used hexagonal bricks, so the walls looked quite unusual. Inside the walls was a children's playing area, and beyond that was the river and an old (originally Roman I think) bridge with crenellated walls and those shooting holes for archers. The tops of the walls in this part of the world are different from what I've seen before, or even seen in books: they're a curved v-shape, rather than the straight up-and-down that we see in most castles and Game of Thrones-type shows. I can't think of a reason for this shape apart from mere decoration. What do you reckon? Interesting theories gratefully received.
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| What do you think about these tops? |
As we were walking across the bridge I expressed my disappointment that there wasn't a drawbridge, but when we went out the other side, guess what we saw! There were still hinges in place, the bolt and lock on the door were still intact, although I would have expected such a door to be about a foot thick, and it was only about 3-4 inches. Even the small door at the side for people on foot was drawbridge-protected, and it was possible to see all the workings for both doors. The small door now has a doorbell, which is very cute, juxtaposed with the iron-studded door. This was all part of Castelvecchio (Old Castle) which now houses a museum.
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| Here are some people, for scale |
We now just walked through the streets to go to a wood-fired oven pizza shop we'd seen a few times and thought we'd try. It's just round the corner from the B & B, but we were a few blocks in the opposite direction by now. So we had a beer (I know, I said no alcohol, but this was still early) along the way, then shared a pizza for dinner. Stephen finished with a cheese board and I had a gelato, and now it's the end of the day. A nothing day, but just what we wanted.
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Castle gate door, with iron studs, drawbridge, and doorbell.
Also a Yale lock, but an iron bolt as well
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| Another gate, near the B & B |
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