A not so stupid thing to do, If you are stupid enough to be in Rome in June

A bit outside Rome, In Tivoli - not the Enjoyment park in Copenhagen, but a small city outside of Rome, there is a nice place, not too famous among the tourists which is called Villa d'Este. As everybody know (at least the ones the have read my painfully detailed description of what a villa is (link)) a villa is just a park, I the case of Villa d'Este there is also a castle-like house to be seen.

Back to Copenhagen, the Tivoli we know there is actually modelled after this garden (Or modelled after Jadin di Tivoli in Paris, which in turn was modelled after this garden). The Villa is special for all its fountains, which makes it nice and fresh, and which is then why its a nice place to go, even when its 36 degrees as it was Sunday here in Rome.


Ippolito II d’Este was the second son of Lucrezia Borgia and Duke Ferrara Alfonso - Lucrezia famous for poisoning her guests at her dinner parties. Being the second son meant, at that time, that he was destined to be a man of the church (I guess this gives a good standing with the church but apparently not always the most faith full people... At least the this man was more inspired by Venus (the ancient Roman god of love) then Jesus when he made his fountains.)

With pressure of his cardinal Uncle and the French king, Ippolito II d’Este turned into Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este. But after a failed attempt to reach the top and become the grand pope, he focused his energy on making this garden (probably among other things) where there was once an monastery.

Villa d'Este has later restored and has many more things added since then. Among others Gianlorenzo Bernini, has designed one of the fountains.

Later again other people of the church had a lot reconstructed, so the garden would be more fitting for a place of the church. And of course also Mussolini and and his fascist friends had some alternations made. So sadly I don't have any pictures of nice naked statues to show. But also without these, there are still plenty of beautiful things to go and see.
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I am superman

I am superman, I am bird, I am flying in undiscovered worlds, I have visited alien creatures in their homes. Been starred down by small red and blue coloured animals. Stroked another with huge pointy pikes. I have scared pollygates, which sucked in their arms. Looked at red living trees.

I have been diving, finally I finished my certificate, So now I am allowed to go 18 meters under the water, and see wonderful stuff. Its really a huge experience to dive. Which I would highly recommend to anybody.

It doesn’t require much strength to dive. Since you more or less just float around. At least that’s what they tell you. I am also sure that with practice you wont use as much energy to stay at one depth, or to stay in on place to watch something.



I had two dives this weekend. The first one was perfect. I really felt like I was flying in the water. Had control of everything. The next dive was not so good. For two reasons I think. I was already tired from the first dive. And there was air inside my suit, which made it very hard to adjust my depth level. Actually I am not really sure that excuse number two is a valid excuse. But then I was tired, and it was my second dive.

Look forward for the next one, already...

I Love Italian Football

The coach of the Italian football team says that the last 3 weeks have been intense, but so far they have followed the plan they made before starting.

He said this after losing the two first matches of the European Cup.
Read in pol.dk (link)

I take my wine a bit older than myself

By chance we entered a enoteca in Urbino, because we wanted to buy a bottle of wine, that was produced with the "Lacrima di Morro d'Alba" grapes. The reason for this, was because of what happened the night before.

The night before Sara and I had the pleasure of staying at a nice bed and breakfast, close to Urbino, where they had served us a wine (we choose the bottle our self), which I insisted was bad, and the Sommelier educated waiter insisted wasn't. They changed that bottle with out blinking, and we got a very nice bottle of something else red wine. But Since Sara and I were both convinced that wines made of the grape usually is good (Im still not sure, whether Sara thought that it was me and not the wine there was something wrong with, but she supported me anyway :)).

In this Enoteca we found a bottle like this, not the same as the evening before, but another wine from another house. As we were paying, I noticed some very old bottles on the top shelf. It was full of bottles from the 60s and the 70s for only 15 euros. ONLY 15 EUROS, I found a Barolo from 69 which I immediately feel in love with. So we bougth that one also. The owner told us that it was a but of a lottery, cause he couldn't guarantee that they were still good.

Anyway we finally found an evening where we would drink it. (Well after I made the big foto shoot of it.)



The cork smelled good, when I opened it, and after I decanted it, it had a nice red color. The fist taste of it, was good, but sadly the taste of cork was there and it sadly ruined the wine.

But I have to say its a special feeling to drink something that has been bottled before you have born, but I'm not sure I'm going to wait 39 years for other bottles, cause it feels a lot more like a waste to wait 39 years to discover that the poor wine is bad, then if its just a year, or an hour since you brought it home.

(By the way, the "Lacrima di Morro d'Alba" was great, and that was only one year old)

Gone for diving weekend without diving

Almost to months ago Sara and I planned this trip to Ventotene, to go diving in the belief that I would be a certified diver at this time. But after lots of phone calls to my diving instructor, we finally understood that he was not able to give me the last two dives which is required for him to issue my certificate.

VERY FRUSTRATING, since these last two dives is mostly done as relaxing dives where you go with your instructor to see some nice views, without doing any actual exercises. We thought we solved the problem, by arranging the two last dives with another instructor in Civitavecchia ( a town a bit north of Rome) Friday morning, before we had to leave for Ventotene. Going there would enable me to have the two dives, make them sign a certificate that I went, rush back to Rome, to show it to my instructor who would then give me my temporary certificate allowing me to go for the dives at Ventotene. So Friday morning arrived, Sara and I had packed everything and I took the car to go towards Civitavecchia. After 20 minutes in the car with "magtens korridorer" screaming about shitty relationships and bad Saturday mornings ( well if you are Dane, you know the group), the traffic went into a complete standstill. Thinking that it was just normal Rome traffic I turned of the engine, and tried to read a bit of the newspaper.

I didn't manage. The most frustrating about being stuck in traffic, actually isn't the fact that you are stuck, but the fact that you cant just stop the car and read or something, cause the traffic moves kinda half a meter every few minutes and the poor people that doesn't move immediately is encouraged to do some, by shouts, hand gestures and long honks from the cars behind.

After 20 minutes, where I didn't move more then 30 meters, I began to stress a bit, so I called Sara to ask for alternative roads. She (the walking roadmap - as her friends call her) gave me one, where I had to turn left only 50 meters further on. Which I did half an hour later. With Sara's capable directions on the phone, I aced the shortcut and got back on the right track fast and on the other side of the traffic problem. I hung up with Sara and called the diving to tell them that I would be a bit late.

They told me that they had tried to call me for a long time (probably all the time I was on the phone with Sara), to tell me that we couldn't go, cause the sea was "mossy", but they would be happy doing it Saturday morning instead.

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I was stupefied, not by some spell from Harry Potter, but from the impossibility of the situation. After trying to finish this certificate for two months (All I missed those two moths ago, was four dives) it seemed that our diving weekend would be without diving. I called Sara, which like me had run out of ideas ( "like me" is maybe to much to say, course I have mostly been doing the frustrated part, and Sara the problem solving part), anyway we went to Ventotene, and tried, with no luck, to convince the divers there to take me for the last two dives. Didn't succeed.

After a lot of sulking, we decided that it was stupid not to stay on Ventotene and enjoy the long weekend after all. It was a very good choice, cause we had a wonderfull time, doing close to nothing. We took some nice pictures of the island, but I don't have them here, but I got these ones, which I took on the way over there with my pocket camera



Could have been our ferry, but wasn't, neither was this one:



We were on the one with wings (aliscafo which roughly means "hull with wings"), which looks like this:



Now we are hoping that both my diving instructor and the weather will be accommodating on Sunday, so I can go and finish the last two dives.