Mille Miglia Italy

On the next leg of our adventures we took Flat Susan to the Mille Miglia in Brescia, Italy. We stopped a couple of nights in Potenghe on Lake Garda. 

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The Mille Miglia, or thousand miles, was an endurance race that was organized 24 times between 1927 and 1957. Participants raced with their Gran Turismo cars over the open roads of northern Italy from Brescia to Rome and back on an 8-shaped route. Due to frequent fatal crashes the race was banned in 1957, but since 1982 it was revived as a touring trip for old-timers.

http://www.losapos.com/mille_miglia

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Before the race starts, the ancient streets are lined with almost 400 vintage cars dating from 1921 to 1957 and for car enthusiasts, like our fellas, it was a sweetie shop. I must admit it was fascinating to Dolores and me and took me back to childhood days when Stirling Moss was racing. We even spotted a couple of cars he had raced during his career. 

Here's a selection of my favourite cars from more than 50 I managed to photograph.

Bugatti 37, 1926

FORD A Roadster Deluxe, 1931

Sales of umbrellas soared that day and Italian style went out of the window when we ended up resorting to buying silly plastic ponchos and big brollies in an effort to beat the weather.
The rest of the weather for our holiday was perfect, comfortably hot and sunny!

Alan, Dolores and Dave with a

Lagonda M 4.5 Rapide, 1934

Almost had a catastrophe after fastening Flat Susan to my camera strap whilst looking an utter drip (pun intended) in my poncho, PANIC, PANIC, how would I tell Neet that we lost her???.....

but after a search, utter relief when we found her half drowned in a puddle on a marble slab,

I'm relieved to say that she made a good recovery and we all dried out after lunch in a great little cafe nearby....

Flat Susan certainly helps to make friends as people are so fascinated by her and the story of her travels around the world. The cafe owner (below) was so friendly and asked about her smallest ever customer!

Ciao!

Mercedes-Benz SSK 1929

The rain poured and the wind blew turning so many brollies inside out

that every bin was stuffed full of dead umbrellas .

Lots of famous people entered the race... Sir Chris Hoy, Daniel Day Lewis, David Coulthard etc., and here's Yasmin Le Bon co-driving a

Jaguar XK120 OTS, 1950

Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Sport, 1929

Bentley 4 1/2 Litre Supercharged 1930   

Rally ABC 1929

I loved the flying Hippo on this..

Lagonda M 4.5 Rapide 1934

Lancia Lambda serie V11, 1927

All of the shop windows had themed displays and I would have loved to bring this one home for a special little boy!

There were so many photos of old racing stars in the shop windows, but I just had to snap this fabulous one of my childhood hero, Stirling Moss.

Arrivederci Brescia!

Battle of the Atlantic Commemoration

Our city is decked out in patriotic bunting as Liverpool hosts the national commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic and what a superb event it is. Still time to be part of it all as  it continues all weekend and Monday too as it is Bank Holiday, so get here if you can!

even the shopping centres are in the mood and here is the top terrace of the new "Liverpool One" centre. 

We went down to the river front Pierhead where the parade of veterans was to be held.

It was so emotional to see these old seafarers marching so proudly wearing all their medals as the crowd cheered and clapped them.

There were many captains and commanders from home and abroad with the Lord Mayor

This old sea dog was so funny and had the crowd laughing with his hat saying "Knackered Seaman"!!

Here's the Mersey Ferry alongside some of the many visiting ships on parade.

The Pump House and the Albert Dock host another ship

Alongside the canal basin by the new Museum of Liverpool Life several children's bands played everything from pop to classical, jazz to music from the shows.

Street entertainers were everwhere and here, in front of the famous Liver Buildings, this super robot character interacted with the crowd to spectacular background effects.

The sea cadets scared the wits out of me with their displays on the rigging

This stilt walking tea lady was so amusing and was the star of the show and Flat Susan loved her Irish wit and charm. She had a ride on the top of the trolley....she's there on the top shelf ...

and a dance on a china cup and saucer! Luckily they were all glued together and we used Flat Susan's safety harness (an elastic band) to keep her safe!

Only managed to capture this snip of the Spitfire and Hurricane flying past. 

Another of our new waterfront buildings ... just look on the roof....

where they had the best bird's eye view of the event! The white building is the tip of the beautiful 1930's Art Deco Ventilation for the first Mersey Tunnel (we now have two tunnels)

It was such a good atmosphere and I'm so sorry that I didn't manage to take more pics of Flat Susan in all the excitement.
This is just a taster of all that's happing over the weekend and there's still time to get down to share the atmosphere and pay respects to those who served.... but do remember.... Liverpool is still worth a visit at any time of the year!
Next episode of Flat Susan's first holiday in Italy later today.

Flat Susan's 1st Adventure

Flat Susan rested before the start of her first adventure with an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn..... 

before flying off from Stansted to Slovenia to join me on a visit to my special friend and blogging buddy, Dolores (aka Cardarian), in Ljubljana.

I'm honoured to be the first travel companion and you can read all about Flat Susan here on the Hickydorums blog of her creator Neet and follow her travels around the world.  

On our first day we met up with Dolores's DD, Anna, who took us to the most amazing, fascinatingly different, place in their beautiful city. 

Knowing I appreciate graffiti art we were taken to METELKOVA for an alternative view of Ljubljana.

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Metelkova City (full name in Slovene: Avtonomni kulturni center Metelkova mesto, 'Metelkova City Autonomous Cultural Center') is an autonomous social centre in the centre of Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is located on the site of former military barracks (the Slovenian headquarters of the Yugoslav National Army) and was squatted September 1993. The site consists of seven buildings and was 12,500 m².^[1] The squat is named after nearby Metelko Street (Slovene:Metelkova ulica), which is named after the 19th-century Slovenian Roman Catholic priest, philologist, and unsuccessful language reformer Fran Metelko.

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Flat Susan really enjoyed the experience and if you follow the flagpole you'll see her ......

 right here

The sun was so warm reflecting off this fabulous mosaic wall 

  Flat Susan enjoyed the colour and vibrance of the place and here she is in the photo below.

  Anna, Dolores and Susan with me.

Anyone can express their art in any form and there are some fabulous crazy creations....

  DH Dave and Dolores

 Most of the art uses recycled materials

Every doorway is a creation in itself.

 There are cafes, bars and hostels.

 If a tree is in the way of a building the tree  stays and the structure goes around it.

 There were musicians sitting on these structures whilst they jammed.

 Time and place to meditate

So many different styles

My favourite wall and I reckon this one would make superb scrapbook paper.

Lots more adventures to come with Dolores and Flat Susan, and next one is in Italy, so keep watching!

Friday Smile!

Here's a quick chuckle, before I unpack my suitcase, to join in with Annie's Friday Smile.

We returned late last night from a wonderful, super duper, holiday in Ljubljana with this wonderful lady, the perfect hostess.

 She took us to so many lovely places in her beautiful country of Slovenia and we had so much fun and laughs. 

One of the little gifts I took her was this necklace (from Primani) with the idea that it might be used in a crafting project... but no! This lady was such fun, wore it so well, and looked just like a rather elegant female Hercules Poirrot!!! 

Thank you so much to Dolores (Cardarian) for giving us such a good time and I'll be posting lots more pics of all our many adventures very soon.

Pop over to Annie's blog to enjoy all the others joining in with her Friday Smile and start your weekend  on a happy note. Maybe you even have a smile of your own to share?!?

WOYWW 206 from Ljubljana

Greetings from Slovenia! 

Just popping in to show you WOYWW... it's Dolores and me, at her work desk having fun and misbehaving and we got together all because of this weekly show and tell of crafty desks! 

As we are off to Italy today, we are sorry we won't be able to reply to any comments and visit other desks but we just wanted to say a quick "Hello".

Here's a special little lady ready to board her plane, with me, to visit Dolores... if you go over to Neet's blog you'll find out who she is and you'll soon be able to share her epic adventure.

Just because we can't visit and comment don't let us stop you going over to Julia's and seeing all the others joining in on on this weekly worldwide blog hop so click HERE!!!