Marathon Mazury

Well, what should you do in the middle of June in Poland? How about the Mazury Marathon? After doing my first marathon a month and a half ago I was keen for more action, and what better than a trail marathon I thought.... well it was easily the hardest thing I have ever done. I fell over two and a half times, I ate a lot of bananas and vegan cola gummi snakes, and drank until I could drink no more. It took 3hours and 46 minutes to cover the 42.2 kms and it was painful. As I write this now I can feel the throbbing from my toes whose nails won't be there for much longer. But the feeling of finishing was the greatest thing in the world.

Before the race, people had too much time and energy on their hands.

My Warsaw International Triathlon Club team members, all finished and all did me proud

This is Ryszard, he started running in 1997 and did his first marathon, he has now run 200 of them! I take my hat off to him.

An amazing man, people who say "I can't run a marathon" really just don't want to at the end of the day. Which is fine.

Many proud athletes finished.

Head down to the finish is sometimes the best option

Or maybe getting some family support is a good thing too!

Some will do a dance in the last few miles

Just getting to the end is worth a thumbs up.

Local fire truck, the straż were amazing and clapped every finisher!

Support is really important to a runner, if you ever go past a marathon, even just on a day out in town, stop off and give a cheer to a few people, it really means the world to a runner. Even run alongside them and support them. It is an amazing feeling.

Many locals will watch you run past and support you too.

After all of that you get a medal, it isn't gold and it really doesn't matter.

You also get to reward yourself eating guilt free, as you have burned somewhere between 3000-5000calories. Depending on your speed and size. From the size of this I burned a lot!

Mazury is known as the lake district of Poland. It is the capital's playground sitting between 2 and 3 hours from Warsaw. It is a very popular place for people to have summer houses and for school trips and the like. It is beautiful, sparsely populated and you are never far from a lake. In Polish it is called the Kraina Tysiąca Jezior and in German as Land der Tausend Seen, meaning "land of a thousand lakes", this kind of gives it away a little.

As Mazury is the lake district you must visit a lake or two.

After the run, rest your feet.

It is so quiet and still, barely a sound other than wildlife.

Then it is time to cruise home.

Greve, Tuscany, Italy

If you go to Tuscany and don't take the winding roads to get to Greve In Chianti, don't tell me you have lived. It is a pretty little town with a nice central square, nothing overly stunning or impressive to look at, but the surroundings are very pretty. It is what is in a few of the buildings that is important. One in the main square, where you can buy all the wild boar related products ones heart could desire, the other is the wine cellar of Chianti where you can buy a small "credit card" and sample over 100 wines it is called Le Cantine. It is just heaven.

Someone is happy to be there.

The collanades

Sampling the world of Chianti

You can also order some nice little plates of smallgoods

yummy yum yum

In town there is plenty of piggy related things.

butchering

hams

and a shed load of tourists getting their fill

Go to Greve, you won't regret it

Erice, Sicily, Italy

I could never imagine myself  falling in love at all, but I always seem to do it since moving to Europe. Of course first it was my lovely wife and since then it has been many things elderflowers, coffee, Galway, Guinness...... This time it is with the mountain top town of Erice. It is amazing, and just a magical magical place. I want to move there now!

Excitement abound

Funicular view

The streets are paved with... marble.

What is it? It is a man

And a woman

As the town has a tradition of ceramics many houses chose to have their names on a plaque at the door.

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Lazy days

ahhhhh so this is what they do :D

a pop of colour

Adornments to a traditional cart

Heck even the moon is chilled out here

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Sometimes in Erice with the warm Med air rising rapidly up this hill and clouds forming you feel like you are in the Andes.

Windy windy path

^^^This is a video ^^^^

A great performer on the old squeeze box, and the two old men next to the cart would sit there when ever you gave money to the busker they would be first guessing then secondly asking your nationality. It was hilarious.

The hilltop town is famous for their cannoli at many locations including Caffe San Giuliano. They apologised profusely because the ricotta was too runny. It wasn't bad, but this one was too sweet for me. 

There are plenty of other things to try here at Caffe San Giuliano but there are also many other pasticcera

The entrance

Fishy knockers

And back on the funicular home.

Now some panoramas.

If anyone is going to Sicily and the North Western end of the island I recommend thoroughly going to Erice. It is fantastic, and I am sure you will fall in love with it like me.