'It's like Whitby Abbey steps - twice!'

‘Be honest, did you think I’d wimp out?’
‘Yes, I did’

Cat decided that she wanted to climb the 414 steps of the Campanile di Giotto. I did this 17 years ago, and wasn’t sure if I could do it again – after all, I get out of breath climbing upstairs, so I was a little worried. I did want to try though, to prove that I could still do it.

I don’t think I made my final decision until we were going in, and even then I was thinking, ‘I’ll stop, if it gets too much’.

Well, I did stop, for quite a while, at each level, but I made it. Sadly, the photographic evidence is on film, so you’ll just have to believe me. They’re put up a sort of wire mesh though, which wasn’t there before. Health and safety again, I guess. The views are certainly spectacular, and we could look down on our rooftop terrace where we’d had breakfast.

After we reached ground level again, I heard myself saying ‘you know, we should climb York Minster one day’. I may have been delusional owing to the altitude!