Struth! Pooch in Boots

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that while we’ve been stripping down for summer heatwaves, this pooch he came across in the little Italian village of Porto Venere late last year was happily ready for his country’s more wintry months.

Visiting aboard the boutique SeaDream II, David had gone in search of the bay in which English poet Lord Byron holidayed and swam outside Porto Venere in the early 1800s (the bay is now officially called Byron’s Cove,) when he found this cute pup and owner stretching their legs just inside the picturesque town gates.

Pooch and owner were both happy to show-off this latest in Italian canine winter footwear for our readers. And with sports-shoe style soles and fur-lined uppers for the ankles, the tiny boots were obviously perfect in this Italian Riviera holiday mecca that’s a gateway to the Cinque Terre (“Five Lands,”) and was also once popular with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and novelist, playwright, poet and painter D H Lawrence during their heydays.