Following the Fallen

We were up at 5.40 this morning! Nothing like a sleep in on holidays 😂 After throwing on several layers of clothes we hit the road back towards Bullecourt and the start of Neil’s battlefield tour. His own blog goes into it in much more detail but I’ve been amazed…

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Bonjour France!

After an excellent buffet breakfast   where I was tempted by the champagne on offer but resisted, we had to attend to a serious emergency…Neil has forgotten to pack the charging cable for his GoPro 5! 😂 We had Googled to see if we could find an electronics shop and…

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In Bruges

it was a long flight with a sore rear end!  I’ve been plagued with a bilateral  hamstring problem for several months which makes sitting down for too long pretty uncomfortable. I’d been dreading the 23 hour trip to Amsterdam but a combination of travel cushions, Valium and a T.E.N.S machine…

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Yes, Venice IS Sinking

Venice is definitely sinking, even the rats are leaving… Our last morning in Italy we decided to sleep in and get ourselves  organized to checkout at 11am. We enjoyed our final breakfast in the pretty little breakfast room, our last croissants. We knew the rain was heavier this morning than anything we’d…

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Grand Venice

The rain was falling lightly this morning and the tide was high again which made things a bit interesting in St Marks Square…. The view from the Bridge of Sighs We toured the Palazzo Ducale first thing, fortunately skipping the line with the Museum pass that we had picked up…

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A Classic Day in Venice

Thanks to double glazing and the shutters in our windows we slept a bit later this morning and thus arrived at the breakfast room at peak hour, it’s the first time we’ve had to wait a little for a table but the bacon and scrambled eggs were worth the wait.…

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Rocky Road to Venice

Despite a comfy bed, I had a shocking night last night.  I woke almost every 2 hours, a combination of cigarette smoke drifting in the open window, an early morning coughing fit, an overdose of breakfast prunes having an explosive result in the middle of the night (!), an inconsiderate…

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Hairpins, Apples and Castles

I don’t think I mentioned our head waiter at dinner last night, he was quite a character with a very superior manner but perfectly correct and polite. This morning he greeted us by name at breakfast and directed us to our table with a flourish before snapping his fingers and…

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A Little Taste of Switzerland

We’ve had all four seasons today. We woke to low cloud and grey skies again in Lake Como which followed us all the way along our drive north along the lakes edge. The drive alternated between pretty views our across the lake and long stretches in tunnels that whipped us…

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Dreamy Lake Como

It’s not hard to see why the lakes are so popular, even on a damp grey morning , the view across the water is just lovely. I’m sorry we have not seen it in better weather but I’m still very happy we came.  Heading out on the lake ferry. We…

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Genius, Rain and Leaning Tower

A modest home Today was our big driving day. We bid a reluctant goodbye to lovely San Gimignano and headed off on winding regional roads north. The pretty vineyard covered hills gave way to flat, more urban regions as we drove through the Empoli area but them rose again as…

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Tuscany Continued…

Breakfast under the vines The sun came out today, which was such a nice change after the last few grey days and it dappled the ground under the vines as we sat in the courtyard to eat our breakfast. It was nice to have a slower, lazier start to our…

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