Our time in the Pyrenees was so much more than I thought it would be. Initially I was disappointed that there was no snow (normal at this time of year) and so not such point heading into Andorra. We changed focus and started to look at some of the little villages. We found a house perched on hillside in a tiny village called Jujols. WOW is all I can say. We had our own stone house with courtyard overlooking the mountains where we could sit and sip a coffee in the am and a wine in the pm. Needless to say one day I refused to move and we stayed in our mountain retreat and enjoyed the surrounds. Will write more about the whole area but this I had to show you.... read more

I sit here on the veranda of our Spanish villa, Casa del Vega, amongst the hills of Valencia overlooking orchards of oranges and almonds, and contemplate what we have accomplished so far. It has been an amazing trip. We have been so fortunate with our accommodation. As we are travelling with 5 kids, eating out 3 meals a day would have double the cost so we have aimed at staying in self-contained apartments. Early on in the plans I discovered a site called homeaway. This site has given us the opportunity to stay in residential areas, away from the main tourist areas. The homes we have stayed in have been as diverse as the areas we have visited, from the family home in the highlands of Scotland, the uni student flat off the Royal Mile in ... read more

Madrid is one huge city and such a contrast coming from Venice. As I have said Venice is magic so Madrid wherever we went after that was going to be hard. Madrid proved not to be as straight forward as we thought. The flight was uneventful even though we did not realise Easyjet had no seat allocation and thus could possibly be scattered from one end to the other but after being bussed to the plane and being last on we still found 7 seats in the back together (much to Ian’s disappointment who was aiming at reverting to his young single days). Madrid has a great transport network and we managed to find the bus into town for 2euros each. This took us into the main train station. From here we thought it would be ... read more

Venice Venice is magic. We had a beautiful loft apartment on the northern aspect of the city in Cannaregio. It is a very residential area with its own atmosphere and some great local restaurants and bars. Each night we left the kids babysitting Oliver while we had a drink and cicchetti or 2 on the 3rd canal. These are little snacks you have with a drink, often bread with meat, cheese or seafood on top. I was worried before getting to Venice that one or more of the kids would be in the water, in particular Oliver. This of course was unfounded. Somehow the place works without the visitors swimming. The vaporetti system is great but very expensive so we walked everywhere. The little alleys and lanes that you discover are amazing and we did lose ... read more

Florence. We never intended to visit Florence, however the lack of suitable accommodation in Siena led us there. We took one of Italy’s fast trains, an experience in itself. You really do not notice the speed until you hit the tunnels or look down and see how fast you are going. It is a great way to cover some distance fast. Our travels nearly turned upside down as we could have easily missed our train out of Roma. We managed to get to the metro using the tram network. We even made it to platform, no issues. What we neglected to realise in our limited Italian is that there had been a change of platform to get us to the main station and we found ourselves running through the station loaded with backpacks flying up and ... read more

After arriving in Florence, we were heading to an Italian supermarket when we stumbled across a park. We asked if we could go in and play, Mum handed it to dad to sort out and we all turned and said “Please” with a big puppy dog face on all of us. Dad let us go and we walked over. I walked in and saw a futsal court with some kids kicking a football and there was one kid that really stood out. He was controlling the ball with every part of the body. He looked 7, 8 maybe 9 and he was moving the ball around like a player in the premier league. I was looking after Ollie and I lost him about 2 or 3 times because I was too into this kid. I walked ... read more