http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Dan-Amanda-Grace/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Dan Amanda Grace en-us Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:21:54 +0000 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:21:54 +0000 We're on our way home and I've only got 8 minutes of internet left. We got very wet in St Gallen headed back over the alps to Lugano and Locarno both very beautiful everyone should go. Then north again to Interlaken where we had been planning to spend 6 days but were diverted by the floods. Two people died just along the lake from here a massive mudslide came through the village in the night. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Interlaken/blog-18373.html Blimey we thought it rained as we crossed the mountains into Switzerland last week but today... Solid downpour from dawn to dusk without a break. I saw a man with a beard building a big boat and pairing up animals.After Austria we drove a hellishly long way to Lake Garda experiencing the deep joy that is Italian traffic management. They simply don't see twohour queues as any sort of problem th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/blog-17151.html From 34 degrees on the coast to 10 degrees in the mountains... We had the heating on for two nights and Grace caught a cold. Hope Lake Garda is better. We drove over the Grossglockner Hochaplenstrasse 40km of twisting hairpins rising to 2500metres with fantastic views of snowcapped mountains and fat tourists photographing each other. Standard procedure upon seeing a fantastic sight one person tu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/blog-16417.html First thanks for everyone who's commented on the website I only just realized how I could read your contributions its nice to hear from you allAfter Trogir we headed north up the coast of Croatia and stopped on an island called Vir planning to stop just for a night. But then Bad news a scratch on Grace's leg got infected so we went to the pharmacy who called the doctor and told us to see http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovenia/Upper-Carniola/Bled/blog-15901.html Croatia may seem like a pretty cutting edge destination for Brits but for the whole of Eastern Europe it's Spain somewhere hot by the sea where the food's not too weird and they sort of understand what you're saying. Poles Hungarians Czechs Slovaks Slovenes and East Germans come here in their tens of thousands to drink beer eat chips and meat and get sunburnt. It's just like holidays in t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/blog-14609.html Or at the very least get mown down by a moped ridden by a family of four all on mobile phones.Tuscany was everything you might expect winding roads vines and olives beautiful farmhouses owned by German industrialists French politicians and posh English novelists. We saw three quaint fortified towns perched on a rocky outcrop in one day Pienza Montepulciano and another which escapes me t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Dubrovnik/blog-14066.html These got resorted into alphabetical order but you get a flavour of where we've been so far. Many thanks to Spiff for bringing these back to Blighty on his iPod and uploading them for me ain't technology wonderful'Setting off' is er just as we left. 'Assiette de fruits de mer' and 'first beach' are on the Ile de Re near La Rochelle. The Gorge du Kakouette is in the Pyrenees. Camping Castella http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-12528.html I'm well aware England is sweltering at the moment but so are we and we're sleeping in a van that sits in the sun all day. Plus the mosquitoes are huge and greedy here in Lake Maggiore I have a nice set of red lumps running up the side of my face.The Pyrenees were beautiful we saw a local kite festival that was a lot of fun drove through Lourdes which was a total dump like Worthing only wi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/blog-12177.html Just a quick update on day 10 of our trip as internet access is slow and expensive up in the Pyrenees. We spent three days on Ile de Re near La Rochelle beautiful and quiet at the moment but expensive and going to be rammed in the summer. Then three days on the coast north of Biarritz at a custombuilt resort called Vieux Boucau with Amanda's brother Steve who met us on his motorbike. Lazy da http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/blog-11184.html All ready for takeoff finally. We've cleaned the house thoroughly ready for tenants who arrive 8 hours after we leave apart from the room packed with all our gubbins. We've packed the van until it creaks and had a very good last curry with the neighbours. I worked until 4am last night went to bed as the birds woke up and delivered or posted 6 last jobs this morning and bought some deodoran http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-10300.html It all seemed so easy nine months ago. Let's take the summer off in a van said Amanda. Yes why not I replied turning the page of my book. It's our last chance for a really long family holiday before Grace starts school she said. True I answered sipping my drink.Turns out she really meant it. Hmm. We are now the proud owners of a Hymer Camp 55 which seemed fine when we bought it from http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-8863.html