After a few months of damp cold weather it's time for us to go in search of some sunshine. It all started out as just a simple trip back to Thailand, to Ko Lanta where we've met up with Sharon, Scott and the two grandchildren twice before. Sadly this time they won't be there as the children are now in school back home in California, but over the last two trips we made many new friends who also often return to escape their winter in Finland ,Germany and Sweden. Once the flight was booked Stan came up with the idea of adding a bit of spice and taking a side trip to India for a couple of weeks. Well, I agreed but I can tell you what seemed like a good idea at first turned into ... read more

Apologies to those of you have already read this bit. I decided to split the last one into two but forgot to delete this text from the last one. The photos however are different and correspond to this blog. _------------_-----------_------------_-----------_------------_-------- Saturday 13th July Our next stop was the Austrian Tyrol. As we drove along, the scenery changed from tall grey craggy mountain tops to high, grassy peaks changing to rock at the very tops, but just as beautiful in their own way and equally as high. Our guest house in the Tyrol was again a traditional wooden alpine house with bright red flowers flowing over from multiple balconies. Close by was a fantastic restaurant we could just walk to and eat amazing food cooked especially for us. Petra the owner of the guesthouse informed us that ... read more

First I need to say that I'm way behind on blogs so have a lot of catching up to do. Tomorrow we are back on the road so this will be my last for a while. We were so close to Venice that we felt compelled to visit whilst in this part of the world. The journey was fraught with difficulties but eventually we found the place to park near the railway station closest to Venice. Driving right into it was out of the question. We parked up and joined the queue to buy a rail ticket.a crazy system. Once on the train we were in Venice in ten minutes then the fun began. We followed signs for St Marcos square but there were so many twists and turns and so many people that we frequently ... read more

After a strange breakfast I our hotel we were on the road again. I say strange because it consisted of slices of bread that had been sat out all night and were as stale as a board and some tiny bits of cheese and ham. Also on the buffet table were three croissants and two small pots of yoghurt. We were the only ones in the dining room so, thinking we must be the only guests, we more or less ate the lot. Then other guests started arriving. Oops!! Back to self catering tomorrow! Our next destination. Breganze. Once again the scenery was spectacular as we wound our way over passes. We stopped for a coffee on the Tonle pass and began to see Laverda motorbikes parked up. Now we knew we were getting close to ... read more

For anyone not interested in bikes.... You'll probably want to skip this blog! Stan was in his element taking the tour around the old Moto Guzzi factory site. I joined him for a while and tried to show interest but when he bumped into three of his Laverda club friends I left them to it. The photos tell the story better than me!... read more