cathandchris

Our holiday has now come to an end. I am now sitting in Linate Airport in our first leg home, from here we fly to London and then to Sydney via Bangkok, it should take us about 32 hours to get home, I’ll be ready for a beer or two! Over the past few days we have traveled from Lake Como to Montalcino. A 14th century city perched high on a mountain with glorious view of the surrounding country side. The experience of driving in Italy has been just that! An experience. Doesn’t appear to be a speed limit on the freeways and if there is, no one takes any notice. I was doing 140klms and cars were just flying past me. We intended to spend the rest of our holiday in Montalcino, however we were ... read more

Our stay in Paris is coming to an end and we are ready to move onto Italy. On Tuesday evening we have had dinner at the Eiffel Tower and then cruised the La Seine. Dinner was excellent, along with the accompanying mandatory bottles of wine. The restaurant is placed on the first level of the Eiffel Tower with surrounding views of the city. After dinner we went to the second observation deck and nearly got blown away. We then sailed the Seine for a hour, but not before Cath managed to convince a waiter from a nearby cafe' to illegally supply her with six half bottles of wine and glasses for the cruise. As a result of the wine we had to get a taxi home, and then Ann showed us how to unintentionally stair surf, ... read more

Hello We left Cardiff Wales on Thursday morning in the pouring rain for London but not before we drove a little further south to the seaside town of Barry Island. For those that dont know Chris and I are mad fans of a tv show called Gavin and Stacey and it is a comedy set in that town. It was a three hour drive to London were we were meeting up with Annie as she flew into London that morning to join us for the next 3 weeks. Chris was extremely keen to get there as we also were returning the rental car and that meant no more driving for a few weeks. Yippeeeee not bad seeing we clocked up close to 2000 kms over the UK. We are picking up a car in Italy to ... read more

Well we have made it the sunny part of the UK, headed south from Settle on Friday after another family dinner at my cousin's Julie's and stayed overnight with friends at Leighton Buzzard, London, (about 35miles outside of London). Quite night in general, however treated to a five star home cooked meal, thank you Jo and Graham. Departed on Saturday morning and arrived at my Cousin Stuarts in Denmead, Portsmouth for a traditional BBQ. Got to say, that the weather since leaving Settle as been nothing but sunshine. Cath and I are now just chilling out for a the day before exploring the surrounding area, so it's a quite morning, before going to Portsmouth for a meal and beers. Cath's monkey bite has now all cleared up and the doctor has told her that there should ... read more

We left the Thatch house this morning about 10am to drive to Dublin and then fly to Scotland. It was freezing cold and windy in Ireland for our last day....even the locals commented....brrrrrrr. Flight was very uneventful and we were into Scotland within the hour. We picked up our rental car and GPS and headed into the heart of Edinburgh to the Radisson Blu Hotel only meters down the road from Edinburgh Castle and the Palace. A truly amazing city and you fell like you have gone back a few hundred years. The GPS got us there no problem. Chris driving very well in a new country. We checked into a beautiful room to find a bottle of wine on ice with a note to take it down stairs to the Bar as there are 4 ... read more