6th September 2015 – 18thSeptember 2015. Magellan Cruise and Maritime Voyages COPENHAGEN 8th September 2015 First things first! The ship is geared up for European round two pin plug (not a 3 pin English socket in sight!) so the first thing you have to do is buy an adapter at the shop!! The second little moan is that when you get back to the ship at 16.30pm after your day trip, there is only pizza to eat or the buffet dinner at 18.00 so if you are on 2nd sitting for dinner (20.15) it’s quite a long time to wait! Also the buffet shuts at 20.30 for evening meals so there is not so much flexibility and you have to plan your days around meal times! The ship only has 12 decks so is more like ... read more

Tuesday 7thJuly Massa to Sestri Levante 48 miles Red road through the traffic jammed towns, up over mountains or Motorway? We did the Motorway, still quite scenic with lots of little villages perched on hill tops, and we got to the campsite about 10.15am! Really needed a chill out day so stayed around the campsite chatting with our new neighbours until lunchime, then walked into Sestri Levante, a very pretty little seaside town and got information about the Cinque Terre. (ACSI Camping Fossa Lupara ) Wednesday 8th July Cinque Terre 0 miles This was the last part of our Italian trip and we wanted to explore the Cinque Terre, which is basically a group of five villages, that peasant farmers who painstakingly terraced the hillsides and planted grapevines over the last millenium. The villages are either ... read more

Wednesday 25thJune Rome 0 miles We never thought we could do Rome in one day, but we didn’t feel that we could do a big tour of Italy without visiting the City. So, the 9.00am bus from the campsite took us the 10 minutes to Prima Porta train station where 20 minutes later we were in at the Piazza del Popolo in Central Rome. After a quick visit to a viewpoint, we walked down the main street, Via Corso, to the Colosseum. Loads of runs and grand buildings everywhere!! And of course, loads of people!! The queue to buy tickets was long….they reckoned it would take about 2hours, so we gave it a miss and just admired the outside! However, we then went to the Palatine – the old Emperors residence and you can buy tickets ... read more

Saturday 13th June Cagliari to Agrigento 97 miles An early start in Palermo, Sicily as the ferry docked at 7.30am and by 8.00am we were parked and sightseeing!! Palermo is a bit of a quiet ‘wow’. Lots of tall, dark, medieval streets and labyrinth alleyways, with iron balconies on the five storey buildings and a huge number of old theatres, churches, palaces, squares, Vucciria market, as well as the Cathedral all within walking distance! Our best find was the catacombs at Cappucini. It was a bit of a walk to get to but it was a Covento that retained its own burial ground for several hundred years, placing the dead in catacombs under the church. Most of the bodies dated back to between 1800 – 1880 and most were dressed in the clothes of that era ... read more

Monday 1stJune 2015. Dunkerque to Guise 210 miles An uneventful first day!! We have to be in Genoa in Italy on Thursday evening to catch the ferry to Sardinia, so we don’t have a lot of time for sight-seeing on our way down through France. We left Chris’ sisters house in London in the morning arriving at Dover in plenty of time for our ferry to Dunkerque at 12.00 noon. We arrived, in the sunshine in France about 2.30pm…..in French time 3.30pm and drove via Lille and Valenciennes, stopping off at a fortified village Le Quesnoy ( Huge ramparts but didn’t look that interesting!!) to do some food shopping! Lots of red brick houses, singularly unattractive, but lots of war memorials and war cemeteries that were quite poignant. Carried on to Guise, arriving about 6.30pm. Had ... read more