Today we leave Piedmont, but know that we will be back again to explore more of this lovely region. Our trip today is about 4 hours of driving with a stop mid way. So we set off early to ensure we can minimise time in the hottest part of the day. On our first Italian trip we spent 1/2 day in Parma and did a tour of a Parmesan Cheese factory, we had decided we needed to return to the factory and pick up some cheese for Tuscany. As with all the world, Latteria Sociale San Pier Damiami has new products, but the factory has not changed. They have doubled their production by now producing Parmesan cheeses from Brown cows as well as the traditional Black and White cows. We decided to get 1kg of each ... read more

Sorry its been a couple of weeks since we posted, but it has been a combination of a lot of activity and then we burnt out and got colds, so recovery. Now the process of catching up while still having more travels. This blog will be covering two days, the first was us looking at a few local activities in the Ardeche and then the second day, traveling to Piedmont in Italy. For our last day in France, we started the day in a local town across the region boarder to Drome near where we were staying to visit a family run chocolate factory. They were surprised to have visitors as they are not in the town and do not get regular visitors, even though they were well setup to receive them. The Morin factory is ... read more

This was supposed to be a day off, but we needed to get some food from the market, little did we know the SuperMarche closes at 12:30 (not for Lunch) on a Sunday. At 12:30 we were told to leave, but negotiated another 10 minutes. As we were leaving we found a guy selling homegrown fruit and vegetables from the back of his van. We picked up 3 tomatoes, 1 capsicum, a bunch of spring onions and 10 apricots for €1, it just didn't seem right so I gave him €2 (it's the only coin I had). On the way back to the accommodation, we decided to turn up a road in Viviers we had not been up and Port de Plaisance de Viviers which is a popular river cruise boat stop and there were 4 ... read more

After being stung at the hotel for breakfast, we were at the meeting spot for our url=https://www.headout.com/versailles-palace-tickets/palace-of-versailles-tour-with-skip-the-line-access-e-6173/Versaille Palace Guided Tourat 9am. There was only four of us on the English tour, so we started off at Versaille palace to meet the guide. Our Tour started with the Kings 8 room suite, then to the hall of mirrors and then finishing with the queens 8 room suite. As with our Blog for the Vatican, every room was so lavishly decorated with paintings on the walls and frescos on the ceiling that the sensors became overloaded and numb to the beauty of the subsequent rooms. Except for the "wannabe Models" who dressed up and in the queens chambers decided they should have the whole room for their impromptu fashion shoot. Once we exited the main building and farewelled ... read more

Woke up this morning early, and with no headache...Bonus. The plan today was to see the one-day highlights tour of London. Yesterday was about the underground, today is the Double Decker buses. This becomes our preferred method of transport for London. We can get the 390 from in front of the hotel and it takes us to the Marble Arch, we get off and walk around the Arch taking a couple of photos, not many as it is under restoration. Back on the 390 and we continue to the side of Buckingham Palace, where we get off and walk to the front gate, well close to them as 10,000 of our closest friends all decided to go as well. We decided to walk down birdcage walk to Westminster Abbey. As we started walking down the road ... read more