Breakfast today tucking into toast,cheeses, hams, fruit and pancakes we shared our table with one of the American families and a Jewish Australian couple who were travelling around Britain, France before flying to Israel to end their holiday. Australian politics seemed to be the topic of the day. Our trip today was a short one to Sarlat La Canada ust down the road. Parking proved an interesting experience as Maddy our SatNav took us directly to our car park but failed to find the entrance which was hidden away in a quiet corner of the town square. Much of Sarlats old ramparts had been taken down and replaced with what seemed like a wide and boring rue de Republic. This was not one of my favourite streets. Todays song of the day was Donovans Mellow Yellow ... read more

The sun always seems to shine in France with a different colour much stronger and intense. It's not hard to imagine why artists loved the light and Impressionism was born. The landscape both large and wide and the car eats up the miles as we travelled southwards towards the Dordogne and Montfort our stop for the week. We passed aires with regular monotony every 14 miles or so. Driving a pleasure much as it should be. Slow vehicles relegated to an extra lane designated for vehicule lent. Tiny villages, churches, water towers and farms glimpsed between the trees and hedes. Still we headed south and into the sun. Our destination for lunch was Hautefort. Ones comes upon the chateau quite suddenly as its pepperpot towers come into view across the fertile valley. Standing on a prominent ... read more

Early morning in Venice and the buildings softened looking dappled in the early morning haze where the sun hadnt risen enough to burn off the fog. They looked like an Impressionist painting in the distance. Rosy, strawberry and dusky pink. Today was our visit to the Doges Palace - not the usual tourist trap of the main buildings but discover secret Venice. We turned up to meet the housekeeper - a cross between the housekeeper of Downton Abbey and a Victorian school mam. Her bunch of keys hanging from a belt on her waist. Few know of the Secret Intinerary most of the tourists walked up the main stairway into the state appartments whereas we stopped half way up whilst the housekeeper chose a key from the belt and inserted it into the lock of a ... read more

Spent the night in the toilet. How awful it feels to be ill and away from home. However before we left we decided to risk a trip out to Tarascon which lies on the River Rhone. A mythical monster the Tarasque lived in the area according to the stories and was twarted by Martha in 48AD. The medieval castle started in 1401 is an impressive structure, big,bold and sturdy and dominates the town with its little tree lined square. There were few people there and we had the place to ourselves. My stomach didnt feel that good and the only thing I could do was to drink so before heading home we decided to have a drink in the local cafe where we joined the locals and listened to their conversation. The next day we thought ... read more

How quickly time has flown and what a change to the Mediterranean weather we had been experiencing. Woke up most mornings to glorious blue skies and wall to wall sunshine but today it changed and we were greeted by the sound of rain falling like stair rods on our balcony. Slate grey skies felt very unwelcome as we drove the miles of lonely roads until we reached the D road on our way to Avignon. Our plan to see the Palace of the Popes and the Pont D’Avignon immortalised in the song “Sur la Pont D’Avignon! Not that we would be doing any singing. Even though the Welsh are supposed to be good singers we feel short on that standard. Without an umbrella we knew that we would be drenched by the time we ran from ... read more