We decided to go for a walking tour this morning - 10 o’clock at Mirabell Palace, main entrance - easy? should have been, but tourist maps are tricky to read and we arrived too late !? To be honest we weren’t sorry as we later saw so many ‘walking tours / groups’ and they looked super dull. Anyway, having missed out on the organised tour, we reset with a coffee and strudel and set to organising our own tour. Using the tourist map and internet site Bigboytravel.com (?) we were off! Firstly the Mirabelle Palace gardens ( SofM Doh-Ray-me film site) - lovely flowers but probably we were expecting a more manicured set of gardens - too many weeds for our liking!! Then to Mozarts house ( and closeby where physicist Doppler lived), and across the ... read more

Low key day today. Spent the morning in Freiburg-completely pedestrianised city centre / old town which made pottering around the market place and town really very enjoyable. All cobbled streets and independent shops - where have we gone wrong? there’s also streams running through the town - a bit like gutters but completely clean - so much so that children pull along boats and shoppers dip their feet in the water!! The Muster was lovely - amazing stained glass windows and a very impressive bell tower - all 250 steps up to the viewing area and bells. Oldest bell was made in 1275 - crazy! It was pretty loud when the clock struck at one o’clock ! Afternoon back at the natural pool at hotel - lovely to lounge around reading! Tomorrow Sarah leaves for London ... read more

First day in the Black Forest so we drove to lake Titisee - largest lake in area ! It’s not big by Lake District standards - probably a mile long by half a mike wide but a lovely setting and well protected from development - just a few houses tucked into the surrounding forest. Very chic town, touristy but in a very posh way - a couple of top notch stores selling designer stuff and cuckoo clocks ( pretty much constantly going off - not my cup of tea!) and then the usual main drag with market stalls but all very tasteful not tacky. Coffee and first swarzwald torte of the trip (scored 7.5) followed by a rowing boat out on the lake. Pete took the helm first and powered across to the other side, then ... read more

3 trains, a bus, a boat and a couple of short walks ! Back to Brussels Midi via Brussels Central (think Piccadilly to Oxford Rd) and then on to Koblenz via Lille and Cologne. Talk about a luxury train .... second class - loads of room, really comfy seats, free WiFi that actually worked and precision to the minute timing - equivalent to Virgin first class run by Germans! We arrived Koblenz (confluence with the Moselle) and after narrowly avoiding a couple of dodgy characters in the bus station (too much beer by 12 noon?) we got the No. 1 bus to the KD river cruise berth. Lots of nice bars and restaurants around so being lunchtime we tucked into a lovely German tart (or was it pizza) with Italian salad. Then onto the ferry/cruise (?) ... read more

Our last full day. We'd arranged to do the cooking class in the hotel with the chef and then have the dinner ( which we'd watched / "helped" him cook) - that started at 4 so in the morning we went to a beach where you could rent snorkels so we could have a swim in the Indian Ocean. The undercurrent and waves are strong along the coast so there are only a few sheltered bays where it is safe to swim. I really didn't fancy a boat trip in the very choppy conditions so we opted for an hour swimming in Paradise Beach. Even being in a calm area, I still found the currents strong. So with me clinging onto Pete, we did see quite a few colourful fish and a shoal or two of ... read more