Jess and I hit the shops and the nearby bakery that Ute had taken us to yesterday, to buy food for breakfast. Back at the apartment we prepared everything and had a lovely spread on the table by the time the birthday girl and Ferris and Con joined us. What a lovely way to start the day! After breakfast the four of them went off to browse the nearby markets as they were going to buy some goodies to take to the picnic lunch we were planning in the nearby Luxembourg gardens. I decided to spend some time sorting my stuff out before heading out to explore some of Paris myself. I first headed to the Arabic Uni/Library building that Ute had told us has a great view from the 9th floor and was free to ... read more

This morning Peri, Janine and I walked to the Reims train station to catch a train to Epernay. Unfortunately by the time we worked out the ticketing system we missed the train. One of the best things about travelling without too many time constraints is that you can easily revert to Plan B. We bought tickets for the next train and had about an hour to kill so we walked to the main shopping strip of Reims and spent the time browsing and trying on outfits - and we were none the poorer for the experience lol. Back to the train station with time to jump onto the correct train and we were on our way. The views along the way are a constant 'wow'. As we drew into Epernay station we were all blown away ... read more

This morning we are booked into the tour of Taittinger at 11:15am so we all had breakfast together and then spent time getting 5 girls showered and dressed - which is challenging as there is only 1 shower in the apartment. There is a bath with a hand held shower head but the bathroom is the walkway to the bedroom Peri, Sue and Lou are in so that is also interesting! We knew it was about a 30 minute walk so we set off with plenty of time to spare so we could take in the sights along the way. We arrived in time - to find out Janine had booked us on the French speaking tour haha. We were able to rescedule to the 11:45 English speaking tour but we were also aware that would ... read more

Last breakfast on our roof top terrace before checking out and heading to the train station. We were scheduled to get the train at 9:50 to Levanto, where would change for a train to Santa Margherita. Of course our train arrived a few minutes late which meant we need to move quickly at Levanto to ensure we got our connection. We did well and had no problems getting to Santa Margherita. We arrived around 11:10 so decided we would walk the 15 minutes to the hotel, rather than get a taxi. It was actually a very pleasant walk as it was mostly flat, except for the downhill portion coming out of the train station area. The walk took us along the boardwalk of the marina and straight away Janine and I knew we were going to ... read more

Happy birthday to my sister Clare and nephew Harry! We enjoyed our breakfast this morning, sitting on the roof top terrace of our hotel. We got organized then started our hike to Vernazza. We knew today would be the hardest walk and had decided we would walk to the first town and then spend some time there before heading onto the next town later in the afternoon. We definitely underestimated how hard the walk would be in parts - the first part was just constant steps up for quite a long time! The weather was very hot too, which made it more challenging. There were times when we were walking through forrests and that was quite pleasant - these were the times we managed to chat in a more positive tone ?. There were so many ... read more