This morning it was cold and windy in Avignon. It was so cold and blustery that Tatiana served breakfast upstairs in the house. We were told when we arrived that the venue for breakfast depends entirely on the forecast! It's hard to know why people act like Melbourne is the only place in the world that experiences highly variable weather; it was 30°C in Avignon yesterday and today the temperature will be lucky to reach 20°C. We are getting better at negotiating our way into the towns that we are visiting! This morning Bernie had picked out a well-located parking garage on a map of Nîmes that he found on the Internet and programmed the address into the Sat-Nav. The Sat-Nav duly guided us straight down the A9 and into the centre of Nîmes without us ... read more

This morning we had to pack up our bags again and continue on our way. We are going to miss Le Moulin des Pinchinats and our hosts Anne and Jean-Fraçois! This morning Anne served us dessert again for breakfast this time a delicious rhubarb and strawberry crumble. Bernie followed that with some muesli and yoghurt. I had upended my yoghurt onto my crumble to make sure that I ate my probiotics ... and could justify following up my breakfast dessert with a chocolate croissant. I will absolutely, positively not share an entree with Bernie at tonight for dinner! Since we travelled along the southern outskirts of Arles yesterday we thought that today's journey into Arles would be trouble-free I mean - we did a dry run yesterday, right?? Well, you would think so. We have been ... read more

The rain shower this morning was A-MAY-ZING. Bernie dreams of having a walk-in rain shower so, before we came on holiday, I made some enquiries about how much it might cost to convert the standard shower recess in our ensuite into a walk-in rain shower while we were away, as a surprise for Bernie. O-M-G, the quote I was given was ridiculous! Who knew that it would cost around $20,000 to make some changes to the smallest room in the house?! Needless to say, Bernie is going to have to make the most of the rain shower here in Provence for the next three days. So we really enjoyed our showers this morning and then came downstairs to breakfast. There was already heaps of food on the table and then Anne came through from the kitchen ... read more

This morning after breakfast we headed off on a day trip to Cannes. Once again we had decided to make the journey by bus so that we could see the sights along the way. Bernie had researched the bus to Cannes too and knew that we needed to catch the Bus 200 on the main street through town at Albert Rue. Damn it, we were in the wrong place for the bus again! We found a bus stop, but not one that Bus 200 stops at. At least we did find a map that showed the Bus 200 route; we just had to head back the way that we had come until we found the stop at Albert 1er. We have no idea what the difference is between a Rue and a 1er??! Because the bus ... read more

Today it was time to leave Italy behind and start the next leg of our holiday in France. After our last breakfast on the beautiful terrace at LaFavia 4rooms we re-packed our bags and hauled them to the station. It has been so much easier using the trains for the last three days without our bags in tow!! Our train to Nice from Milano Centrale was not until 11.10 am so at least we weren't getting in the way of peak hour commuters. As usual we allowed heaps of time so we were at Milano Centrale just after 10.00am and had to wait for our platform number to come up on the board. The platform number was finally put up, but only about 15 minutes before our departure time. We headed off to Platform 19 and ... read more