David - The perfect specimen We both awoke for no reason at all at 2am with the lightening still going on from the thunderstorm of last night.The flashes weren’t local but coming from over the distant hills and it illuminated the walls of our bedroom.Perhaps it was the relatively early night we had had going to bed after the movie finished before 10pm. We both did get back to sleep and in fact again slept for longer than we have been awaking not long before 8am perhaps making up for the disturbed night. The breakfasts we have been preparing for ourselves here have been hearty,lacking only in bacon to go with the eggs and this morning Gretchen decided it was time for poached variety again. The fresh fruit we have been having has been delicious ... read more

Thursday 8th October A day of administration and relaxation After the long day on the road yesterday and almost not finding our farmhouse apartment out in the countryside of Tuscany we thought we should take a day to relax and not travel.Or at least no further than the town of Poggibonsi which is only 3 or so kilometres away. And although the town is not that far away it is distant enough with a small hill in the way to not hear any traffic noise from the town or motorway that passes close by.In fact as we expected we might we slept until nearly 8am as the bed and pillows are among the most comfortable we have experienced on the European section of the BBA. With full kitchen facilities it is the grand breakfast of eggs ... read more

Tuesday 6th October West to Verona Our concerns of last night that the incoming backpackers might be a noisy lot were realised during the night or some early hour of the morning.For a while there were arguments,shouting and loud talking in the vicinity of our mobile home with wafer thin walls and our sleep was disturbed. Then,sleep,and the next we knew it was time for the early morning departures from Marco Polo airport.There is no way we can miss those!! Today we plan to visit Verona,the city in which Shakespeare used for his tale of love,Romeo and Juliet.It is only about 120km away so it should be a short day on the road. After that we will head for our accommodation at a farm stay near Castiglione d Stiviere about another 50km further away from Verona. ... read more

Sunday 4th October The unique city of Venice We made two mistakes during our first night and morning in our mobile home at the camping ground just outside of Venice. First we under estimated just how cold it would get in autumn during the night and early hours of the morning in an un insulated mobile home.We had electric heating by way of a a/c but neglected to turn it on last night and we both awoke freezing cold despite having a sheet and a blanket over us.We cranked up the a/c and warmth returned to our confined space quite quickly. The second mistake was thinking that daylight saving finished in Central Europe over night.This had us sleeping in believing we had an extra hours as the clock had gone back an hour. So we arose ... read more

Friday 2nd October Our final alpine pass in Switzerland Although we have another mountain road pass ,the Ofen,at 2149 metres to get over today to get to Italy and tonights accommodation, it won’t present a great deal of climbing for RR as we are already at about 1800 metres at Silvaplana.This will also be the final mountain pass that we need to negotiate in Switzerland on this adventure. It has dawned another beautiful day and we have to keep pinching ourselves to remind us that on all the days we have been travelling since 19th April that we have had only 3 days when it has been too wet to get about sightseeing. Whilst it is fine and sunny it is also pretty cool outside in single digits but the prospect for Italy is much warmer ... read more