Prologue

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And so we begin a holiday that was not just planned from when we arrived home from our last long trip 2 years ago (Spain / Portugal / England in 2007) which is our usual practice - return home from one trip with the next one already being planned - but was hatched out of our journey to Barcelona and Paris 4 years ago. While Dianne was enamoured with Paris I always felt overwhelmed both by its scale and its prettiness - Haussmann did a great job knocking down all the old stuff and replacing it with new at about the same time Sydney was established - so much for going to Europe for history! I think my response was heightened by having stayed in the Barri Gotic of Barcelona with its myriad of twisting alleyways giving it quite a mediaeval feel. Anyway Dianne said to me if it's ruins and chaos (plus a dash of grunge) that you want in a city that has a more intimate scale then it has to be Rome.

And so it was a done deal, although the trip to Gallicia and Portugal got squeezed in in the interim, which makes it all the more surprising for Dianne that for the current trip there are no Spanish bits - it's a long time since this was the case for one of our holidays, however Valencia and the Alpujarras still beckon for another time in the future.

But for now it's Italy for 4 weeks.

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Comments

[Terese]

Sounds awesome
Hope the air travel is a painless as possible. Trip sounds wonderful and it seems that Europe is the flavour of the month with people we know who are holidaying. It's a beautiful 28 degrees here today so that's enjoyable, but any travel plans further than Sydney are on hold. We are instead enjoying the installation of a new hot water service as the old one blew up last night. Aren't you glad you're on holiday? Terese xo

[Dr Julie]

Wish I was there?
Hope you are both having a good time. Rest up after the flight, enjoy the coffee and the world passing by.