and there it was – my dream car – an all electric, remote controlled Maserati. And we had to come to Civitavecchia to find it. Only the little shit wouldn’t give it up. I put this place on the itinerary cos I thought I’d seen that it had some sights to offer. It didn’t. We […]

From Pisa its on to Siena, mainly so we can traverse Tuscany, said to be one of the most beautiful regions of Italy. Not sure it is that much different to lots of other areas we’ve seen so far. There are certainly lots of little villages clinging to mountain sides but we’ve seen all of this […]

This is another place thats always been on the ‘bucket list’ if only for the fact that it is one of the “Wonders of the World”. It deserves to be. It is exquisite for its singularity. Pisa was and to a large degree still is a walled city. Whilst so much of it has grown […]

Due to the time constraints imposed by the nature of this venture we have but one day and two nights in most of the places we want to visit. Genoa is no exception. In order to get our visiting priorities right, if the option presents itself, we take ‘Big Red Bus’. And so we did […]

It is with some personal regret that we have left Venice and we are moving west across the top of the boot. Next stop for the night is Vicenza, of interest because it is a city of the Venetians although there is nothing obvious on that front. If I remember rightly it was part of […]

You’ll notice this one is capitalised. Its one thats always been high on the bucket list. But, before we get to Venice we have another stop after Modena – Padua or Padova in the local patois. Well we didn’t quite get into Padova for the night, having booked a hotel relatively nearby which was affordable. […]

We have never been to Italy. So, this was to be an entirely new adventure and so far it has proven to be. I previously mentioned that not only were we late getting into Florence, it was also very hot (and humid).In actual fact the car hire depot through which we’d hired the car (Maggiore) was […]

OK, we’re back in London and Justin & Jane have our next few days mapped out. Today is Thursday so it is return car day to London City Airport. Plan was easy but they’ve moved the airport since I picked the car up 3 weeks ago. Justin came with me after we dropped the bags […]

Ever since we were here in the UK years and years ago Jude has wanted to see Oxford. Well we finally made it and its our last major stop on our return to London. Oxford is of course a university city. It has its origins way back in the 14th century when it was an ecclesiastical […]

If anyone out there is trying to contact us, via the blog may be the only way for the time being. We can’t email out and the quality of wi-fi on our first night in Italy is …. well, not good but the blog seems to be working.