Germany - The Black Forest & The "romantic Rhine route" We set off early, following the lonely planet's suggested route through the Black Forest. I was expecting it to be more dense and dark than it was and there wasn't even a big board welcoming you to the Black Forest, as I thought there might be...tourism shmourism! We made the designated little stop off like proper pensioner tourists (that was the visible age range!) at the world's largest cuckoo clock...

SPLIT TO THE PELJEŠAC PENINSULA We both awoke before our alarms (plural, yes you read it correctly, alarms! ). We really didn't want to oversleep and see everyone waiting to disembark only to find out that The Ashtons had overslept and they were blocked in on the ferry! We had an hour up on deck before we docked, having a lovely coffee with breathtaking scenery! The colours! What a magnificent start to our time in Croatia. When we went back to Mabel in the lo...

LIVORNO TO ANCONA The journey across Umbria to reach our desired stopover at Castigliano was quite uneventful as we stuck to the motorways for damage limitation with these crazy Italians. Despite driving close to Florence and Pisa, (two places we would love to return to without 7.40 metres of metal behind us!) we couldn't see a lot of city life from the road but we did have a wonderful view of acres and acres of sunflowers and my lovely driver obligingly made u...

CORTE TO LIVORNO We woke up to the birds with plenty of time before we wanted to leave, so I did a bit of cold water public sink washing, because that's what you do, even when you are glamping! We hit the open road back to the port around 8h00, stopping a few times for refreshments. Having learned not to stop anywhere precarious to admire the view (as I was "honked" by a lorry driver the other day and almost fell off the wall with shock from where I was taking...

BONIFACIO TO CORTE Despite saying that we would stay here two nights, after a little bike ride to the pool, an evening of chillaxing and a good sleep, we had a little chitty-chat and decided we didn't need to relax more than we had and Colin was equally happy to drive on, so we decided to have another morning swim and then hit the open road with its' crazy bendy roads to the centre, Corte. As Colin was inside beautifying, I was alerted to a little French voice ...