What a whirlwind four days in France it has been! We are now safely on board a train to Milan where we will hopefully connect to Venice and begin stuffing our faces with as much pizza and pasta as possible. We had our first major delay today, amusingly mistaking an announcement that our train was cancelled for telling us our train was superior. Lost in translation!! And what of France? We began in Perpignan which was absolutely delightful. Just an hour and a hal...

Our arrival to Bordeaux was rather stretching. The French seem to favour shoving as many trains as possible on one platform leaving you in a constant state of anxiety that you are on the wrong train until the train guard comes round and you can finally relax. Stepping out from the station into Bordeaux I knew immediately I would like it. The buildings are almost uniformally 18th century mansions, shiny white in the sunshine. We decided to walk into town (bad move...

Stop 1, London. We only planned to stay over to help us along with the crack of dawn Eurostar but a beautiful sunshiny day in London turned out to be the perfect start to the holiday. The South Bank was rammed with musicians and artists, we meandered past Shakespeare's Globe, St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster to our hotel at London Bridge where we were greeted with glasses of champagne to begin out trip. The surprising beauty of the day taught me a lesson on da...