So our last day in France dawned sunny and warm, almost nice enough to swim in the heated pool, but you've got to draw the final line somewhere. We took off after G had a last run and drove over to Mont St Michel for a quick look - very impressive. Then drove east towards Caen and the ferry port. We stopped to pass some time in Arromanches which is one of the beaches where all the Normandy landings took place. We'd been to this part of France years ago but hadn...

So on the last stretch now, heading north through France. From Carcassone we went into the Dordogne planning to do some nice country walks after spending the last week in towns. Got to a nice campsite with an Auberge next door so went there for dinner. After walking up the mile long driveway in our hiking boots, scruffy camping clothes and anoraks we got to it to find it was actually quite a glam place with all the other diners in suits and ties - well not the wo...

Poor old France. Not only did it miss out on the Olympics, not only did they lose to Argentina in the Rugby, but it has to be M & G's last country on their European tour so has the prospect of suffering us going North whinging all the way! In fact, much as we might have anticipated this scenario, France has been a refreshing eye-opener. We'd been here for holidays lots of times and know it's nice but expected it to be a bit old hat and dull compared to all t...

Well here we go back into Italy from Swizerland for more ups and downs and highs and lows as we traverse the North West coast heading slowly towards France. The main reason for returning to Italy (and the highlight of this bit of the trip) was to take in the Cinque Terre villages which run along the coast East of Genoa. We found ourselves a nice spot to stay and got up early to take the train along to the first of the villages (Monterosso) and then a short boat ...

After a stay on the German side of Lake Konstanz we decided to try the Swiss side and moved to Kreuzlingen for a night. On the way we stopped at the Rhine falls which are the biggest in Europe, not for height but for width and probably sheer volume of water! They were pretty impressive, once we finally made it there: of course Switzerland still uses their Franc not joining in the whole EU thing so we needed to find a bank once we were over the border but could we...