A coolish overcast day with rain threatening. Monika took us out to Cloppenburg Museum Village where Peter had a stall to sell his ironmongery. Peter, Monika's partner, makes & sells decorative iron works for the garden ranging from pot stands to small rotundas fabricated from steel bars & tubes. He also makes iron statuary & in Monika’s garden is a metre high dinosaur of his. The museum village has example of old farmsteads, barns & house...

Saturday 31st May We got a lift into town & caught the 8.15 bus to Hamburg, a 2 hour ride on the autobahns, which are in excellent condition in contrast to the autostradas of Italy. The countryside is very neat & green but is so flat. Arriving at the bus station we headed for the MK & G museum, a huge building nearby. This is a cross between the V & A & the British Museum in London & it turned out to be a real find as it covers a huge, ...

Wednesday 28th May Took the train to Milan & then the metro to the Cathedral, which has an amazing exterior with multiple pinnacles & hordes of statues & we took turns to inspect the interior. This was as surprising as the exterior as it was so austere with the exception of its stained glass windows which were wonderful. The other odd feature was that the columns supporting the roof had statues mounted on plinths about 6m in the air which made them v...

Saturday 24th May Up early on another beautiful morning. Said good bye & drove without problems, in 25 mins, to Perugia to return the car, heaving a sigh of relief that it & our marriage had survived the week we had it. Had a snack & waited for the train to Florence, which we had been on last year but in an empty 1st class coach. After a pleasant & uneventful ride we arrived late & had to rush for the next one at Pisa, a double-decker which ...

Friday 23rd May Jane & I had a latish start after putting out the washing & decided to drive into Perugia as a dummy run for returning the car tomorrow. Jane spotted an alternative route which we took but it turned out to be a dud as it took us to the wrong side of the town & we got totally lost before eventually finding ourselves literally on the wrong side of the track. We walked over to the station & tried to convert our booking into tickets f...