We are now on the finale of what has been a series of amazing adventures. We farewelled the gracious Burgesses at 4pm from Canterbury and trained into London and then got a bus to Harwich. We dragged our cases for miles and boarded the Stenna line ship around 10.30pm and settled into our neat porthole cabin for the evening. We woke to the message that breakfast was being served . We docked around 7.45am and found our way to the coach which took us to Rotterdam...

After another memorable stopover we departed Nice at 7.30am. We headed north through the scenic countryside past Mt Victory - Cezanne's landscape painting regioThen north of Marseille the largest port in the area, home of the foreign Legion and a leading team in football (Soccer) and onto Avignon where the Papal Palace sits atop the hill and also the famous St Benezet Bridge ( Pont d'Avignon ) We enjoyed our lunch stop here and are now on the way to Lyon and Be...

After a memorable time in Roma with Cynthia we motored on to the renaissance city of Florence where the Medici family had lots of influence in the past. We drove from Umbria to Tuscany in the rain. Some of these areas you just want to stop the coach for a photo. We stopped for early lunch at a road house and bought Mortadella rolls, apple muffins and cappuccinos - nice. We arrived in Florence and walked from the bus drop off to the gallery where the Statue of D...

On our way to Rome we passed by Naples and we could see fresh snow on the Appenines. Patrick's forecast was wall to wall sunshine in Rome. We arrived in Rome late afternoon alighted the coach and met our guide for the time in here - Cynthia. She was lovely and took good care of us all. We went to the Spanish steps, saw the Madonna statue, and as darkness fell we went to the Trevvi fountain. There were so many people here but we managed to throw our coins in suc...

So much has been happening it"s hard to keep up with it all. It' now day 61 of our incredible trip and we are heading for Florence as I write this.We enjoyed our drive from Assisi ( it was light when we left hooray) to Pompeii past Monte Cassino to the Bay of Naples. Pompeii the ancient city that was covered by lava & ash from the Mt Vesuvius eruption in AD 79, it lay undiscovered for centuries.We met the local guide who was very good and we walked us through...