Paray le monial was the place Ariane and I met up with Sally and Tony Pritchett, grandparents of Sam who I know from back in Sydney. He had mentioned to me a while ago about his grandparents cruising around the canals of France on their houseboat and that I should stay with them if I ever crossed paths with wherever they happened to be. It seemed like something that would never get round to actually happening…and yet here I found myself, stepping onto this drea...

There is something about Lyon. It is an air of liberation, an excitement in the streets that mixes with and sometimes even overpowers the smell of sausage and freshly baked bread. This was the place where I chose to heal my freshly wounded soul after the awful Geneva affair, and it helped not to be alone. I met up with Peter, on his bike, and we spent a lovely 5 days in this most interesting city. It is undoubtedly the city of food. I never knew it was so famous,...

Blue canals and rainbow washing lines and old bridges and gondolas and residents. Walking its sweet streets and treading its watery stairs, you find yourself in a trance of fascination. So much is preconceived and to an extent is the same as the reality, but it really is an experience to be in this unique place. It is a mesmerizing city, it is a colony; it is its own and no other is like it. And I love it for that. It knows what it is and doesn't try to explain ...

In Padova, the bustling and beautiful university town famed from the setting of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, our hosts were the lovely Jacopo and his Polish girlfriend Anna. We stayed 3 nights and were so lucky to meet such delightful people, they were packing up their entire flat to move out in a few weeks but were still fine to have us to stay—I mean who does that? Jacopo spoiled us with pizza and pasta and german beer, as well as giving us way too many...

Oh wowza, what a fat day. Literally. This was a really wonderful day. Amelia had organized to accompany us to Ravenna, to visit her sister and show us around the city for the day. We were truly given the grandest of tours by Antonella and her husband, who I am ashamed to say I have forgotten the name of, God they were the sweetest couple. I attempted a few Italian sentences, the randomest things keep coming back to me, like "Sono al verde" ("I am b...