Coffee with cream, sachertorte, schnitzel, and apple strudel - Vienna is not the place to begin a diet! Dale and I had two days to explore the former imperial city's delights and found ourselves kept very busy. While I can't say I fell in love with Vienna - the city felt big and impersonal, and it was also very expensive! - I did appreciate the opportunity to see so many beautiful artworks without the queues we saw in Paris. (The Viennese art galleries were de...

Salzburg, city of "The Sound of Music", Mozart...and St Johann public hospital. While most visitors to Salzburg enjoy the delights of the Mirabell gardens, eat copious amounts of strudel and sachertorte, buy Mozart chocolates, and take a horse and carriage ride alongside the river Salzach, my visit to Salzburg will be most memorable for the time spent at my father's hospital bedside. Our visit to Salzburg got off to a pleasant enough start - beautiful weather...

The city of Verona was as lovely as I remembered, when Dale and I arrived with my parents in tow. It had been a long day of travel, from dropping the rental car back in Florence to catching two trains to get to Verona, but after dropping off the bags at our hotel mum and dad were eager to start exploring. It was fun to watch their delight at the ancient Roman amphitheatre and their interest in the more recent historic buildings. Crowds of Italians meandered up...

Siena...beautiful but full of tourists. Five of us left papa reading his kindle in the Umbrian villa and made the 2 hour journey to the picturesque Tuscan town of Siena. After struggling to find a carpark, we eventually made our way on foot from the sports stadium where we left our car, into the heart of the old city. Unable to curb their shopping enthusiasm, mum and Rosie almost immediately lagged behind, as their eyes fixed on leather goods and designer fash...

After four months away from home I felt all the excitement of Christmas morning the day I woke knowing I would be seeing mum and dad that afternoon. It was an early start from Terni - we arrived at the train station at 7:30am after being driven there by the kind owner of the apartment we'd stayed in. Four hours on a train through the Umbrian and Tuscan countryside and we arrived at Florence train station. Then the fun really started...with our first experience...