All set to go! Jane looks keen!

The time has finally arrived. The journey begins.
Why would you want to leave Newport?

If we had any last minute doubts about going, the journey in the rain to the train station soon dispelled them. Why would you want to stay there, more like!?! 🌧️☔
First leg.

Long, and almost problem free day. Everything was tickety boo until we reached our final destination..... Versailles Chantiers train station. From there it should have been, according to Google Maps,もっと詳しく
Nice pad.

A bit like the UK in 2023, there was obviously a housing crisis in 17th century Paris. So Louis XIV decided to build his own pad. Didn't make a bad job of it, did he? And........ It's huge.
Of course,もっと詳しく
Chez Lazare - Rue de Satory, Versailles

Fabulous little French restaurant in Versailles. Place was buzzing and they cooked the meats on the grill inside the restaurant and in front of you. I had duck skewers in a pepper sauce whilst Janeもっと詳しく
Slept with one eye open last night!

Started playing cards and I happened to win quite a few hands. All sorts of threats started coming my way, so slept with one eye open...... Just to be sure! 🥺
Beautiful Bordeaux - Day 1

Great couple of days just strolling around this beautiful, old city. England and France fought over the right to control Bordeaux for centuries; and it's easy to see why..... It's stunning.
Also, it'sもっと詳しく
Bordeaux 2 - Saint-Emilion

Simply wonderful afternoon spent visiting two wine making Chateaux, and the BEAUTIFUL village of Saint-Emilion. Oh, and we were forced to sample a few glasses of Grand Cru Saint-Emilion wine as well.もっと詳しく
Spanish tapas - Can't help ourselves!

After our exertions trying to get through all the Saint-Emilion samples on offer this afternoon, we decided to venture back into Bordeaux for some food. We came across this Tapas bar (El Pata Negra),もっと詳しく
Carcassonne

Over night stop over as we make our way through France and towards Italy. Weather still being kind to us, although there are whispers of storm Noa approaching France and the UK shortly.
We have foundもっと詳しく
Morning coffee down by the river

On our way to the train station, heading to Nice, we killed a spare 45 minutes with a cup of coffee watching the boats on the river, using the "lock" system to move upstream.
Nice Nice

Ok, so I realise it's an obvious choice of headline for this post. But it sort of sums up our first impression of Nice. It's just..... nice, that's all. But the architecture is interesting.
But ourもっと詳しく
Takes me back to my student days.

Ok....... so......we are students again!
Takes me back to Crwys Road, Cardiff way back when (1978-82 to be precise).
I was planning on doing research for a book to write after this holiday.......もっと詳しく
The real Nice

After being slightly underwhelmed by our first evening in Nice, our second day was wonderful. Found the 'Old Nice' in the morning and wandered around the market and coffee bars; in the afternoon weもっと詳しく
Sestri - Weston-super-mare on steroids

Have to hold my hands up here and admit to a mistake in dates. Plan was to go straight to La Spezia from Nice but I got my dates mixed up. Booked our place in La Specia for the following day so weもっと詳しく
Train strikes force change of plans

As I have always said to Lissy and Emily, try to make the best out of every situation in which you find yourself.
So we arrived in La Spezia on the 13th for two nights, with a plan to spend the 14thもっと詳しく
La Spezia Port

This was due to be our day to visit the Cinque Terre, but it was scuppered by the rail strike. So, what to do on a beautiful sunny day? We planned to take a boat trip to Portovenere, which we wereもっと詳しく
There is no world without Verona walls..

Or so says Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. It is still debated as to whether they actually existed in real life. And if they were based on real people then they almost certainly didn't live in Verona. Butもっと詳しく
Side street restaurant

As is our wont, we sought out a "local" restaurant, rather than stick to the formulaic tourist places (all laid up, complete with slick salesman type of waiter to greet you.......you know the sort).もっと詳しく
Lake Garda

You can't come to Italy and not spend a day on one of the lakes. We chose Garda as it is only a 20 minute train journey from Verona.
With snow capped mountains in the distance it was no wonder thatもっと詳しく
Trieste - Vienna by the sea

Today's picture collection of old buildings and selfies comes courtesy of Trieste.
A completely different feel to other Italian towns, it has a Central European feel, deriving from it's history asもっと詳しく
City of coffee..... And petrol pumps

Ok, popped into a cake shop in the afternoon for coffee and cannoli. What else would you expect to see but an old petrol pump!
We had our coffee and cannoli, and then followed that up with some wine,もっと詳しく
Pivka

Some things on this trip are a given.......the grandeur of Versailles, the serenity of Lake Garda, or the bliss of drinking St Emilion Grand Cru. But every now and then a surprise comes along.
On ourもっと詳しく
A glitch in the matrix?

The most interesting thing about Rijeka was this building under refurb, with a drape over it to make it look like it is still there, as it was. I know it's not much, but that's it. Nothing else.
BUT,もっと詳しく
I ❤️ Ljubliana

OMG. We've only been here a few hours, but already we are in love. This place is unbelievable.
The people are lovely (and speak fluent English), the countryside is beautiful, the city centre is likeもっと詳しく
旅行者Brilliant.. the back packs as big as you Jane 😊
旅行者
Well done packing everything you need into a backpack. We’d need one back pack just for mikes shoes if we did this 🤣
旅行者Hahaha.... Funnily enough, Mike admitted as much last week when we were discussing this. Guess what we are finding, though? We have too many clothes! I haven't worn some stuff yet and it's washing day on Tues. 😂