Pisa & Rome
For Pisa and/or Florence the ships dock in Livorno, or Leghorn in English, an Italian coastal city in the Ligurian Sea (the leghorn chicken originates from Tuscany). The choice was Pisa or Florence and I chose Pisa (12 miles away)…
Monte Carlo or Bust
It think country number 76 deserves a blog of its own because it was quite fabulous. The second smallest country in the world to the Vatican, with a bulging population of 38,000 (Goodson Park could hold them all) comprising about…
Alicante & Barcelona
Our first port of call was the lovely city of Alicante. I was due to go on an excursion to Guadalest but three hours on a coach was less appealing than a colonic taster session so I went freestyle and…
The Bay of Biscay
The three sea days sailing toward the Mediterranean provided an opportunity to acquaint myself with Britannia and the P&O way of doing things. This was also the first time I’d cruised from a UK port and the first time I’d…
Back to Blighty
I awoke alarmingly early on the final day and was still perplexed by the lack of tartar sauce served with my fish and chips in the hotel restaurant last night. I mean this is France. They’re supposed to know about…
Strasbourg to Reims
I left the hotel with a heavy bag around my shoulder and schlepped to the car park a few hundred metres away. There was no helpful man to assist me in my moment of need. I knew the car park…
Liechtenstein to Strasbourg
I spent time in four different countries on Tuesday - Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany and France and didn’t pay one toll. But it did take me seven hours and the little Mazda is great fun but not for long journeys. It…
Innsbruck to Liechtenstein
I left at 11 from another garage with a car lift in it. Never experienced one before then have two in a row! So bizarre I needed a lie down. At first I’d decided to give Neuchwanstein Castle a miss…
Ljubljana to Innsbruck
I left at 11am after searching for ten minutes for my car in a small underground car park. Apparently I was on the wrong floor. Prior to that I’d spent a few hours walking around the outskirts of a retail…
Splitting Split
At 8am the chaps left to catch their flight back home and I skedaddled about 30 minutes later with a long drive ahead - 285 miles on non-motorways to Ljubljana, Slovenia. I decided to hug the coast as much as…