the final countdown

Two more days. Just two more days in London and our life will change as it never has before.

Today we're saying goodbye to more friends, making phone calls, re-packing our bags, doing some last minute washing and all the things necessary when you pack up your life and move it somewhere else. There's a sadness but also an incredible excitement of the unknown.

I have made contact with a friend of a friend who is living in Libya, with her husband and two year old son. She has been tremendously supportive through emails and phone calls in the lead up to our move, despite the fact we've never met, and has offered to have us over to her house on the first weekend after we arrive. I'm not sure if she will ever know how grateful we are.

Oh yeah, and according to the BBC, the weather on Wednesday in Tripoli will be 30 degrees! Not sure I can wait!

the louvre

city of love

something new

A new installation in Paris framing some stunning iconic scenes.

no place like it

paris ...

... has to be my favourite European city. No matter how many visits it's beauty is never lost on me.

We had a lovely last day of holidays in the capital, soaking in the sun and enjoying every minute. We stayed until sunset, then driving on to Calais ready for our ferry the following morning. Our last port of call was the Eiffel tower which has been adorned with the gold stars from the European Union flag since we last visited. As the sun set we waited for the lights to be turned on but they seemed to take forever. Long after the sun had set we headed back for the car, only to see as we were driving out that the Eiffel tower had been lit up a spectacularly deep blue colour, to reflect the flag. A symbol of unity hard to miss and would have made for an incredible photo. Perhaps next time.

the way to st tropez

last stop paris

We've made our way up the coast and are in France now, making our way slowly home. A hard job but someone's gotta do it. It's still wonderfully hot here and we're making the most of it with swimming at every stop.

Yesterday was a great day, swimming and markets in Nice before heading to Cannes where Woz and I had dinner out in the warm night air while Nate slept in his buggy. We love Cannes and will definitely return sometime to spend more time here.

Our last port of call on the French riviera was St Tropez where we've spent the morning looking at all the yachts we might like to buy when we're rich and famous. Tonight we head inland towards Paris for one last day of holidays.

doctor benny saves the day

We are a family of bloggers, but definitely the most blog-savvy is my brother Ben who has come to my rescue and set up a new blog for me to post all the photos from our travels. So, from now on read on at www.pinchyourselfdaily.blogspot.com.

Phew! Life can resume as normal! Have a bit to catch up on but with 40 minutes until the internet cafe closes I'll do my best ... oh and we got our visas, but you'll read that later.

Aurevoir!

playground of the rich, the famous and the coal man

Monacco, a place Woz has long since wanted to visit, particularly with the Grand Prix in mind, but as we were in the area, we decided to stop in on our way along the French Riviera. It was a hot and sticky day and so after a walk around the main part of town we headed towards a swimming pool which Woz has had his eye on for years. if you watch the Grand Prix you will see that the cars whizz past a swimming pool which is on the coast. We found the swimming pool and it looked very nice, and like everything else in Monacco, very exclusive. Ever determined, Woz enquired as to whether we would be able to swim there and if we would need to take out a mortgage for the privilege. It turned out that the cost of a swim was cheaper than that of our local swimming pool in London! So, with Nate on his best behaviour we headed into the pool to cool off. Not long after we had started swimming another family came along. We immediately pointed the children out to Nate, excited at the prospect of him having someone to play with. Upon doing this we noticed the father who looked incredibly like the coal man from when we owned our boat. A man who would take his two boats along the canals and every few weeks would drop into the basin to supply us with coal (amongst other things). I waited to hear him talk to his son, listening earnestly for an English accent and then, summoned the courage to approach him. 'Excuse me, are you Barney?' Flabbergasted he removed his sunglasses and we both sat there in stunned silence at the coincidence! We spent hours swimming with him and his family and it was all very surreal.

'Where are you staying tonight?' he asked us.
'We don't know. We're sort of living day by day at the moment. We don't know what we're doing after our swim let alone what we're doing tonight.'
'Well you're welcome to come and stay with us for the night, we've got plenty of room and we've got some pasta ...'

The prospect of a home cooked meal was too much excitement for me to bear and we accepted his invitation before he had time to finish his sentence. To quote Jerry McGuire, "you had me at pasta".

So, after a swim, Woz and I took a walk up to the palace and then later joined Barney and his family at his brother's holiday home where they were staying. The home was amazing, and with a view of the harbour to die for. Nate, who has been deprived of toys for over a month now, had a ball playing with the two children and the toys they had.

It was a lovely, spontaneous and very unexpected surprise to spend some time with familiar faces in a foreign land.

very cool light in the bathroom - self portrait

hotel room in bordighero

rock pools in bordighero

bordighero

The Italian Riviera. We spent our time left in Italy beach hopping, enjoying the hot weather while we could as we were hearing reports from friends in London that the weather was getting increasingly autumnal. This day in Bordighero was very overcast but also incredibly hot. Many hours were spent in this spot and others like it.

beyond the cinque terre, roadside italy

more of the cinque terre coastline

the cinque terre

I'm afraid this entry will be sparse when it comes to photos as the Cinque Terre did not lend itself to pause for photography, at least not in a car. For those who have not yet travelled this far, the Cinque Terre is a small section of the Italian Riviera in the province of La Spezia, comprising of the coastline, five villages, and the surrounding hillsides. It is beautiful territory, but would best be discovered on foot, as the roads are perilously narrow, winding around the coast line and the mountains lining it.

As we travelled along the road, leading the way were small three-wheeled Piaggio's, navigating the sharp turns with ease. possessing the ability to stop at any point along the road without it being too dangerous. We got the feeling that these roads were designed with the Piaggio in mind, and not for large family size Land rovers. What was most astounding about the Cinque Terre was that the Italians had obviously been unperturbed when discovering this landscape and decided to make every inch of it habitable or to use it as their workplace. Houses were perched high up on the mountains, wedged into the rock face, and every inch of space left was planted out with vines, making for a particularly difficult journey to work.

a long day

We had our first really bad day today, due to a combination of the Italian's poor road signage and my short temper.

After disembarking the boat in Ancana at 7am, Woz and I were really keen to make the most of our early start and get some good driving under out belt before a long lunch break. Once we reached the motorway we were flying along, loving being in Italy and loving being on the road. Not long after this however we had to take an exit to transfer to another motorway. In what we have discovered is the norm, at 130km per hour we were given 500 metres notice to turn. I think by about 400 metres I had worked out in my mind what I had read on the sign, by 450 had worked out which direction we had to turn and by 500 said to Woz, 'We have to turn right soon' and zoom, past the exit we flew.

'Never mind, we'll take the next one and go back' we said happily. We were on holidays, we didn't care about exits, but adventure!

Twenty minutes later, we finally reached the next exit on the motorway and so having gone so far along we decided we'd take the smaller roads back to the main motorway. Until now I had been able to navigate us smoothly to any given destination and with a fresh boost of confidence I was up for the challenge. What followed was at least an hour of driving around in circles in rural Italy. We would approach an intersection, be given two choices, take one, then reach another intersection and be given two entirely different choices, neither of them heading in the direction we wanted, so we would choose one, then get to the next intersection and be faced with an entirely new direction once again .... this continued for HOURS and by the end of it I was cursing Italy and it's town planners. 'Now I remember why we hated Rome!' I screamed at the cows we passed.

By afternoon we reached La Spezia and the start of the Cinque Terre but it took us so long to find the actual road that leads to the Cinque Terre that we spent yet again another hour just driving around in circles, cursing the Italian town planners. By late afternoon we finally found ourselves on the right road and drove along the Cinque Terre from start to finish, reaching the last town at sunset.

Oh and yes, it was worth it.

roadside bosnia