You will all be relieved to hear that I survived a journey by train. It was touch and go and rather alarming. In case you don’t know about trains, they are huge, hissing, rattling things, our one didn’t bite us…

March 21st….We took the train 15 miles or so down the coast from Levanto….(in company it seemed with half the Italian navy….haven’t they got any boats?, or were they watching us?), Colin not impressed with the train. We disembarked at…

The day we arrived in Levanto, we cycled up the coast to Framura, along a cycle path which runs along a disused railway line. It is unusual for being largely within a tunnel, with short sections giving a view of…

This is Levanto, about 8 miles down the coast from Deiva Marina. Camping Aqua Dolce. There was a pizzeria close to our pitch, so the cook pretty much went on strike for the duration. Staff! Local Flora The local church…13th…

Breakfast in the sun after a night sampling the fleshpots of Alba. These are vinyards surrounding the village of Barbaresco, where we had planned to stop the night, so as to allow some serious wine tasting. Sadly the promised motorhome…

Ah..Italian…that mellifluous, yet complex, lingo. Its not just a question of adding o or i  to English words, as the Missus suggested. A largo vino is , I think , a lake of wine, not a large wine. But it…

The campsite was shut when we arrived but after sitting in front of the gates for a few minutes, looking forlorn, a much pierced and tattooed Italian took pity and let us in…said they would open up for us. A…

  We are having a little trouble with the Italian wifi….a bit slow, so we are slightly behind log wise. However…on the 16th we had an exciting day traversing the Southern Alps…up to 2,500 metres, dodging glaciers, polar bears and…

Thursday 15th March Lac d’Orient to Lyon We travelled 200 miles south using the autoroute and arrived at Les Porte du Beaujolais outside Lyon in brilliant sunshine. We took les chiens pour une cycle ride by the river. We met…