Day 12-15. Apart from the bus being a little late arriving in the the bus station and the driver missing the motorway exit to Ljubljana that resulted in a little detour through the countryside to get back on track, the bus from Trieste to Ljubljana was straightforward enough. After a short walk from the bus station we were nicely tucked up in our accommodation for the next 5 days. With a balcony view over the city directly out to the castle, this promises to be a...

Days 6 - 11 found us in Trieste, a city that is so different from anything we have seen in all our trips to Italy. The Austrian influence is evident in the buildings and open pedestrian only spaces and the absolute absence of tour groups with flowers on umbrellas although we did see one today, but still it is very a enjoyable place to be. The train trip over from Treviso went well, once we were on it. The train before ours came in with the 1st class carriage at ...

Day 5 and it's off to Venice. What is it about trains and us. Is it the time spent in lines or just waiting that gives us time to think, I really don't know. But today was like every other. Arrive early, get the tickets, find the train, get a seat, relax and its when we no sooner start to ease out of the station, than it's realised ( I wont say by whom) that all of the carefully prepared maps and information on the places we are programmed to see, is safely back...

Day 4. Another day and another train. The trip up to Feltre is mostly on a single track, climbing up into the pre Alps. Then suddenly we come to a stop somewhere in the forest. The announcement is quite to the point and one of the words that I pick up sounds like Fermata ( stop) and colazione (breakfast). Surely not. The driver has gone for breakfast? Not altogether surprising but then the announcement in English tells us that we have stopped due to a "railway in...

Day 3 and for the most part, it went quite well. It seems that so much of our travels we spend walking in our children's footsteps. Today they were Sarah's when she spent some time in Conegliano studying Italian when she was at Swinburne. Up and after breakfast at a civilised time, we arrived set to take the train to Conegliano, which initially was running 10 mins late but that's no big deal, only a little later it was cancelled. Still no problem as the next tra...