Saturday Well as our time in Veneto draws to a close, it must be said that we covered some kms and saw some sights. After our trip to Mantova on Thursday and the drama with the trains, we were up and at it again, set to take the fast train to Mestre then a local train to Bassano del Grappa. After a 45 minute delay, and the first quote of the day: " if it doesn't come, do you think we can get a refund?" which I took to be a rhetorical question. Anyway, the train a...

Wednesday Vicenza Well after the crush of Verona, what a relief it was to be able to wander the streets and alleyways of Vicenza. We took and early train (8:53) to arrive in time for the shops to open, 9:30 for most, the rest 10:00. It was all a bit frantic because they close for siesta at 1:30 only to open again at 3:30 to around 7:30pm. All in all the shopping went well: 4 tee shirts for me and 3 tops, 2 pants and a scarf for Jean. Sadly, despite our best effo...

Sunday On our way to Italy with British Airways, listening to John Cash and Willy Nelson with my noise cancelling headphones, what could be better. We booked a taxi to take us from the hotel in Harrogate to the airport, a trip said to take 45 mins. It took us 20 nail biting minutes, the driver obviously taking a break from his Formula1 day job!! Anyway, down to Heathrow for our next adventure. Arrived in Milano collected the bags with mild surprise that they arri...

Saturday Our last day in the UK ( until next time) and the cloud and rain cleared to a half way reasonable day. After we dropped the car off in York, we spent the day just wandering, taking in the sights. First stop was a real coffee in an Italian bar, sadly no brioche just a cinnamon doughnut, which was quite nice. We strolled around the old town for a while and took the train back to Harrogate, arriving here around 2:00. Then started the quest for food. Aft...

Thursday Welcome to Yorkshire, where its raining, skies are grey, and the locals even greyer. I don't know why it is that people bother to work in the service industry if they can't smile or be pleasant. Perhaps it has something to do with the weather and the dark and at times, black stone buildings. It must be depressing, day in day out. Anyway, the drive down from Scotland was very good, it not at times interesting. One circumnavigation of a roundabout, one p...