Why does it always rain on me..........?

Leaving Hull on Sunday......

at sunset.....

........... at quarter past G&T.........!

We have been here in Corfu for just over a week now. We took our time driving down to Venice, stopping over with family as usual on the way. We had 3 days on the road, and it rained & rained & rained & snowed!!!!

Drove past 100's of castles down the Rhine valley........

..... and through clouds and more clouds

The evening we spent with Paul & Milena in Heidelberg was very musical, with Paul & Keith playing guitar ............and Antonia playing beautifully on her flute

Fed and watered....we left Paul’s house on Tuesday morning in light rain and within 10 miles it was heavy rain for virtually the rest of the journey.

Switzerland...rain...snow...and cherry blossom....

Then going through the Alps, just as we were about to enter the St Gottard tunnel, a snow storm blew in; it was an amazing experience, we had considered driving over the pass rather than using the tunnel but the pass was closed due to bad weather so we didn’t have to make that choice.

Italian lakes in all their glory.....

The bad weather continued through Italy,

and when we got to Deborah’s in Milan there was a thunderstorm late in the evening. After a very pleasant evening with the Sannelli family in Milan we set off to Shelia’s and experienced the rush hour traffic around Milan.

Italian drivers have a unique way of driving, they drive at high speed right up to the bumper of the car in front almost pushing them out of the way, then lots of sudden braking and swerving from lane to lane, usually at the last minute before they turn off for their junction, it’s like the “wacky races” and how there are not more serious accidents I do not know.

We arrived at Sheila’s in the Italian Lakes on Wednesday and had a particularly ‘wet’ night!! This time due to lots of wine and an intense wine fuelled debate where we put the world to rights, after which we decided the following day to do some sight seeing and go to Verona for the afternoon.

What an amazing old city with fantastic old buildings and all the stuff you’d expect from a tourist hot spot including a Mc d’s with a “tastefully” different coloured M to be “subtle” in amongst the ancient Roman and Venetian architecture……nice!

There were lots of street artists and things going on for the tourists.

Whilst we where there the heavens opened once again for another downpour and the marble tiled streets became skating rinks and Liz in her flip flops had to cling on to me for dear life at the risk of falling over!

Romeo...Romeo...where for art thou??
........In Macdonalds of course....!!

We escaped the downpour by stitting and eating in a pizza place in the main square and people watched for an hour.

On Friday morning we finally woke up to decent weather as we set off to do the short trip to Venice.

Snow on the Italian Alps on the way to Venice....

What has surprised us so far is the price of fuel! It is more expensive than in the UK; in Holland the average price was 1.34 euros, Germany was about 1.20 euros, and when we drove through the alps the 1st services we stopped at wanted a staggering 1.68 euros per litre, luckily the average price on Corfu this year is just under the euro at .97 cents.

Anyway with a slight detour on route to Venice due to a new stretch of motorway not recognised by the SatNav, we arrived with time to spare for the 24hour ferry crossing to Corfu, unlike some people, who arrived with minutes to spare, the ferry was just about all loaded up and over a 20 minute period just before the doors closed, what seemed like an endless stream of last minute passengers in their cars and trucks had to be fitted on to the ferry;
..with the usual Greek/Italian mayhem and chaos, a British car that arrived at the last minute got loaded on and off 3 times before the job was done.

The trip from Venice to Corfu was largely uneventful,

We had a great cabin this year...

the ferry was fairly quiet, and we felt like real youngsters compared with the average age of the other passengers.

The only drama was that this year with all the smoking ban in Italy and the forthcoming ban in Greece (yep they are gonna try to do it here…This July!!) Liz couldn’t buy any cigs on the boat!!!! Not that she’d planned to stock up with thousands as in previous years, but not a one anywhere on board. This must have caught many people by surprise ‘cos 1st stop on mainland Greece and several people got off whilst the boarding and unloading took place and they ran to the shop at the ferry port and bought some for the remainder of the journey, even some of the crew wizzed over to the shop to buy some!

So we arrived here last Saturday, happy to find our home just as we had left it. We have spent a majority of our first week networking and finding work and catching up with friends. And Keith has managed to do 3 gigs in the first week.

So all is well. Will blog again soon.