Roger: Monday 27 July At 0640 I snuck out of the hotel leaving Sylvia sleeping. A 30-minute stroll to Tiananmen Square was relatively quiet. I had headed there to check out Mau who like Lenin has been preserved or embalmed. We had checked out the sign yesterday and worked out it was open 0700 to 1100 […]

 Roger: Thursday 23 July The Kempinski Hotel seemed to have slipped into the local way of not getting things right. The check-out was a shambles, I was expecting John Cleese to appear any second. Eventually a taxi took us to the station. The driver wanted 25k in locals for what should have been 6 to 8. […]

Roger: Friday 17 July Sylvia wasn’t feeling too good so stayed in bed. I took a stroll out to the east side of town. The streets are dirty, not with rubbish, but even sealed roads have in places thick patches of mud on then. Even in the centre of town there is a fine layer of dirt […]

Sylvia: Saturday 11 July After another lavish breakfast, which for Roger again included champagne and caviar, we headed off in separate directions. I had forgotten to collect our tickets for the Trans-Siberian railway and had to find my way by metro across Moscow to a guard station to pick them up. Of course, at the […]

   Roger: Wednesday 8 July Heading down the passage of the Hermitage hotel we struck a Russian bride all frocked up. Down in the rather grand foyer a few pieces of brass spark up as the groom and about twenty people stand around. As we get to the ATM in the foyer the bride arrives […]

Sylvia: Friday 3 July We have a leisurely start this morning with breakfast in the Shangri-La hotel before taking the metro to the Gare de Lyon where we catch our train to Lyon at 10:58am and then on to Valence. The TGV whizzes along quickly and we arrive in Valence on time. We catch a […]

Roger: Tuesday 30 June  We leave the Villa Tuttorotto with its Roman artefacts in the basement at 0500 for a short stroll through the old city, bag wheels clacking over the rough cobble stones. The locals must get pissed off with early departing tourists. The Venezia Line ferry departed at 0630. We were a little surprised […]

Roger: Sunday 28 June Up early we were at the number one entrance to the Plitvice Lakes before nine. The lovely Irene at Villa Irene had suggested we get there before the tour bus crowds arrived. By nine we were zigzagging our way down the hill passing groups of Asian tourists wired for sound! It seems […]

         Roger: Wednesday 24 June  We had anchored for the night off an island opposite Hvar in the lee of an approaching storm.  Around eight we headed up the coast of the Hvar island. The sea was quite lumpy – Bruno the chef came up from the galley looking a little pale and sat out […]