Hey peeps,

First chance of an internet cafe. Currently in siena for the day. We’ve been leisurely walking round it most of today. Not the most interesting of cities but nonetheless wuite nice.

Venice was lovely, tho occasionally quite smelly. Shocking prices as well, but i guess you have to expect that. We climbed the camponini after paying some register biscuit a large sum of money.

It was like several kinds of hell collecting our hire-car. Huge chips in the windscreen, dirty, etc. after much complaining and stress, we got under way.

Lake garda was fabulous, probably my favourite. Great swimming and a nice campsites. Shame we only spent a day there. Lake Maggiore was similar, but not as nice i thought. Good campsite again.

Due to madness we decided to pop over to switzerland for the day. we looked at the map and thought, “yeah, one hour drive at most”. Or at least, that’s what dave said. It took 4.5hrs to get to zermatt. still, it was nice enough. people were still skiing – tho it didn’t look like there were many runs. On the way back we were stopped by the border guards. We said “we’re british” and they let us through. Amusing we thought.

The drive down to tuscony to our villa/apartment was like eight kinds of kane. It took us about 9 hours! Took us ages to find the correct place too. Speeding round the dirt tracks, leaping out and asking locals for directions. When i say asking, i mean pointing at a name on a bit of paper…

It’s been far more relaxing at ‘ficaiole’. we went to florence the other day. quite nice, but i wasn’t really that impressed.

Driving the car is ok. Dave and I share the driving fairly equally. Italian drivers are,we have decided, the worst in the entire world. The roads are too good either.

Dod, how’s about logging in as yourself? rather than blogging as me?

Mama, I’ll look in to oregano and stuff. We bought some freshly made pesto the other day – fairly lush. Also we’ve had bruscetta a few times and it’s nothing like what we tried to make! It’s chopped up tomatoes and basil and oil and so on.

Well, we have a couple more days here, then we’re off to rome.

I’ve skimmed the blog but there seems to be too much to read!

See you soon,

Liv

Thanks for the postcard Liv!

I am only working on Thurs and Friday this week and have the weekend free as my Sasha has gone off to Malaysia. I have two weekdays off a week, usually in the middle of the week and Sasha is not back until 8th August.

Also noteworthy is that Anna now lives in Chi with Steve in a very pleasant spacious apartment and Sasha and I will probably move about a mile away from them in September.

Leg is now pretty much OK, I played a rough hacking game of football last night and the Big Black Scab remained intact. Smell of rotting flesh has nearly gone too!

scm

So how cheap – or expensive – is Bali? What would a night’s modest lodging cost; and daily nourishment? The book I have from the libarary is a little dated.

Bikes – leg powered – are recommended for getting around. Possibly the place for the ‘one day we’ll actually go on it’ bike tour.

You might be interested to hear this, quoted in the latest Reader’s Digest:

“Backpackers can get by on £15 a day in Asia and £25 a day in Australia and New Zealand. Lonely Planet advises setting aside £6000 for a six month round the world trip.”

Well, two of you are 6 months into your trip now; so, apparently, if you’ve spent less than £6000 (each), you’re doing well! I can’t believe you’ve spent anything like that. Even Julio, after four and a half months, is well within budget.

Wot wot?? loss of prescious info? cor blimey. Well, i’ll just keep letting it flow then, as jul seems to be!!! We have just met up with them in a reather rainy Ubud! Pouring down. the batik course was good fun, and i will post the results. Dance at 7 tonight! I didn’t send any photo’s, just some things. It shoul dtake a couple of weeks, but i shouldn’t worry too much about it. I sent all our films and my camera back to gill as she will develop them, and i thought i might use geoffs niffty new digi cam for a while1. Well, off to get ready for da dancing and perhaps scrap jul and annika out for supper. Enjoy the swimming,

Cheers Tanya

I read that on the volcano climb there’s a local mafia operating; so maybe you were wise to pull out.

Did you read my question about the parcel and photos?

Swimming again this evening (Mama swimming, me watching), in Littlehampton for a change. Francoise phoned and asked when we were coming south. When asked when she was coming north, she said it was too far!

Difficult to check on how much blunt you’ve parted with due to computer break down and loss of passwords, etc! I’ll look around for your paper statements.

P.S will aslo keep a look aout for random moles – sound sa bit unpleasent to me,
t