We’ve been travelling.

In Munich we stayed at the Alpen Hotel although we didn’t have Alpen for breakfast. In Maribor we saw the oldest vine in the world and all the people seeing it.

We arrived in Zagreb from Zidani Most: from nothing to everything; from peace to mayhem; from beauty one to beauty two.

Then Zadar – Croatia is all zeds – and a boat to paradise – Silba. We missed the cart that was to take us to our house and we sat in a beachside bar drinking beer.

Later we walked a little, we watched the butterflies, we swam naked in the Adriatic.

And then we sailed away to Pula and stayed for a moment in a crumbly old room overlooking a near perfect Coliseum and then, can I believe? We sailed to Venice. I’m writing the word sailed in a romantic sense. We were on a boat. We sailed to Venice.

I’m not getting Venice in all the fuss about the billionaire’s wedding and the 100,000 visitors each day. Of all the cities I have ever been to Venice is the most beautiful. The most wonderful. It transcends itself.

Then what? We begin to slow down: Breil Sur Roya, a tiny village in France. We stayed in a weird but somehow fascinating house with a view over rooftops to the mountains and sneaked into a railway carriage museum and then we marched on to Marseilles, rough and dirty with a spectacular but dodgy apartment and one of the best Botanic Gardens and then here: Simiane la Rotunde. A few days of peace and tranquilly and the perfect place to end our holiday and prepare for the day-long journey home tomorrow.