Basita has a much more relaxing and interesting feel to it than Nice, though I didn’t think much of Nice in general. Too much city, too much fashion, too smelly. Corsica I’ll do again. Prior to Nice, Provence was great with the Verdon Gorge being a particular highlight. It’s not the best region for wine if you’re into full bodied reds though, it’s really rosé country, there are a few decent reds around though (maybe more on that later). The lowlight of the trip was on the last day with the hire car… I went over what I guess was a pot-hole and managed to get two flats simultaneously! The Europecar mechanic, called out on a Bastille public holiday Saturday, was, luckily, highly amused.

In a couple of hours we board our ferry to Livorno, a four hour crossing, from Livorno we head to our hotel in Pisa (train, 15 minutes in theory). Just one night there before a very early train to Rome. A bit of a whirlwind pass through Bastia and Pisa really.

The weather is a pleasant ~30 degrees, a little humid at times, clear and sunny all the way.

Contrary to popular belief rather few people in shops/etc in France (outside of Nice) seem to speak English. But we get by OK, Yaël with her 6 years of French doing much better than me with my 3 years of not really liking French class! That said, most young people in bars and cafés do speak English well (in one case with a rather stuffy pommie accent). Ah, the eternal shame of the monolingual… maybe Kat and I can get focused on that Italian!

The bank blocked my CC yesterday, a red-flag for fraud. Joy. But I’m happy that these systems are in place. Just remember to travel with more than one card 🙂

Back to the UK on Saturday, we can spend Sunday sorting (discarding) our 1000+ photos, then back to whatever work is up to on Monday. The Lumix DMC-LX2 has been serving me well, certainly glad I got the 4GB card. Even with that we we just had to move a whole bunch of photos to a 2GB USB stick I had the foresight to bring with me. I expect Rome to be photo-heavy, Yaël with every Roman sight available.