FRANCE
Le Pont D'Arc in the Ardeche Gorge, Southern France
Luckily for me, my initial journey through France with Le Colombier Sergio was broken up with me helping out in a charity canoeing trip in the Ardeche Gorge in the south of France. Helping to get 24 canoeists down a river was a load of fun but tiring.
Canoeists traversing the Ardeche Gorge
But thank you to them all as they have raised money for my charity venture in the Sudan which will help change the lives of needy young children. I’d even go as far as to say they may have enjoyed the challenge.
ITALY
When you drive from London to Newcastle or somewhere similar up north it seems like a 4 or 5 hour journey is long and tedious. Well we had 2 days to cross 1200 miles of Italy in a heavily laden Land Rover and believe me you soon miss the M1.
The tower that really does lean: Pisa
It actually does lean, honest..
The only noticeable stop we could afford to make was to Pisa and its leaning tower. It sounds pretty stupid but I was surprised how much it actually does lean. I understand a lot of magic and engineering has gone into keeping it standing but how on earth should this stand up!?
Mike taking his turn to hold up the tower at Pisa
But Pat stepped up the proceedings a notch. Don’t try this at home..
Pat in his usual morning stretch routine
Sicily was stunning but one thing has to be said, the Italians LOVE a good tunnel-bridge combo. We must have passed through a few hundred tunnels and crossed a similar number of bridges in couple of days. A mole could not have done a better job to be honest and the Italians should pat themselves on the back.
