PERFECT STORM   To say this tour of all tours has ‘flown by’ is understating a plain and simple truth. The end of this leg, or journey has come all too quickly for all of us sailing on this magnificent ship. We’ve had a great voyage, won a few hearts along [...]

            HOT LIFT   Having completed the ‘recovery’, today felt like a gym day. Well aware from past visits, I knew the gym here at the Four Seasons in Lisbon was a bit special and so togged up and headed for the top floor. It really is breathtaking [...]

              NORTH WIND   Lisboa has a rich and fascinating history which has been mentioned in previous diary entries from here. It truly is a unique city, the oldest in fact in Western Europe and has a strong connection with Art Deco and Art Nouveau architecture, once [...]

PERFECT HEAT                 You know that wonderful contrasting feeling, after you’ve been in a bad way but you’ve now climbed the hill and made the recovery, been good to yourself, ate all the right things, stayed away from the bad, rested, slept and then, you wake up [...]

                    DUST BOWL   We left the beautiful surroundings and headed back along the path when came a few days before, pack into France and to the airport at Pau. We then flew to Salamanca and checked in to the delightful Don Gregorio before [...]

WILD WIND At the border... The Pyrenees is a new destination for most of us, well this particular part of them. Our travel day commenced, leaving Rome quite early, heading out of the heat towards Ciampino airport and flying 2 hours to Pau in Southwestern France. From there it was a 2 hour drive [...]

Another searingly hot day in Rome and another air-conditioned one for me in a hotel bed. This was by now starting to get very tiresome, not least for my lovely wife Laurie, who had flown out to the most romantic of cities to celebrate her birthday and all I could do was sweat [...]

CARABINIERI RESCUE                     There cannot be much to report from our show day in Rome as I simply wasn’t a part of it. The whole day was spent in bed with a fever which by now had a hold. The heat outside was extraordinary but [...]

              The searing heat continues in Italy and on the day off in Rome, it was unusually quiet on the streets. It seemed most people had left the city for the nearby beaches. I knew this as Laurie and I met up with our friends Emanuele and [...]

HOT HOT           Italy continues to feel the high temperatures of an African anticyclone that has sent temperatures soaring. The remarkable heat is now reaching epidemic proportions and with no sign of it letting up, the next few days are going to be really tough. The band will of course [...]