Return to the Shire

"We'll always have Laon..."

  It was dark by the time we finally reached Laon. Strangely, we both felt an enormous sense of homecoming as we approached the now-familiar towers of the cathedral (although we were still in France), having driven into the town twice now on this trip (and having had such an emotional time there with the lost passport... ).

Blowout

After having breakfast in Beaune we got packed up and got back onto the road. We had just got out of the centre when I felt that the car did not feel quite right. Parth was driving and I insisted that he stop so that we could check around the car. We had a look at the tyres and the exhaust pipe but didn’t see anything out of order so we set off again.

 

Beaune

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Gressoney-St-Jean

We discussed where we would like to go on our first day after leaving Lucca. We had planned to go to Siena but we would have had to come back on ourselves to head home. So Parth suggested that we spend a couple of nights in the foothills of the Italian Alps. After visiting so many towns and cathedrals, lovely though they were, it did seem like a really nice idea to have a change of scenery.

 

The place we headed for was Gressoney-St-Jean. We arrived there in the early evening, checked into a hotel and then had a look around the town and planned what we would do the following day.

 

 

 

After an early breakfast we headed out. We walked along a river and then crossed over and headed up into the hills. The sun was shining and I wished I hadn’t put on my coat. We hiked up for just under two hours and reached the Alpenzu, an Alpine Refuge, where we had some lunch. At the Alpenzu we saw there were other paths going higher up into the mountains. As we were not wearing hiking boots we asked the locals whether they thought it would be okay to carry on. They advised against it. However we optimistically decided to carry on.


We got up to over 2000 metres above sea level but then it started to rain and we looked up to see dark clouds gathering. We thought it might be a good idea to start heading back. Then it started to thunder. We quickened our pace but it was slow going as we didn’t really have the proper gear and as the rain was getting harder the ground was getting more slippery. Now I was glad I did have my coat! The thunder started getting louder which sounded awesome echoing across the mountains but it was a bit scary. It felt like the storm was chasing us back down the hill. We made it safely back to the Alpenzu and waited until the storm subsided. The sun came back out and we climbed back down.
 

Last day in Lucca

On Tuesday Morning after having breakfast with Mary and Massimo we finished packing up and said goodbye to Lucca. We had such a wonderful time staying with them as they were so generous and made us feel like family.

 

Mary & Massimo

 

 

Lucca will always be a special place for us and I’d like to think we’ll go there again. (Parth has already promised to bring me back to Tuscany as we didn’t make it to Siena!)

Pistoia

So on Monday we decided to visit Pistoia. As we set off in the morning the clouds looked amazing after the storm the night before.