At 2 am this morning, we finished the kitchen after exactly 3 months. Jean Michel has done a splendid job but we are both exhausted! The tiles on the left of the window are the 18th century tiles we bought in Portugal last September.

The rest of this week will be spent getting the house ready for the paying guests who are coming while we are on holiday. In fact, our favourite guests, Sandy and Bill, who are coming to stay for the 4th year in a row, will get to try out the new kitchen before we do. I want to apply a special protective coating to the grouting between the tiles and I need the grouting to dry for 3 days and then for the protective coating to dry 36 hours which takes us to our departure on Sunday.

Our first stop is Lake Garda for at least 3 days, cycling along the eastern side, then we’ll work our way across Italy – we’ve never been to Padua – through Slovenia and then Croatia (Zaghreb) and maybe onto Bucharest or Budapest to continue cycling along the Danube. We will be guided by the weather and possible cycling areas. I will be drawing inspiration from all Anda’s posts on Romania in her wonderful travel blog Travel Notes and Beyond.

Until we leave, you may not hear from me again but once we get going, I’ll probably be posting every second day. While Jean Michel writes up the travel journal, I write my posts.